Final Thoughts On London Olympics

I'm wondering if it's too late to write about the Olympics. The Closing Ceremony was a week ago tonight. For guidance I consulted USA Today. Last Thursday that newspaper ran a sports page "cover story" on Joe Paterno, who has been dead - - may God have mercy on his soul - - since January. I guess that, by comparison, one week after the fact isn't so bad.

I watched more Olympics coverage this year than I ever had before. This year marked the first time for the Summer Games that I was retired and in the country. Obviously I did not watch everything, but still managed to vegetate in front of the tube for many hours during those two-plus weeks. I will leave it to the experts to opine on what moments were the most significant or important. What I offer here is simply a list, in random order, of ten observations or moments that I've thought about more than once since the games ended.

1. Missy Franklin, the gold medal swimmer, is seventeen years old, and swims for her Denver area high school, Regis Jesuit. When you think of all the high school athletes who forsake their high school teams so they can compete for elite national programs, such as the developmental hockey league in Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Oak Hill Academy in Virginia for hoopsters, it's amazing that one of the best swimmers in the world remained loyal to her high school. She will swim for them as a senior this fall.  As a bonus, she seems like a great kid.

2. In the women's gold medal soccer game, US vs. Japan, all eyes were on Abby Wambach, the most prolific scorer on the US team. The game winning goal was scored on a header by midfielder Carli Lloyd, but it was such a bang-bang play that announcer Arlo White originally thought Wambach had kicked it in. Even after the replay confirmed that although Wambach was nearby she never came in contact with the ball, apparently White wanted so desperately to credit Wambach with something that he exclaimed, "Once again Abby Wambach was involved!" Ah, not really, buddy. The only other team member who was directly involved was Alex Morgan, who was accurately credited with an assist for kicking the ball into the path of Lloyd's forehead. I always love it when a play-by-play guy won't believe what the replay clearly shows. To make matters worse, in the evening NBC recap, Bob Costas compounded the same mistake that White made. In conclusion, Wambach might be the best offensive player on the team, but let's not sacrifice accuracy in reporting. She doesn't need it, and it's a disservive to the television viewers.

3. After watching Sue Bird's (semi-final) post-game interview with sideline reporter Craig Sager, I can see why she was the captain of the US women's basketball team. She gave quick, yet thoughtful, answers to some excellent questions, avoided cliches, emanated enthusiasm for the victory, all the while maintaining eye contact with Sager. Even though she is an Olympic and WNBA veteran, we could tell that she was jacked up for the chance to win another gold medal two days hence. She had an excellent tournament as the starting point guard. My only complaint about this bright athlete is that she's a UConn alumna.

4. I loved the interview with Jon Drummond, the coach of the US women's track relay team, before the 4 X 100 meter race. The four women who ran for him have a reputation of being nothing short of divas, each with her own agenda. How does a guy coach a group with that make-up, especially when team chemistry, smoothly passing the baton three times, is probably the key ingredient for that particular event? Here is Drummond's quote: "I don't need them to love each other. I just need them to like each other for 37 seconds."

5. Perhaps the most interesting Olympic battles take place in table tennis, a sport in which a handful of Asian countries excel. The players stand far from a table that, on TV, looks to be the size of a postage stamp. When they play doubles, where the rules require partners to hit alternate shots, how do they manage not to crash into each other or bop their teammate in the noggin with their paddle? The best part for me is that they yell vociferously after every volley, regardless of whether they won the point. Since I don't understand Chinese or Korean, I can't tell if they are angry, frustrated or exuberant. By the way, all of that disappears once the game is finished. Without fail, they show good sportsmanship congratulating their opponent, and almost appear to be reserved.  They don't need much of a cool down period.

6. One of the peculiarities of Olympic swimming rules for relays is that the four swimmers who compete in the finals do not have to be the same swimmers who competed in the qualifying heats. (The same rule applies in track.) Thus, a coach has to decide if she wants to save one or more of her best swimmers, keeping them out of the qualifying heats so that the stars are more rested for the finals. As a coach, you would have to have the utmost confidence in the swimmers you use for the qualifiers. If they fail to post a qualifying time, the best swimmer(s) on your team may never get into the pool for a medal. It seems to me that, given the relevant rules, there is actually more pressure on the individual qualifiers than there is on those swimming in the finals. On a local note, Eden Prairie backstroker Rachel Bootsma won a gold medal in the 4 x 100 medley relay, because even though she did not swim in the finals, she was the backstroker on the four member relay team which qualified the US for the finals.

7. The games were televised on NBC and several of its affiliates.  In an example of the "race to be first" mantra of journalism, the television networks and radio stations not affiliated with NBC seemed to take repeated delight in spoiling the results for viewers and listeners who planned to watch the Games that evening. During the day, ESPN constantly showed results on a crawl at the bottom of the screen. Afternoon radio shows were likewise guilty, even laughing sometimes that they were ruining the suspense for their listeners. Maybe it's expecting too much, given the five hour difference between London and New York, but a spoiler alert preceding the announcement of results would have been nice. The 2016 games are in Rio de Janeiro, so the spoilers should not be an issue then. Rio is just one hour ahead of New York.

8. I hereby admit that I was wrong about beach volleyball. My initial and long-held opinion was that any activity which is commonplace at family picnics or frat parties (e.g., lawn darts, whiffle ball) does not merit being an Olympic sport. But after watching beach volleyball played at Horse Guards Parade, one of the coolest venues in London, I can see why it was the toughest ticket for the public to obtain. How can two players per team cover all that ground? It would be hard enough if they were moving across a hardwood floor. But thick sand?

9. The cameras at the soccer matches often showed the coaches with their arms draped over the back of their seats. Yes, they were sitting in the lower stands during the action! I wish basketball coaches would take note. If your players are prepared, they know what to do. You don't have to micromanage every move.  I realize that soccer rules limit the number of substitutions a coach can make, but the soccer coaches have figured it out. Your team needs to focus on the opponent without being distracted by you!

10. It was no surprise that the US men's basketball team won the gold medal. There simply was too much disparity in talent between the Americans and their opponents, even those opponents like silver medal winner Spain, with its own healthy share of NBA players. What I'll mostly remember about watching the guys' games was how brilliant an analyst Doug Collins is. Since I am not what you'd call a true NBA fan, I probably had never watched an entire NBA game for which Collins provided the commentary. But during the Olympics, that changed. Collins explained things that would have gone unnoticed by many commentators, and was spot-on with his predictions of the strategies that the teams would employ. As an example, in the final game when Spain tried to cool off hot shooter Kevin Durant by using a rarely seen "box and one" defense (i.e., a four-square zone plus man-to-man coverage on Durant), not only did Collins quickly point that strategy out but he also observed that it was undoubtedly the first time in their lives when superstars Kobe Bryant and LaBron James were in a game when the opponent used a box and one defense with man-to-man coverage on someone else! Immediately after the game ended, many of the US players climbed over a barrier to shake Collins' hand. How many times do you see players making a special effort to shake hands with a media member? I'm sure they know that in the 1972 Munich Olympics, Collins was a member of the US team team which was deprived of a gold medal when the fraudulent officials unfairly kept the game going until the Soviets took the lead. To this day, the players on that US team have refused to accept their silver medals. Those discs remain in a vault in Lausanne, Switzerland.