Growing up, you wouldn’t have found a more patriotic kid then the one that lived in my bedroom. I bled red, white, and blue. While I lived and breathed NFL football, my real heroes were not the padded players on the gridiron or the baseball players who walked on the fresh cut summer grass. No, I idolized the Olympic athletes. To me, those men and women were me.
Back then, the average American would never dream of growing up to realistically believe that he or she could play a pro-sport but in my mind, I could see myself playing for the men’s Olympic baseball team. I could see a friend of mine lining up with other collegiate players to play basketball for the U.S.A. Why? Simple, because like me, they were amateurs. Everyday folks who trained hard for one event that was held every four years. They had jobs like my own. A life like most of my friends had. They were simply like me.
In 1984 I watched every minute of the Los Angeles Olympics that summer. I drove to Danville, Va. to see the parade for Olympic superstar Mary-Lou Retton. I celebrated with my town of Dale City, Va, to welcome home Benita-Fitzgerald Brown who had won the Gold in LA in hurdles. The Olympics symbolized everything that was right within the world. Patriotism amid peaceful competition where you cheered even the enemy for a superior act on the Olympic stage.
Now, a lot of that has changed. Money more than anything, like everything found it’s way onto the Olympic front. Instead of allowing athletes the opportunity to simply have sponsors or get paid for training or appearances, the Olympic committee opened the four year event to paid athletes. Gone are the amateur tennis players, replaced by the likes of Serena Williams and her sister Venus. Gone are the days of some college kid named Michael Jordan giving a glimpse into a future that no one could have imagined, replaced instead by self-proclaimed “Dream Teams”. It is here where I feel my patriotism wane.
Is it wrong to root against the United States?
In 1992, the men’s basketball team took to the courts as a group of NBA superstars. Names like Larry Byrd, Charles Barkley, Jordan, and Magic Johnson. Gone were names like Steve Alford, Vern Flemming, and Leon Wood. The team paraded the Olympic venue not as mere common athletes but instead as celebrities. They stayed in their own villas away from the Olympic village. And they won gold. Easily. And then they won it again. And again. And again. Since that first “Dream Team” unit of 1992, the USA men’s basketball team has won 4 gold medals in five years.
I don’t remember their wins to be honest with you. To me they are empty and uninspired. They are nothing more than a chest thumping kick in the groin to the average American athlete who no longer can train to be an Olympian. I do however remember team that competed in the 2004 Athens games. Fittingly, the host country where the Olympics were born, saw the defeat of America’s dream illusion. Bolstered by ego and flamboyance and the realization that they were far superior than the rest of the field, the USA team took Bronze that year. Behind Argentina and Italy respectively.
Yes, as un-patriotic as it seems, I applaud the Gold and Silver medalists and will once again roll my eyes as when this years “Dream Team” begins to slaughter it’s opponents. The thing is, I have heard the rhetoric all before. Why shouldn’t the USA pit it’s professionals against other countries who also put up their pro’s? Why should the USA not take advantage of the rule change allowing professional athletes to play? Why should the USA risk losing to countries who are not playing amateurs themselves?
Why? Simple. Because we are the United States. I would fathom to guess that our college ranks can provide as good a competition against other countries than our NBA all-star cast. I believe that the spirit of sportsmanship and drive is still alive in the lower unpaid ranks of college or even semi-pro sports. I’m all for an athlete like Michael Phelps selling his name for a sub-sandwich or winning money at a swim meet. It’s an individual sport where money you make is predicated on what you do as the individual athlete. I suppose in a way, it’s not much different from tennis players although with tennis there are far more opportunities to rake in money. Perhaps to some degree I’m a little hard on the tennis players and maybe they don’t belong lumped in with the NBA stars of America’s Olympic team.
I realize that this time of year passions and pride grow strong, as strong as the World Cup in soccer where a mixture of athletes come together to form a countries team representation. How many knew who Brandy Chastain was until she kicked the winning goal?
The thing is this, long ago, the Olympics made heroes and stars and idols out of everyday common people. They lived next door to you, walked the same halls in school that you did. Now, they are no longer standing on podiums raising flowers up as the Star Spangled Banner plays. At least not all of them. At least not in basketball. Imagine if all along the Olympics were nothing more than the best professional athletes you could put on a team. Where would our history be? The Soviet Union winning Gold in a game that finished with so many disputed errors? Or what about our own “Miracle” on ice when our unknown US Hockey team ripped gold from a Russian powerhouse?
In basketball, on the Olympic level, that is all gone now. There is nothing more, at least for me to root for. Until that underdog comes up and catches a bunch of NBA stars reading too much of their own bylines. Looking too much into their own stats, and patting each other on their back long before they play their first game. Un-patriotic? Mabye, but this country wasn’t built on stars, it was built by amateurs who, you know, lived next door, went to the same school, and looked and acted like every other kid in the neighborhood.