The Olympics have been going on for a week now and nobody cares. Every television analyst will agree. It appears that no one seems to have any interest in these games.
How could this be? For the longest time the Olympics were the pinnacle of sporting events. Suddenly, there is more interest in the NBA All-Star game than the Olympics -- it's gotten that bad. This titanic slide has led one curious sports fan to ask why.
Perhaps surprisingly, in trying to determine what has caused this debacle, I revisited my first column, the subject of which was Terrell Owens. In this article, I gave T.O. the benefit of the doubt and backed him up. Now, Owens is the poster-child for the selfish professional athlete. He seems to be more concerned with the numbers in his bank account than the number of wins in his team's win column.
Most of you know the story by now, so I won't bore you with the details, but Terrell Owens went from a wide receiver deserving of a multi-million dollar contract to a player who will be lucky to receive a one-year contract for over a million bucks. Considering his actions, this is completely justified. It took, however, the greatest extremes for T.O. to be shunned like this. Unfortunately, Owens' behavior has become commonplace amongst professional athletes.
Let's take a look at Bode Miller. Coming into the Olympics, the American downhill skier was hyped as the golden boy for the American Olympic team. He received several endorsements, including one from Nike, which promotes Miller through joinbode.com. The path was set; he was going to be the face of America against the world.
Only weeks before the Olympics began, signs of trouble began to arise. Miller openly discussed skiing "wasted," which led people to believe that Miller was not the all-American boy that everyone had expected.
Since the Olympics have started, Miller has blown it. He finished fifth in his first event and then disqualified in his second event. While this would disappoint most, the often-inebriated Miller saw the glass half full, commenting that at least he would not have to make the trek to Torino to receive a medal.
Bode Miller is not the only subject of disappointment in the Olympics, though. Shani Davis took himself off the pursuit team in order to focus on his remaining individual events. In doing so, he took a tremendous opportunity at gold away from the Americans and replaced it with a sixth place finish. This especially hurt his teammate, Chad Hedrick, who was shooting for five gold medals this winter.
This is an all-too-common theme in professional sports today. Players are too concerned with themselves and have lost sight of the true meaning of athletic competition.
This is why the Olympics have lost their magic. More so than any sporting event, the Olympics represent the athletic values that first won over the hearts of the American public.
Watching the Olympics was once a valued experience. Viewers watched young athletes moved to tears simply because they had the chance to represent their country on the world's grandest stage. It did not matter that it was the luge that they competed in -- that's not why people watched. People wanted to witness athletes pouring their souls out on an athletic field in pursuit of a goal that was bigger than them.
All of a sudden, though, the athletes seem to think that they are bigger than the game. The days of humble men and women in professional sports who just want to compete are long gone. Even the Olympics have fallen victim to this tragic fate.
There are too many Bode Millers, Terrell Owenses and Shani Davises around, and not enough Lindsey Kildows. Kildow was the victim of a horrific crash in a test run on Monday that left her in what appeared to be a possibly career-threatening condition. After being released from the hospital Tuesday with, luckily, only a bruised hip, Kildow fought through the pain the next day and competed in the women's downhill event.
This grit, determination and heart which once defined the Olympics and made it one of the world's most spectacular shows, has now faded. All that is left is yet another sporting event searching for its soul.
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