I remember when I was a child how I would sit on the floor in front of my television set in complete and utter awe of the Olympics. I would jump with the Olympians, knocking pictures off of my entertainment center as I shook the house.
I felt like I was an athlete myself, with red, white and blue flowing through my veins. I was the real American hero - Kurt Angle and the Hulkamaniac himself had nothing on me.
Fast forward to my eighth-grade band trip to Lake Placid, NY. I was fortunate enough to visit where the Miracle on Ice occurred, not to mention get to practice how to luge, which nearly turned my boxers multi-colored.
To top it all off, I, your average South Buffalonian trombone player, was lucky enough to wear a gold medal from the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
That's right - I wore an Olympic gold medal.
While the medal yanked my neck down about 200 feet, the feeling that rushed through my body is something that I will never ever forget. At that moment in time, I understood why these men and women from across the world braved the elements and worked for what was hanging around my neck. It wasn't for pride nor was it for ego. It was for the love of the game.
It was the greatest feeling in the world.
As the Beijing Olympics rolled around this year, scandal and war added an extra cloud of pollution over the Chinese capital city. Girls that make Miley Cyrus look legal somehow wiggle through the system and steal gold medals from the real athletes, not to mention the Russians seemed to "have a case of the Mondays" every single day of competition, especially when insults were thrown between Georgian and Russian volleyball players.
The Olympics meant something. Not anymore.
Now, don't get me wrong, the Beijing Olympics set a standard for the 2012 Olympics in London, but what does it matter? Michael Phelps' phenomenal eight-medals and Usain Bolt's world-record 100-meter dash are ruined while Georgia's Christine Santanna and Andrezza Chagas as well as Russia's Natalie Uryadova and Alexandra Shiryaeva insult each other in a post-game press conference.
While part of me is disgusted with the behavior they showed, the other half of me is happy because it shows what the world is coming to.
The first Olympic Games occurred in 776 B.C., where everyone put sportsmanship first and took care of the job at hand. Since then, war has caused countries to boycott, drugs assist cheating and little girls with amazing vocal talents can only use their voice for television because their face isn't the prettiest thing in the world.
Absolutely disgusting.
Mankind doesn't deserve an event like the Olympics. While some innocent athletes nearly kill themselves for five minutes for a chance to compete, others have to ruin it for everyone.
Sadly, there is really no true fix for this. While the world is a messed-up place, we will never have a perfect world to hold the perfect games.
That, my friends, is heartbreaking.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
