Day 20 in a series as I move closer to age 50.
As I write this I am watching an Olympic event known on “Skeleton”. It looks like Luge with the guy riding on his stomach facing the trip instead of lying on his back looking up at the trip. Either way it looks impressive.
These fancy sleds go around these ice tracks at speeds I can’t imagine. I just saw some guy crying over a great run that he didn’t see 2 seconds of. Now that is something special. Maybe it was grandpa who drove the kid to practice every day for ten years leading up to the kid’s moment in the sun…or on the ice. Maybe gramps was crying because he is happy it is over and he can go home now and park the car. I hope his boy wins.
My dear wife, Carrie, and I were also watching some pairs figure skating. How any two of these folks can stay in step or toe or blade like they do so consistently is amazing to me.
The Olympics are the greatest thing left in sport. I so enjoy the Winter games much more than the Summer games. Skiing. I love it. I have never been on a pair of skis. I never had to. I had Franz Klammer from Austria. What else did one need? The bobsled? I would get in one of those in heartbeat. The four man one. That looks like fun. Ski jump? Eddie the Eagle from Great Britain is a legend. His movie was more Hollywood that Calgary…but I am glad the story got told. Speed skating? I am guilty of watching this like I watch the first six laps of NASCAR at Talladega. I wait for a good crash.
I still think back to the 1980 USA Hockey team that beat the Russians. I will revisit a column I wrote about it. That game was played on February 22nd and I will live it over again a week from today. That was truly a Dream Team.
All this great sport makes me shake my head at the news that FOX TV is joining the NFL Network and ESPN in broadcasting the NFL Draft. Now there is waste of time. In the last twenty years there have been two NFL overall #1 draft picks to win a Super Bowl. These two players have won four of them and they are brothers Peyton and Eli Manning. The big reveal? Whose #1? Tim Couch was. JaMarcus Russell was. Andrew Luck was. You wanna watch that? Go ahead.
I would rather watch a baseball game on TV and fall asleep. The NFL draft is in April.
In the meantime, I will watch folks fly down a hill, tear up a track of some kind, glide across the ice, and give it their all. You never know when grandpa is going to cry. But you do know they will give it their all every precious second they are there.
Speaking the Rights…
Danny Johnson