Normality not easy after Olympic high
Monday morning was pleasant if only because, for the first time in 2zweek 1/3 , I woke up without having the remote control indented in my face. It reached the point where Last Channel was written backwards on my cheek, humorous because it was righted by the grisly scene in the mirror.
OK, that’s an exaggeration.
This is not: I’m not sure what to do, other than catch up on lost Z’s, now that the Olympics have ended. It’s going to take some time for me to decompress even though the closest I came to being in Beijing was passing the airport exit while driving down the Thruway.
Jerry Sullivan’s brain will be fried — or, in his case, refried — upon returning from China. That much is certain, so give The News’ senior sports columnist some latitude if he suddenly makes a 180-degree leap, with a twist, and calls for Liu Xiang over Trent Edwards or claims he’s figured out his golf swing. It takes a few days to come off that Olympic high.
Twice, I had the pleasure of covering the Winter Games. There’s nothing quite like having a front-row seat to the most intense competition on the world’s largest stage. It’s even better when that seat is adjacent to one warmed by Katarina Witt, my old gal pal from the women’s figure skating finals in Italy.
The problem with covering the Games is that you’re usually too busy working to truly appreciate them. You gain lasting memories and a sense of personal charm that comes with being there, but in return you lose the momentum that comes with the drama of watching all of the events unfold while the world is glued to the TV.
This year, I couldn’t get enough. Tell me, has Barack Obama picked his running mate?
Watching the Olympics this year became an illness, which is to say you felt like calling in sick to work because you stayed up too late while being mesmerized by the boob tube. I watched the
U. S.-Spain men’s basketball gold medal game live until 4:15 a. m. Sunday, the first time I’ve been up that late without a bartender since, what, high school?
Every time I turned around, people were talking about the Olympics. On the night Michael Phelps was going for his eighth gold medal, I was on a golf trip and stumbled upon a crowded bar in Ellicottville. The moment his relay team hit the water, the band stopped playing, the singing and dancing halted, the attention turned toward the TV and the cheering began. A few minutes later, it was high-fives for everyone.
Buffalo-born Olympic bobsledder Steve Mesler called me out of the blue last week to make sure I was watching. He’s living and training in Calgary, but he had more important items to discuss such as Phelps and sprinter Usain Bolt. You think Mesler is pumped about the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver?
For every person who didn’t know Marlins catcher Matt Treanor had a wife who played beach volleyball, there were 1,000 who didn’t know Misty May- Treanor’s husband played baseball.
I learned the rules to team handball. I learned that Zhou Luxin was a silver-medal winning diver from China, not someone whose name sounded like Joe Luchene, who might as well be from Potomac Avenue. I learned how to spell Stuczynski. Mostly, though, I learned how to become a fan again, at least for a couple of weeks.
See, at times, this job becomes one. You become so accustomed to seeing great athletes perform at the highest levels that, after a while, you forget how to cheer. Over time, I guess, objectivity stole one of the things I liked most about following sports, having a rooting interest.
For 17 days, I wasn’t rooting for a favorite team or a particular player or even the best story. I was just rooting.
Now what?
