THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 19, 1996 TAG: 9606190546
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: 62 lines
The 11-year-old shook her head and pointed an impatient finger at a copy of Time magazine sitting on the table. Looking up at her from the cover, dressed in a gold unitard, was track star Michael Johnson, easily recognizable by the words, Track Star Michael Johnson.
Time has published a special Summer Games edition because, I guess, surveys show that Americans want to read more about crew.
``The Olympics again?,'' the 11-year-old said. ``They haven't even started yet and I'm tired of them.''
Tired of the hype, I suppose she means.
Though you won't read about this in Time or almost anyplace else, or hear about it on radio and TV, there are a lot of Americans who are worn out by the Olympics, or will be very shortly.
Some are unable to suspend reality long enough to pretend that Olympic-style sports, even when draped in the Stars and Stripes, possess any relevance compared with baseball, football, basketball and golf.
Others are weary of the hucksterism and hypocrisy connected with the Olympics, and suspicious of the faux melodrama that already is building.
Hype pervades sports. It pervades life. And in some cases, the Olympics included, a little hype serves a useful purpose. I mean, why bother spending millions of dollars on the Summer Games if you aren't going to do whatever it takes to get people worked up over team handball?
Let's not pick on the Olympics. There's plenty of time for that. The Summer Games, after all, still have a chance to live up to their billing. It's too late for the U.S. Open, the Stanley Cup, the NBA Finals and the Chavez-De La Hoya fight - heavily hyped events that went nowhere.
Lately, American sports have seen a run of bad luck. Big buildups to marquee spectacles have been followed by disappointing dramas.
Where were the stars at Oakland Hills? Why didn't the big names rise to the occasion?
Winner Steve Jones and hard-luck loser Tom Lehman are excellent golfers, but charisma is not something they will ever pull out of their bags.
It could have been worse, of course. Jones and Lehman could have come back Monday for an 18-hole playoff. We'll never know if America would have been able to handle the excitement.
Journeymen sometimes have inspiring stories to tell. But golf and its audience benefit most when a great championship is won by a great champion.
The NHL playoffs showed promise for a time, but as the sport was starting to attract attention beyond the insular world of the puck heads, the Colorado Avalanche swept the Florida Panthers, 4-0.
Though hype can help sell a sport, people judge an event by its final act.
Boxing provided its own letdown when, in this year's Fight of the Century, Oscar De La Hoya ran Julio Cesar Chavez through a Veg-o-matic inside four rounds.
The Seattle Sonics were on the verge of suffering a technical knockout themselves when back-to-back victories stopped the bleeding. At that point, the hype would have had us believe the Finals were becoming a captivating competition.
Then the Bulls put an end to the hopeful speculation with a routine victory in the sixth game, and the sports drama drain continued.
The Summer Olympics are America's next overheated sporting spectacle. Short of Andre Agassi and Brooke Shields winning the mixed doubles at Wimbledon, the Games will not have a tough act to follow. by CNB