Who Really Understands the Winter Olympics?

Are you watching the Winter Olympics?  Did you watch the Summer? I bet more of you watched the Summer. Because they are more popular.  (Google that, it’s true.)  And I’m going to tell you why.

Because the Summer Olympics includes sports that the normal person can identify and describe.  Most of the competitions are even something the non-Olympian person has done.  Running, jumping, swimming, kayaking, horseback riding, tennis, basketball, gymnastics, riding a bike.  All that stuff? We get that. We know what it looks like. If we really really wanted to, we could find a place to go try it in our own hometown, right now.

Not so much with the Winter Olympics. Sure, I’ve been skiing once or twice (the feeling of the “whoosh” down the hill is great, but it’s really a little too cold for me) and I know folks who snowboard.  I took ice skating lessons in college (you’ve got to get those Electives in) and I know some folks who play ice hockey.  And that’s about where it ends for the normal sports.

Come on, the rest of the Winter Olympics feel like the committee said, “Well, everything has to involve snow or ice, and we’ve got to fill up two weeks of TV time. What else can we do?”  This is what that meeting sounded like:

Let’s have some folks ski up a mountain and shoot some targets. How about if we stick city elements like stair railings and curb and walls in the middle of the ski hill and make the snowboarderss jump over them.  For one event, we’ll have folks sled face up through a windy track and then for another, we’ll make them go face down.  Push this fat weighted thing across the ice, yes, like hockey, but the puck will be big and fat and they’ll use janitor brooms.  What else?  I don’t know. Me either. Yeah, that’s all I got.  Okay, I got something – let’s make sure nobody but us knows who actually wins. No man-to-man races – just points for flips and turns and grabs and timed races.  Everything with one person at a time. Yeah, that should take up a couple of days.  How about for fun, we require that all of the athletes have blond hair and blue or green eyes so no-one can tell them apart?  Well, maybe we should let in a red head and a couple brunettes, you know, for diversity, and all.  Okay.  But don’t let those people in the events with helmets because then nobody will know how diverse the athletes are. Good point.  Alright, folks, I think we've got ourselves an Olympics. 

Here’s another thing. For the Summer Olympics, you feel like those people trained and trained and came to the Olympics with a plan. I’m thinking the gymnasts show up on the mat with an idea of what they are about to do. No time during the Summer do you hear an announcer say, “And watch this, he just learned how to do this yesterday.”  Yeah, you know you’ve heard that coming from Sochi.

Am I watching the Winter Olympics? Sure. Do I give the athletes credit for being a whole lot more athletic than I am, especially since I’m watching from the comfort of my couch eating Girl Scout cookies? Yes, indeed. Do I know what the heck I’m watching? Not at all.

Enjoy the Games!

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Why aren't there more African-American Olympians?

Here's a short quiz, just a few questions.
Name an African-American golfer.
Name an African-American tennis player.
Name an African-American Olympic swimmer.
Name an African-American Olympic gymnast.
Name any African-American winter Olympian.

I'm betting that most people came up with the same answers; your responses probably include the names Woods, Williams, Jones, Dawes, Douglas, Thomas. If you're a real sports enthusiast and historian, you might have a few more. But, even that's a short list.

I heard a sports commentator mention that perhaps now with Gabby Douglas winning Olympic Gold in gymnastics, she may inspire a new generation of African-American young girls to want to be gymnasts. (Gabby is the second African-American Olympic Gymnast and the first to win an individual Gold, following Dominique Dawes' team Gold, if you've missed the Olympic chatter.) And it made me wonder – is it inspiration that African-Americans are missing or something else that keeps them from the Olympic team? Same question for those other sports where African-Americans are in the definite majority, so much so that there's only a few select names in this athletic fraternity.

Experts in at least the fields of sports, history, sociology, economics, political science, urban planning, and cultural anthropology could probably come up with a more thorough explanation, but it seems to me that the limiting factors include:
- Money, i.e disposable income
- Access or opportunity
- The cultural idea or stereotype that "Black people don't do –that – "
- Interest or awareness of the sport at all, as well as how to train in it
- Role models and familiar examples

Most of the sports I listed above are what many consider to be "country club activities" or those of the rich and famous. I mean, golf is not a cheap sport, even if you aren't that good. There's clubs and greens fees and shoes. And it has to be somewhere where there's a lot of green, open space.

But what about swimming, how much could a bathing suit cost, right? Swimming unfortunately, is definitely one that falls in the "Black people don't do that" category. So much so that African-American children are much more likely to drown than White children. (Such a childhood accident is what prompted Olympic swimmer Cullen Jones to learn to swim.) But even after a child gets over the hurdle of learning to swim, if he wants to swim competitively, its not a cheap sport either. There's pool memberships, team memberships, team lessons, team uniforms. Then you've got to get to practice and the meets. And if you really want to be good and go far, you need a coach and more training. And a parent or somebody needs to know all the tips and the right steps to get the kid where he needs to be in order to get noticed. And can go to meets which last hours upon hours. Its not that easy.

My daughter participated in a tennis tournament last week in which one of the other teams participating was from Southeast DC. If you know anything about tennis or the Southeast corner of DC, or both, you probably know that these two terms rarely are thought of together. I spoke with Yvonne, one of the coaches about her team. The handful of players were all under 10, but she said that the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center actually serves about 60 children. The after-school program provides homework help, tutoring, and tennis lessons and practice, as a way to improve the lives of the children and encourage them to go to college. Without the program, probably none of them would be playing tennis, she guessed. Why? Because their families couldn't afford it. Tennis is another expensive sport. She mentioned how some of the kids in the program get so good that they are invited to play at some of the best training sites in the area and they leave the Southeast program. But, fortunately or not, most end up coming back after awhile because the family can't afford to continue to send them to the higher cost tennis centers. The center has, however, been successful in sending a number of its students on to play tennis in college, giving them the opportunity to get a higher education.

We also have to consider the impact of role models. Not only famous folks, but the daily role models that kids have – their family and friends. How many are seeing their parents go off ice skating, how many are going on ski trips for vacation? I'd guess there are more now, than even a generation ago. How long until this is such a part of African-American culture or in the field of interest that young children will consider taking to the ice to grow into professionals?

Now, don't take away from this that no African-Americans have these factors going for them or that no other people face the same barriers. But, I do believe that they do impact the African-American population at a slightly different rate than the majority. This is on top of all the work, talent, and good fortune necessary to become a professional anything and it complicates the computations even more.

Do I have a solution? Not at all, we can leave that to all those experts I referenced above and anyone else who studies some portion of this. But I do think that parents and communities can improve children's lives by exposing them to new and different experiences. Whether they make it to a Gold medal, find a new hobby, or can definitively say they don't like it, just knowing about the options available to them can help them be a more rounded and interesting person.

Team handball, anyone?

The Olympic Mom in All of Us

What is it, like a bazillion people who are watching the Olympics?  It’s so exciting, how can you not?  I mean, who wasn’t watching Gymnastics to follow Gabrielle Douglas to GOLD! And splashing along with Michael Phelps to his amazing medal record – what is it, 19, 20 now? 

Is it corny to say that I like the Olympics because it feels unifying and hopeful that all the people around the world are watching and enjoying the same thing.  And I love that it does the same thing in our household.

Every night, for the past week, we’ve been settling in the living room, cuddled on the couch or sprawled across the floor, watching whatever competition is on, all the sudden experts.  Jay has become the toughest judge ever, “she over-rotated”, “his feet weren’t lined up”, “they’re finger tips didn’t line up exactly – that’s not synchronized.”  This from a kid who falls and/or spills something everyday, usually both at the same time.  Of course, after spending hours at the pool, twice weekly in the fall, winter, and spring, and daily all summer – we’ve been sitting on edge for the battle in the water between Lochte and Philips.  We even had our own little warm-ups that we did before Gabby or Michael started their events.  I’m not saying that helped with their Olympic records, but we did notice that some of our other hope-fors didn’t get a medal when we didn’t do a warm-up for them (sorry guys).  We’ll have to work on something new for the track & field folks.

And as a mom, I have to say, I LOVE the “Thank you, Mom” commercials.  The little kid diving into the pool, he makes me laugh every time.  Moms rushing kids to practice, I feel less crazy, if just a little bit, that I’m not the only one.  The athletes with their moms, saying “thanks”, heart-warming.  And then the real-life Gabby’s mom crying in the stands.  Yeah, I cried, too.  I haven't read about their personal story, but I don't need to in order to begin to imagine the work that she's put in to get her daughter not only to the Olympics, not only to win two Gold medals in gymnastics, but also to be the first African-American woman to win Gold in the All-Around?  (On an aside, I'm always surprised when someone becomes the "first" anything - you would think all those spots would be taken by now.)

Of course these commercials are emotional tear-jerkers, and sponsored by P&G, they know their target audience, I get that.  But I love the recognition, even if by association, of all the sacrifice and time and “hurry up! Get your stuff and let’s go!” and the miles and money that moms put into their kids to be successful.  Not only in sports, of course, but everything.  Its just a reminder that even to get our kids out of elementary school, they’ve got to put in the work, but moms, we’ve got to give them the push.  And it’s a subtle hint to our kids, too, that we do it all for them.  Doesn’t it make it worth it when they come off the sidelines or show off their report card and say “Thanks, Mom”?  It’s the best.

So to Gabby’s mom, to Michael’s mom, and all the other moms driving, pushing, cheering, paying, not sleeping, correcting, and encouraging your kids to their own "gold" – Thanks.  Keep up the good work.