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Published 2/28/02 in The Post-Star newspaper "The only yardstick for success our society has is being a champion. No one remembers anything else." 8 a.m. Friday. The morning shows were palpitating with the fresh news of two tragedies. Daniel Pearl, the reporter and Pakistan bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, kidnapped and held hostage for several weeks, was confirmed dead, with his captors apparently recording on video the slitting of Pearl's throat. Second tragedy -- Michelle Kwan, the 21-year-old figure-skating wonder who was expected to win the gold medal this time around, lost. Instead, Kwan took home a bronze medal. She lost to a 16-year-old unfavored newcomer. How terrible. Kwan fears her father will disown her. And she may never be seen in public again. OK, those last two sentences are exaggerations, but not by much. After a brief segment from Pakistan, Diane Sawyer and the ABC cameras cut to the real action in Salt Lake City -- a stone-faced Dorothy Hamill giving a play-by-play of her conversation with Kwan moments after she did not win, for the second time, a gold medal in the Olympic figure skating competition. "I've never seen her this devastated," said Hamill. "Most of all, Michelle is upset because she thinks she disappointed her father." Following ABC's maudlin peek into Kwan's personal pain, I flipped to CNN, only to see a camera crew trying to wedge itself into a cramped Great Neck bakery to speak with the owner, an acquaintance of Sarah Hughes', the skater to whom the gold medal was awarded. It seems that even the baker of a gold medalist gets their 15 minutes of fame. I'm not saying competition isn't healthy. It can be. There wouldn't be games without it and games can be fun to watch. Without competition, athletes wouldn't have the impetus to excel. For some, the allure of competing against oneself and achieving a personal best isn't captivating enough. There are those who can tingle with worthiness only when they excel over others and are declared to be the best. Fair enough, but somewhere along the line, between the dawn of the Olympics and sportsmanship and 2002, we've lost our way -- our perspective, to be more specific. "Winning is Everything" isn't a new concept, never has been. But there's something about the intensity of that belief as it cloaks (or is that chokes?) our globe nowadays that makes the belief so much more odious. From Nancy Kerrigan's right knee being pulverized to steroid abuse to Bobby Knight's disturbing fits of rage on the basketball court ... how many more examples do we need that this fetish with winning has spiraled into sheer insanity? I never knew my grandfather in the days when he worked a long career as a high school coach at Albany Academy School for Boys during the '30s through the '50s. But it's been passed on to me (with telling amazement) that my grandfather conducted himself in an infallibly dignified manner, on the field and off. He treated his boys with respect, they told me, speaking with them instead of shouting at them and never berating them. If he could see Bobby Knight in action, they said, Coach Morris would be spinning in his grave. Isn't that how it should be? Professional sports or Little League, I can't think of a single reason for a coach to humiliate or belittle a player. It would be easy enough to launch myself into orbit with a diatribe on American sports, but it's not just us. When I studied for a summer in Italy, I arrived in the Tuscan village of Siena on the day of The Palio, a centuries-old tradition where a horse race takes place within the concrete confines of the village's piazza, or square. That's right, not a spoonful of soil in sight, these horses race on a cobblestone track with stone pillars for a fence. Each of the seven horses represented a different region in Tuscany and on that hot, overcast day in early July, Siena was the place to be. So many residents turned out to watch their horse compete, that TV monitors, a la OTB, were pitched for better viewing at every street corner. When it was all over, my fellow travelers and I stood in the overcrowded streets astounded at what we were seeing. Shuffling like zombies across the cobblestones and sobbing hysterically were men, women and children whose horses had lost. To someone who had just arrived, it would be logical to conclude the wailing masses were part of a giant funeral procession. "These people are crazy," said my Italian-American friend Philomena, skirting from the path of a middle-aged man, his face twisted in grief. After the crowds cleared, we walked to the site of the race in the center of the piazza. There hanging from a stone pillar was a red and white floral wreath, homage to a horse that died in the race. And there is another example of spectators being infected by the notion that losing is a monumental tragedy that's closer to home for me. When I was growing up, World Series time coincided with my birthday. And because of the outcome of the 1969 World Series, the behind-the-scenes pathos of the party my mother threw for me took on dramatically sorrowful proportions. Her team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, lost, not the World Series, but the day's game. Because of a passed ball. Which infuriated her even more. When mothers came to retrieve their daughters from the party, they saw my mother in the kitchen on a stool, crying and unable to speak. Eventually, she was able to convey to them that there had not been a death in the family, but that the Pirates lost the game in the World Series. The other day I reminded her of the incident and Mom went on about the inexcusable passed ball. She remembered that like it was yesterday. But she couldn't remember the name of the team that opposed the Pirates in 1969. The Palio ... Don King ... rink rage in Massachusetts ... George Steinbrenner ... Tonya Harding ... John McEnroe ... Bobby Knight ... 27 sports channels on my digital cable ... Pardon me a moment while I channel Arthur Kirkland, the defense attorney that Al Pacino played with such beautiful, seething rage in the 1979 film "And Justice for All." (Norman Jewison's scathing cinematic statement on the corruption of the modern-day judicial system). "YOU'RE OUT OF ORDER ...YOU'RE OUT OF ORDER ...THE WHOLE TRIAL IS OUT OF ORDER!!!!" There, I feel better. Of course, I'm not talking about the judicial system here, but it's a direct quote from the movie and, you get the picture. The winning fetish is a sin that often masquerades as healthy competition and then decays into the belief that the bulk of your worth is siphoned, like the soul of a genie, into the lifeless, metallic dwelling place of a medal or a trophy or a chunky championship ring. My favorite part of the Olympics this year? The history-making gold medal ceremony when there was more than one winner. A chill went up my spine as the Canadian national anthem briskly followed the Russian national anthem and two sets of winners stood tall, beaming with joy at their flags. I'm not suggesting the entire Olympic judging system be changed to forever include two gold medal winners per game. But how delicious it was for the world to have to ponder that night the notion that just maybe, there might be more than one best. And while the world of sports is still woefully out of order in its perspective on winning, thankfully, Michelle Kwan seems to have picked up on that fact. And I think she's going to be OK. "I got into skating for the love, the challenge," said Kwan in an interview shortly after winning the bronze. "There's more to life than just a medal." Even Sarah Hughes' skating coach, Robin Wagner, saw the absurdity of it all minutes after the competition was over and Kwan was backstage, wiping away tears. Wagner realized she couldn't not intervene. "Regardless of what happened tonight," she said to Kwan, "You'll always be a champion." |