Watching the Olympics

When it comes to athletes celebrating, I come from the old school. In earlier years, we used to say people were "hot-dogging" when they drew attention to themselves rather than working for the team. Nowadays, with the advent of the NBA, the Olympics, and the football end zone antics, it seems that everyone is trying to get their 15 minutes of fame by mugging for the cameras or giving an off-the-wall interview.

John Riggins, a hall-of-fame fullback for the Washington Redskins, was once quoted, saying, "When you get to the end zone, you need to act like you have been there before."

Years ago, one of the Tiger fullbacks, Joe Chapman, apparently had the same philosophy, because after each touchdown he simply dropped the ball in the end zone without a lot of whooping and hollering and ran back to the huddle as if to say, "What's next?" During the same era, some of the Junior Varsity basketball players decided that after they made a basket, they would circle their temple as a sign that they had shot the ball through the hoop. this celebration was short-lived, because another one of the old school coaches put them on the bench.

The two hoopsters asked the coach, "Why did you take us out?"

His response was, "I thought you were signalling to me that you were tired and needed to rest of awhile."

Needless to say, that celebration went out the window in a hurry.

Now, we are having the Olympics. The TV and press had been told what Bode Miller was going to do. After he missed a gate on one of his downhill runs, rather than go to the end of the run and face questions, he chose to ski off into the woods.

Then, we have Lindsey Jacobellis, who was leading the women's snowboard cross and was a shoe-in for the gold medal. As she went over one of the last jumps, she decided to give the crowd a thrill and did a twist, grabbed her board, and took a spill. By the time she got up and across the finish line, she suddenly went from gold medalist to silver medalist.

"Team" has gone to "Look at me" for athletic performance today. I still get excited about the athletes who take the time and dedication for a peak performance and, then once they cross the finish line, the end zone or score a goal, act like they have been there before.