Why the Olympics Are Great Television Entertainment

I remember the Olympics going back to when I was a child. It must have been in the mid-70s. I remember my family getting together every evening and watching the Summer Olympics. I don't remember much about the games themselves. I probably saw the historic gymnastics of Nadia or perhaps the historic basketball game between the United States and the Soviet Union. What I really remember is how my entire family sat around the television and watched the games. I also remember the closing ceremony and actually bursting into tears when the games were over. I thought that this would just go on forever.

For me, the Olympics, both summer and winter, have always been special. So many memories come flooding back from the games passed and they are always tied to memories of sitting there with my family watching the games. I remember us, as a family, cheering when Scott Hamilton won the gold in men's figure skating. I remember watching Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean ice dancing to "Bolero" and thinking both the dancing and the music were amazing. I remember having such a crush on Mary Lou Retton and, again, cheering when she won. I was watching alone I my bedroom when the summer games came around again and Kerri Strug had to land a perfect vault on an ankle that was, for all intents and purposes, broken. I remember the first basketball Dream Team.

For some reason people like to heap criticism against the Olympics. What amazes me are the people who claim to be sports fans who criticize it. For me, there is no more perfect entertainment than Olympic level competition. I watch the Olympics precisely for the sports that you just don't care about for the next three years until the games come around again. Michael Phelps is a great champion, but I will not be watching swimming until the next games.

There was criticism launched against the Winter Olympics a few years back by Bryan Gumbel. He shrugged and used his annoying voice to blast the games as boring and pointless and then mentioned there were far too few African-Americans in the games, so it didn't matter. Quite frankly, I would like him to watch Shani Davis win his gold medal in speed skating and shut up. I don't think that the games are to blame for the lack of skin pigmentation being so poorly represented in the winter games. I don't know what the solution is, but I don't think blaming the games is the way to go.

For me, it is the moments that you sometimes don't see. Remember the one runner who fell and then stood up, in agony, and was determined the finish the race that one summer games? Remember how his father ran out and they held each other arm-in-arm as they crossed the finish line? How about the Asian figure skating team who tried an amazing throw and the poor woman came down on the ice doing the splits and was in agony? They came back and won a silver medal. How about the Japanese male figure skater who had his lace break on his skate and still came back and finished his routine?

I love all of the games. I love the weird combination of skiing and shooting that is the biathlon. I love watching curling during the Winter Olympics. I get a thrill out of the short track speed skating and dazzles as they take those turns, seeming to glide on air, bent over and using their hands along the ice. I cheer for the people doing the figure skating and the ice dancing. I am blown away by the sheer talent and power of Shaun White on his snowboard as he pushes his own sport further and further.

To me, the Olympics and television are the perfect marriage. It is the ultimate reality show and no other reality show has ever come close to matching it. These people have trained their entire lives for this moment and so many of them know they are not going to get a medal. They show up and compete in their sport, after years, and years and years of hours and hours of training, and they just want to compete against the world's best and see how they do. They just want to stand on a world stage and be seen, perhaps just this one time. There are no big pay days for bi-athletes and curlers and even swimmers. Ice skaters get to go on tour and if you are huge like Michael Phelps you get a lot of endorsements, but the rest just compete for the sake of competing. No one writing a show on television right now could invent greater drama than that.

In the end the Olympics, like most sports, is entertainment. People complain about the interruption of their shows, but if they gave the games a chance and watched them, they would find themselves caught up in the drama of the games. It is drama that is more real than anything you will see on "Lost" and I love that show.

There are a lot of people who love a lot of sports. They claim that the greatest moment in sports is the Daytona 500 or the Indy 500. There are those who swear that the March Madness NCAA Championship basketball is the greatest event in sports. Others swear by the World Series or the Super Bowl.

I cannot stand March Madness and want to tear out my own eyes when I see endless basketball game after basketball game. I just cannot stand basketball, quite honestly. It is a dreadful sport that was only made glorious, for a while, by the sheer artistry and talent in Michael Jordan. I am also not impressed by most auto racing. I love baseball and I love football, but for me, all of the drama in those sports pales in comparison to the drama you find in the Olympics.