Olympics News

Let me start this off by professing my love of sports. I am a huge fan of the Cavaliers, the Browns, and the Indians, but you can pretty much put on any sport and I'll get into it. It makes my trips to see my hairdresser all the more entertaining because we'll be screaming our heads off and everyone else looks at us like we're insane. I never played on a team because I was too busy being a Singing Angel to do a sport, but I love playing basketball whenever I get the chance.

How much of a fan am I of my three teams?
- My favorite player growing up was Mark Price, a leading three-point shooter in the NBA (major crush).
- I still don't like Michael Jordan simply because we would have to play the Bulls in the first round of the playoffs (Team 1 plays Team 8) and we rarely had a shot of getting past them. I'm a fan; I'm not reasonable (Sorry, Chicago...I'll acknowledge his greatness someday, but I'm just not ready yet).
- I still relish the time Chicago sportscasters ranked all over the Cavs, predicting a complete shutout as we were scheduled to play in Chicago for Game 1...and we actually stunned Chicago with an away game win. It didn't matter that we lost the series, that one win was enough for me.
- I recall with anger the three bad calls made against the Browns vs. the Broncos in 1989 that kept us out of the Super Bowl. I remember where I was, who I was watching it with, and I still get boiling mad over it. Even today, pundits on ESPN have acknowledged that those were bad calls.
- If I hear one more person say "But the Browns did win the Super Bowl...they were called the Ravens" one more time, they are going to get an ass-whuppin' in the middle of the street. Not funny!
- I've been on the field of old Municipal Stadium and remember cheering the Indians on to "victory" when we wanted them to lose to get into Guinness. It was still a great season.
- And we'll never know if the Indians could've won the World Series due to the 1994 strike.

What is my point? I'm excited to see that there is something to look forward to in this year's Olympics. I love gymnastics and wanted to be Nadia Comaneci but was way too tall for the sport, but I haven't known anyone's name on the women's gymnastics team since 2000. My favorite gymnast from that era (making the 1992, 1996, and 2000 teams) was Dominque Dawes, a powerhouse performer who was overshadowed by Shannon Miller and Dominique Moceanu but was the first black woman to win a gold in gymnastics nonetheless. Unfortunately, there hasn't been any real build up to the Olympics so I don't know who the new girls are. We came in fourth in 2000 and were abysmal in 2004, so I was happy to find an article about the two girls who made this year's Olympic squad. There's going to be a clinic to choose the rest of the team, but Karolyi and company are gearing up for a great outing. I am hoping to find an online broadcast of the trials because I missed seeing them last night (I didn't know they were on!), but I really hope we can be on top again. I really want to beat China on their turf.

And in Olympic basketball news, it looks like we're going to have a really good squad as well. Back in '04, the only top player who wanted to go was LeBron James (gotta love kids) and they stayed on a cruise ship instead of in Olympic village...and ended up with the bronze medal. They're bringing a lot of top players and it seems like they really want to take this seriously, so I hope they can bring it in '08.

If you've noticed that I haven't mentioned being a fan of OSU football, it's not that I'm not a fan, it's just that I would get so stressed out watching the games that I worried that my heart would give me fits. Besides, my husband is a much bigger fan of college football than I am. I'm just a big old fan of sports, period.

Hey, don't hate on my obsessions. Put yourself in my shoes as a fan whose had to watch her favorite teams go down in a blaze of glory for so long that many others would've given up hope. I call those people quitters.