As the crowbar flies, only CBS gains from figure skating’s battle of wounded knee. The bereaved network, skunked out of its pro football meal ticket, is left with morsels such as golf, Daytona’s demolition derby and NCAA hoops, boycotts permitting.
Suddenly, however, CBS’ February foray into Lillehammer, Norway, becomes a hot show. The Olympic Games, through endless hype, have developed a distinctive aura or odor, take your pick. Occasional shamateurism cloaked in sequins certainly is no worse than regularly scheduled programming.
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But the attack on Nancy “Why Me?” Kerrigan does provide a bizarre story line for this year’s concert, the pity being that John Madden can’t stage his CBS swan song by being rinkside commentator. John won’t fly, except perhaps to ABC or Fox, but who better to explain in simple terms the effect of triple arrests on a triple Axel?
Though she deserves our well wishes, Kerrigan needn’t be regarded as a tragic figure because, thankfully, she isn’t a disfigured figure. She is wounded and maintaining a discreet silence while the police blotter grows, but she is healing. So well, CBS points out, that she will attempt a pre-Olympic exhibition in Boston. Check your local listings.
For too long, sychophantic ringheads have breathlessly tried to foist upon the public a notion that the Olympic experience is uniquely pure, apart from the deviousness polluting sport’s landscape. Athletes perspire for love of country and craft but not for money or material goods. You know, Citius, Altius, Fortius and all that idealistic stuff. And too many gullible consumers believed what they watched or read, a collective paralysis pending postevent urinalysis.
By now, though, we should have learned that Juan Antonio Samaranch, lord of the rings, and all the other doddering fools in the Olympic movement might just as well be added to the list of candidates for baseball commissioner. Where there’s smoke, there’s the Olympic flame. The Games-summer or winter and regardless of what exotic venue they invade because the offer is too gross to refuse-are as clean as the Hudson River.
The ringheads would have us believe that the assault on Nancy Kerrigan is another example of violence in sports. We are respectully asked to remember Monica Seles, the tennis star stabbed by a deranged fan last spring. In fact, the Kerrigan episode doesn’t feel a lot different from attending a Little League baseball or squirt hockey game, where you can hear parents and friends make absolute boobs of themselves. Kill the bum, son, and earn your allowance. Winning is everything, in Lillehammer or Anywhere, USA.
The big sick starts early and it surely doesn’t end when a gifted youth gets a private instructor to build toward that all-important trophy or medal. Fathers and mothers can live vicariously, so who really cares whether their sons and daughters live normally? For each one who makes it, there are hundreds of thousands who burn out at age 14 and get high on something other than the joy of competition. But that’s the big price you pay for joining the big sick.
Tonya Harding, Kerrigan’s fierce rival, has not been implicated in the alleged assault. Harding did not arrive on the scene with a silver spoon in her mouth, only a sharp tongue. But if she had a rough ride, so much the better. Her mother, LaVona, went through four marriages and through the garbage in the streets of Portland. An empty bottle could bring a nickel deposit and help send Tonya through skating classes. No wonder, in a sport of manners, she comes up short.
Yet, it appears that Tonya Harding is a victim of the big sick, anyway, if only by association. The stakes are high, and Nancy Kerrigan’s assailant aimed low. It could have been worse. He could have had a gun. Think about that the next time you see a 10-year-old kid drop his gloves to fight because Daddy said it’s the thing to do to defend the family’s honor.
Ah, but it’s almost February. Let the Games begin.