MIKE BURKE

Allegany Communications Sports

One of the first memories of the Summer Olympics for me was watching Bill Toomey running in the shadows of the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City to win the 1968 decathlon. My mother was watching it on our black-and-white TV, so I started watching even though I had no idea what I was watching.

I was 9 years old, so I had no clue who Bill Toomey was or what the decathlon was. Being consumed with baseball for most of my time I had but a vague idea of what the Olympics even were. But my mother was yelling and screaming at the TV rooting for Toomey, so I figured since she wasn’t yelling at me, I’d just yell right along with her.

I also remember during the medal ceremony for the 200-meter dash, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who had finished first and third respectively, each raised a back-gloved fist for Black Power during the playing of The Star Spangled Banner, keeping their hands raised until the anthem had been completed.

Smith, Carlos and Australian silver medalist Peter Norman all wore human-rights badges on their jackets, and, even as a 9-year-old, I recognized this to be a powerful moment.

By the next time around, my friends and I had begun to follow Olympic sports. So, naturally, we couldn’t wait for the Summer Olympic Games to come because that meant something sports would be on television every night for over two weeks.

There was no ESPN then (they were good days) and the Orioles, Pirates and Senators were televised maybe just 30 to 50 times a year. There was no 24-hour news cycle then in sports television. In fact, we here in Cumberland, thanks to Buford Saville and PVTV, were among the very few in the country that even had cable television. And, it didn’t cost 300 bucks a month.

The Winter Olympics didn’t move the needle too much for us growing up. I mean, figure skating? We didn’t get that, although Peggy Fleming had caught our attention.

Years later, the greatest Olympics memory (still) for many of us would be provided by the United States hockey team in the 1980 Winter Games, though at our early stage of being sports fans, we were pretty much Summer Games guys because of the basketball, boxing and track.

The 1972 Summer Games were in Munich, West Germany, and we had made the enormous leap to being 12, 13 years of age instead of just 8 and 9. So, you know, we pretty much knew everything, and that meant we knew everything about the Olympics as well, being glued to the television set (color TV by then) every night for two weeks.

Those were the Games, of course, in which Mark Spitz won seven gold medals in swimming. They were the Olympics of Olga Korbut (yes, we even knew everything about gymnastics by then), and they were the Olympics in which United States athletes and teams were cheated by the International Olympic Committee in track and field and, of course, the gold medal basketball game against the Soviet Union.

But for being such wordly wiseguy kids, who believed we pretty much knew and understood all, we soon discovered we knew and understood nothing about this world of ours when the Munich massacre played out before our very eyes on Sept. 5, 1972.

Eleven Israeli Olympic team members were taken hostage and eventually killed, along with a German police officer, by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, which had demanded 234 prisoners jailed in Israel and the German-held founders of the Red Army Faction be released.

Police officers killed five of the eight Black September members during a failed rescue attempt, before ABC’s Jim McKay told the world what the world had been praying not to hear.

“We’ve just gotten the final word,” he said. “When I was a kid, my father used to say our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized. Our worst fears have been realized tonight …

“They have now said that there were 11 hostages. Two were killed in their rooms … Nine others were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone.”

A memorial service was held for the athletes at the main Olympic stadium. IOC President Avery Brundage ordered that the games continue, to show that the terrorists had not won. That has been the extent of any tangible IOC remembrance of the murdered Israeli athletes.

With the competition already under way, and with the Opening Ceremony on Friday night, most of us will be drawn to Paris 2024 in one form or many others for the next two-and-a-half weeks.

The competition and the drama are compelling, and for as long as any of us can remember we have been told by the IOC that the Games are about the spirit of fair competition and not a forum for political influence or self-promotion. Neither of which has ever been true.

As stated in the Olympic Charter, the Olympic Movement uses diplomacy to promote the fundamental principles of Olympism and to contribute, through sport, to the promotion of peace, coexistence, tolerance and non-discrimination among countries, communities and ethnicities.

So, yes, it’s political. The Olympics have always been about politics, influence and awareness. If it’s not political, why do we all bring our flags? I take it you’ve heard of Jesse Owens?

If it’s not political, why don’t the athletes compete independently? What do you believe the motivation was for the original Dream Team?

Speaking of which, the flag bearers for the United States during Friday’s Opening Ceremony will be tennis star Coco Gauff and basketball star LeBron James, which I find to be a curious selection, since James is never present prior to games during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner.

Certainly, that is his choice and his right. Just as it was his choice to accept the invitation to lead Team USA onto the world’s largest and most viewed sporting stage while carrying the Star Spangled Banner itself.

I should not be surprised. And I’m not.

The Olympics are also a spotlight for opportunity.

Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @MikeBurkeMDT

 

Leave a Reply