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08/28/2004 - 9:37 a.m.

THE SPORTSMANSHIP MEDALS

Sportsmanship. I remember one of my gym teachers telling us, �Not all of us can be good at sports but all of us can be good at sportsmanship.� It very well may have been said before some boy tried to take my head off with a dodgeball or it very well may have been said before the teacher went back to ignoring those of us who generally were picked last for games (but never for softball---at least not after they started letting us wear our glasses in gym.) I know it was not my beloved Cheryl Miller saying it. She contented herself with living it. I�m sure it was one of the guys. But still, I would like to think that it is true. Having watched the Olympics several evenings this week, I am painfully aware that, as with anything that people can do, some are better at it than others.

And so, I have decided to give out my own medals. These medals are for the classy moments. Because these medals were inspired by a gym teacher, the available medals will not be the traditional gold, silver, and bronze. Instead, in honor of John Dewey and modern education, we will have our own: the royal purple medal for effort on behalf of opponents, the sky blue medal for effort on behalf of teammates, the beige medal for what should be commonplace but isn�t, class acts in bad circumstances, and the coveted minty green award for most improved.

I am sure that there are many international contenders. I regret that the preliminaries require grabbing television time and that grabbing television time requires speaking English. I recognize that speaking English has nothing to do with sportsmanship and I have asked a committee to consider a rule change. The committee was carefully selected to give adequate representation to all those small countries we barely ever hear from. Unfortunately, the whole effort has been under-funded and no money is available for a translator. They have, however, been supplied with a single Berlitz CD in English to share. As soon as their report is ready, we will distribute it and carefully consider its recommendations. Perhaps, in the meantime, Congressman James Sensenbrenner could convene a congressional committee and waste some taxpayer money looking into why the selected American representative was not certified in teaching English as a Second Language.

Anyway, here are the current results---although the International Sportsmanship Federation, the SIG, is still making pronouncements about whether the beige medal should go to Paul Hamm. They note that his performance has been a bit whiny and self-centered and that he did not properly give credit to Alexander Nemov for his actions but they point out that his routine has been fraught with difficulties others did not face and that the start value awarded probably was too low.

Alexander Nemov of Russia gets the purple medal. On the high bar, his actual athletic performance was incredible. The crowd was with him and the crowd, which clearly had dropped out of the running early in the sportsmanship race, got to be a bit too much. He could have pushed them on. He could have looked angry at what had happened. He could have left Paul Hamm on his own to face the crowd. But he didn�t. He got up, he came forward, and, despite his own disappointment (and, most likely, anger), he attempted to calm the crowd so others (specifically Hamm) could compete. It was a class act of sportsmanship, performed under pressure, but, more important, it was an act that could easily have been omitted. Nemov did not have to do anything but he did.

Michael Phelps gets the blue medal. His routine had a rocky, cocky start but he came through in the end. Perhaps, as Kat suggested, he was the honors student, accustomed to getting all As, who mellowed after he got a C and survived. But he has emotional potential and seemed to show real growth in his statements and his actions. But this medal is not for growth, it is for action. For the giving of his spot on the relay to Ian Crocker so Crocker also had a chance at a medal, we award him the sky blue.

The beige medal goes to a team. Specifically, it goes to the American women�s 4x100 relay team that had Marion Jones, Lauryn Williams, Angela Williams, and I�m-so-sorry-but-the-name-just-won�t-come-to-me. We understand that Marion Jones has possible drug problems. We understand that this team may lose its medal just as others have after testing. But, for now, this team gets the medal for its class in interviews after its failure to pass the baton. They get the medal for what they did not do. They did not make excuses and they did not blame each other. They did not blame officials. They took responsibility and they did not whine.

The minty green medal is a surprise. In every Olympics, there is at least one event in which the winner must come from behind. In every Olympics, there is at least one event in which the winner is not in the anointed band of likely winners. And so it is here. The winner of the minty green medal is Allen Iverson for his performance before the media after the American men�s basketball team lost to Argentina. We looked, we checked, and that person praising the opponent and making no excuses really was Allen Iverson. We�re glad, so glad, that he had it in him and we wish to encourage him to show this side of himself more.

Now, you may be asking, what will happen at the ceremony? Obviously, we will have just one platform. We considered playing the national anthem but we have two anthems to play and could not resolve which one would be first. We tried playing them together but cacophony is not the ambiance we were seeking. Therefore, there will be no national anthems played. The ceremony will be simple. We will hand out medals and flowers and place a gold star on each winner�s forehead (even if it requires someone boosting me up to reach Allen Iverson�s forehead.)

And that�s this year�s medals. See you in four years (a year and a half if, like us here in Wisconsin, you believe in snow.)

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