Posts Tagged ‘Olympics’

Kay Yow

As a fan of the Lady Vols, it is a sad time.  Every team, every player, and every fan of women’s college basketball suffered a heartbreaking loss on Saturday…

After fighting for over 20 years, N.C. State Wolfpack Women’s Basketball Coach, Kay Yow lost her battle with breast cancer.  She was 66 years old.

Throughout her 38-year coaching career, Coach Yow was widely respected not only for her winning teams and spirit, but also for her courage, compassion, and loyalty.  Along with her overall record of 737-344 as a head coach, her induction into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000, Coach Yow also served as assistant coach to Tennessee Lady Vols Coach Pat Summitt during the 1984 Olympic Games, where the United States earned its first gold medal in Women’s Basketball.

On hearing of Yow’s passing, Coach Summitt reminisced on coaching with Kay Yow:

I was a young coach of 32 when I was asked to coach the 1984 Olympic Team.  When I decided who my number one assistant would be, I knew that I had to choose someone who would be loyal…who knew the game…someone I could trust and someone with great wisdom.  When it came time to make that decision, I picked Kay Yow.

Kay had great wisdom. She had a special way of telling you things that you really didn’t want to hear but needed to.  Kay was not a ‘yes’ woman.  She accepted the challenge of helping me to bring home the first gold medal to the United States in women’s basketball. It was a daunting task but Kay made it so much easier by helping to relieve the pressure.

Video: Coach Summitt Remembers Kay Yow | ESPN

Since the late 1980’s, however, Yow’s battles were not confined to the basketball court; Yow had been fighting for her life against breast cancer.  After undergoing a mastectomy in 1987, Yow seemed to be winning that fight until a recurrence in 2004.  As a result ,she missed 2 games in the 2004-05 season.  Continuing to fight, she never wavered in commitment to the players and team she loved, but was forced to take a 16 game leave of absence during the 2006-07 season.  Still, she returned to the court once more.

Then, this past December, after having just coached her 1000th game, Yow missed the next four games due to weakness from her ongoing cancer treatments before announcing in early January that she would be taking a leave of absence for the remainder of the season.  On Saturday, Coach Yow passed from this life.

Kay Yow was a pioneer in the game of women’s basketball.  More importantly, she was a testament to the enduring spirit of grace in the face of adversity.  Along with battling cancer and coaching her team, Coach Yow tirelessly worked to raise money for cancer research an to promote breast cancer awareness.  It was for this strength that Yow was awarded the inaugural Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the 2007 ESPYs, which was presented by Coach Summitt.  Said Summitt:

In the two decades she fought the disease, Kay never allowed herself to be victimized by cancer. Kay never pitied herself. Instead, she tried to bring awareness to the horrible disease that was robbing her of her life. Through her foundation in conjunction with the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) – The Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund, in partnership with The V Foundation for Cancer Research, she did all that she could do to help others. That was just Kay.

Helping to get the cancer fund off the ground put Kay on a mission. She fought for cancer funding the same way she fought the disease… positive and determined every step of the way.

Kay Yow with Pat Summitt after winning the Jimmy V award in 2007

Kay Yow’s courage, dedication, and example serve as her enduring legacy.  The foundation which now bears her name will continue the struggle to defeat the adversary that took Coach Yow’s life.

Still, women’s basketball has lost a legend and the world has lost a courageous beautiful person.  She will be missed…

Click the logo above to donate to the Kay Yow Cancer Fund (Part of the Jimmy V Foundation)

– So it goes…

Images Courtesy of: UNCG • New York Times / Chris Carlson(AP) • The Kay Yow Cancer Fund / Jimmy V Foundation

Over the weekend I spent a fair amount of time watching the XXIX Olympic Games from Beijing — taking in all that comes along with the quadrennial rite that is the Olympics.  It was an excellent weekend of competition, celebration, and pageantry.

Bearing all of this in mind, I began to ask myself what is the Olympics “place” in the overall world of sports?  Many would say that the Olympic Games are the single most important competition in sports — the “ultimate” expression of athletic competition.  On the other hand, others would argue that the Olympics really aren’t about sports at all, representing the exercise of diplomacy through other means.  Finally, there are those who would — for various reasons ranging from the lack of their favorite sport from the games to a lack of interest in international competition — say that, while engaging, the Olympics are largely a second-tier sporting event focused more on “ancillary” sporting events.

For me, however, the Olympics hold a special place — if only because of the “amateur spirit” which they embody…

I do eagerly await the Olympics each time they roll around.  They are — for me — a sublime opportunity to view events and competitions that are far beyond the sports I normally have the opportunity to follow.  So too, there is something that is uniquely endearing in the pursuit of achievement in the name of ones homeland, where the accolade is far less tangible than that which accompanies success in modern “big time” sports.  That is the essence of amateur competition — not completely divorced from many of the reasons I so identify with college athletics as opposed to professional sports.

Of course, one can become a little to idealistic when it comes to the Olympics…

Gone are the days of “lily-white” amateurism from the Olympics as an ideal governing the competition between nations.  This was not only the mantra of the international Olympic movement during the first three-quarters of the 20th Century, but was tenaciously enforced by individuals such as Avery Brundage, who served as the President of the International Olympic Committee until 1972.

During that era, any “taint” of professionalism by an athlete would assuredly lead to banishment from the games for life, and could possibly lead to medals being stripped.  The stand of the IOC was clear: Any athlete competing in the Olympic Games must be an amateur.

Of course, things were not always as pure as the powers that be would suggest …

As anyone who witnessed any of the games held during the Cold War, the amateurism of some of the Eastern Bloc countries was perpetually in question.  Furthermore, at times the stance on amateurism often overshadowed the real purpose of the Olympic Games, and placed form over substance with only the individual athlete feeling the pain of the IOC’s censure.

Thus, perhaps, the “good old days” were not always as good as we have been led to believe…

Nonetheless, there is something that has been lost over the years as the Olympics seem to have moved farther and farther afield from the old amateur standards, to the point that — in all sports but boxing — professional players are welcomed.  With this transition came the advent of the so-called “Dream Teams,” peopled with superstar professional athletes from across the globe.  The thought of playing against the greatest that the NBA has to offer is a daunting and discouraging prospect for a team from a smaller country lacking a professional league or an established sports infrastructure.  Still, as the United States Olympic Basketball team learned in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, “David” still has a lot of stones in his sling when it comes to the “Goliaths” of the sports world.

Competition, however, is not always a fair fight, and, perhaps, that reality is part of what makes the Olympics special.  Perhaps it is the “against all odds” mentality or ethos which makes the Olympics beautiful as a spectacle of competition.

The Olympics are not about necessarily winning or losing, but about trying despite the odds…

For me, the single most poignant image of the Olympics is that of Gabriela Andersen-Scheiss completing the marathon in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.  I still remember watching the then 39 year-old competitor for Switzerland come limping into Olympic Stadium — at least twenty minutes behind the winner — barely able to walk.  She had only to complete one lap around the stadium track to finish the race.  As she staggered from side to side, barely able to stand upright, she continued on.  Fearing that she might be suffering from heat stroke, several medical staff actually walked alongside her as she took a heart wrenching 5 minutes and 44 seconds to complete the circuit of the field, before collapsing across the finish line and receiving immediate medical care.

The pragmatist would say that it was foolish for Andersen-Scheiss to continue on when she was clearly suffering and had no hope of winning.  The utilitarian would undoubtedly conclude that she should stop, because the risk to her health far exceeded the benefit to be gained by completing the race.  Sometimes, it is not rational, it is not practical, it is not about winning or losing — it is about heart, determination, and finding what it takes to put one foot in front of the other to finish the journey you have begun.

Sometimes, it is simply a testament to the human spirit…

I suppose that is what still draws me to the Olympic Games.  In this regard, it is still a competition of amateurs, in some ways. For many athletes at the games, the competition is not one of professionals versus the amateurs.  It is not one of one country versus another.  It is not one of winner and loser.

In the Olympic Games — even today — for many athletes it is a competition between heart and head.  It is the battle between self and soul which brings competitors from far and wide who have not a single hope for victory.  They do it not to prove that they can beat any other athlete, break any records, or win any medals, but to simply prove that they can compete…

… and in this battle with self — the battle to find the will to press on — there are no professionals.

– Go Figure …

Image Courtesy of: ZDF.de

Updated: Christine Magnuson competed in the 100m Butterfly on Sunday, winning a silver medal for the US!  Congratulations to Christine, and all of the other Tennessee Olympians as they represent our country, the State of Tennessee, and the University of Tennessee!

Here’s an interview with Magnuson and Dara Torres from NBC’s Today Show:

Former Lady Vol and SEC Swimmer of the year, Christine Magnuson, set a new American record in the Women’s 100m Butterfly with a time of 57.08. in the Semifinal in Beijing.

Magnuson will swim in the finals on Sunday.

A good start for Tennessee Olympians…

– Go Figure …

I know there is great controversy surrounding the Beijing Games, but when it comes to the Opening Ceremonies, I have only one thing to say:

Breathtaking.  Simply Breathtaking…

– Go Figure …

Image Courtesy of: AP / CBC Networks

Once again the sports world is abuzz about the start of spring training, and yet another Major League Baseball season. Baseball has a long list of issues on its plate as the season gets rolling along. All of the off-season chatter has centered on the problems arising from the Mitchell Report, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Bud Selig, Brian McNamee, Bob Uecker, Pedro Cerrano, Ebby “Nuke” LaLoosh, Rick Vaughn, and Crash Davis. Those last five names actually have nothing to do with the controversy swirling in baseball, but I threw them in just for the hell of it — after all, the more the merrier.

Anyway, I am sure that the powers that be in baseball simply cannot wait to get the 2008 season going so they can put all of this ugliness behind them — “move on” as it were. There are only 2 problems with this line of thinking:

1. The start of the 2008 season is not going to put the steroid issues that have been plastered all over the media for the last 6 months “behind” baseball, not even a little, and
2. Even if it did cause millions of otherwise reasonably informed Americans to suddenly forget about a story that has been covered with more nauseating detail and intensity than the war in Iraq, that forgetfulness would only be the result of the fact that increasingly fewer people in this country give two shits about Major League Baseball anymore anyway.

I think baseball has a very tough road ahead of it…

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