Posted on 02/26/2006 9:52:49 PM PST by Stand Watch Listen
TURIN, Italy | Bode Miller was a bust. Mike Modano proved to be a big-time whiner. Chad Hedrick was too full of himself and Shani Davis came off as a guy who thought only of himself.
Then there was snowboarder Jeret Peterson, who was enough of a screw-up that the U.S. Olympic Committee packed him on a plane and sent him straight back home to Idaho.
As the Olympics wind down today, you can't overlook the American athletes who didn't comport themselves well at these Winter Games.
But if you watch tonight's closing ceremony, you can rid yourself of any disappointment or embarrassment you may feel by just remembering that old saw about turning the other cheek.
I'm talking about speedskater Joey Cheek, the U.S. flag bearer who'll lead his fellow American athletes into Stadio Olimpico.
He's made America proud over here. It's safe to say there is no athlete from any nation who's had a better Olympic Games than Cheek.
As Johann Olav Koss — the four-times golden Norwegian speedskating icon who now has a degree in medicine, an MBA in executive management and recently was named one of the world's "100 future leaders" by Time magazine — put it:
"Joey Cheek is the one athlete here who truly embodies the Olympic spirit."
If the Olympics truly are about coming together globally and showing the best side of humanity, then Cheek gives face to such philosophy.
The 26-year-old from Greensboro, N.C., won two Olympic medals here — gold in the 500 meters and silver in the 1,000.
His podium finishes got him $40,000 in bonuses from the USOC — $25,000 for victory and $15,000 for second place — and he promptly announced he was donating all that money to Right To Play, the Koss-directed humanitarian organization that uses sports to help develop children in some of the planet's most troubled areas.
Right To Play directors said nearly $350,000 in global donations have been dove-tailed onto Cheek's first donation two weeks ago.
Saturday, the USOC said it was matching the skater's $40,000 gift.
To understand what that kind of money can do, listen to Conrad Alleblas, a director of Right To Play's Dutch office.
In the programs he works with in Uganda, a year's worth of sports and play programs for one child costs just $15 to $20.
"The money Joey's generated will really make an impact," beamed Koss, who said the group's Web site — righttoplay.com — usually gets about 10,000 hits a week and now is getting nearly 90,000
"He took his moment and gave it to others," Koss said. "Millions and millions of people around the world saw his message."
Koss first met Cheek just before the Turin Games opened. They talked 20 minutes over coffee and the Norwegian legend was impressed.
"I was stunned because it was only three days before his race," Koss said. "I know the pressure you are under and I know what you go through in those days, but he had time to meet with me and I thought, 'Wow, this is a truly remarkable individual.'
"I came away from the conversation, admiring him not only as a speedskater, but even more so as an individual. Not only from his compassion and his giving, but also his intellectual capacity and his ability to think in much larger aspects of the world."
Bode Miller never understood — or just didn't care about — the whole Olympic experience and chose to party into the wee hours here rather than give his best.
Modano groused about not getting put on a charter flight to Turin, and Peterson punched out one of his pals.
Meanwhile, Cheek was thinking about others. He wants his gift earmarked for the refugee children in Chad who have fled the Darfur area of Sudan, where some two million people have been displaced and over 180,000 slaughtered in a government-promoted genocide.
He said he learned of the crisis when he was competing in Europe and found himself watching CNN International, which covered the carnage unlike most news outlets back home.
"I found it odd that it was such a big story overseas, and I came home and so rarely did I see coverage," he said. "Our State Department declared a genocide, but I found it amazing that there could be such an enormous thing — genocide, that word conjures up Holocaust — and no one even knew about it.''
He said he decided to get involved because: "Athletics is a very selfish pursuit. I think it's imperative for me or anybody else who reaches a pinnacle in their careers to reach out a hand for somebody else.''
That's the Koss gospel as well.
After the 1994 Games in Lillehamer, Koss donated much of his Olympics' bonus money to children who were victims of the fighting in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital that was the host city of the Winter Olympics a decade earlier.
Soon after he involved himself heavily with Right To Play and he'd done so for a decade.
Just last month he visited Sierra Leone, where Right To Play is helping 5,000 children — many of them ex-soldiers — adjust to peace after years of war.
"Some of the boys were killers and the girls were sex slaves," he said. "We're making an environment where they learn that even when you fall on your face, you can rise up and carry yourself with dignity and grace. Sport is a way to do that."
Cheek was impressed that the organization didn't simply donate sporting equipment, it sent people into places with a plan to use sports to generate self-esteem and then teach about everything from nutrition to AIDS prevention.
Thursday, Koss announced Cheek would be an athlete ambassador for Right To Play and his first trip would come in April when he'll go to Zambia to educate people — especially young women — on the nation's HIV epidemic.
Eventually he hopes Sudan will become safe enough for aid workers that he could be dispatched there.
"I have always felt if I ever did something big like this (Olympics), I want to be able to give something back," he said. "I love what I do but, honestly, it's a pretty ridiculous thing. I skate around in tights.
"But because I skated well, I have a few seconds of microphone time. And I know how news cycles work. Tomorrow there will be another gold medalist. So I can either gush how wonderful I feel or use it for something."
I thought of that comment Friday as Hedrick — Cheek's speedskating teammate — sat at the podium after finishing second in the 10,000 meters and brazenly told everyone he gutted it out for silver because he had a "bigger heart" than everyone else here.
But if you believe that Olympic ideal about showing the best side of humanity, turn the other cheek to that kind of talk.
Look for Joey Cheek out front with the flag tonight
Now there's a guy with a big heart.
I don't know which was worse. The gay figure skaters or those gay little snowboarders, especially that readheaded one that looked so much like a girl.
That's because it has nothing to do with The Agenda.
What a horrible headline or title they decided to give that. It should be titled "American paper doesnt pay attention to the olympics but going to rant any way". How about the American team that won ice dancing with one just becoming a American citizen. Or the other couple thats married that ice danced where the guy was a Russian and is always beaming about his American citizenship. The bob sled team etc etc. Its a shame that so many Atheletes get dished and prob about 90 percent of them have great American stories.
I agree. I'm sure there were others who represented the U.S. well.
Hear hear! I think the real story is how the MSM totally pumped up that loser Bode as some sort of Mister Cool Hip Edgy Trendy Boy, and it backfired on them big time. All the hype was on Bode, they played him up as some sort of bad boy ski bum, and guess what, that's exactly all he was, and apparently all he'll ever be. The media got exactly what they deserved.
so you train hard, spend years of your life sacrificing for a goal, and mega-thous on trainers, etc., and the only way you are a credit is to give away the fruits of all that labor???
don't get me wrong, it's nice of him to do that, but for that to be a crowning acheievement, or what makes an american "good", smacks of something nasty - the only way an american can do something good, is if he winds wup with nothing to show for it?
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