Patriotism - part 2

OK so I brought up the issue of a lack of patriotism in my last post and how I felt the Dream Team was a part of such a height of America's Patriotism in my lifetime. With the Olympics coming up America tends to show a little more patriotism and have some national pride in our athletes. I have been following the Olympic trials these last couple of weeks especially swimming. One story I find interesting, besides the whole Dara Torres going to her fifth Olympics in her 40s, is about Michael Phelps. It appears that he got some special treatment (let me just preface that it does not bother me because I think the rule is petty, unless someone else did the same thing and did not get the same benefit). For those of you who don't know the story, last week after winning the 200 meter freestyle he pulled off a solid black swim cap only to have another one on underneath (apparently this is common in swimming to wear two caps, because it helps to hold their goggles in place). The one underneath had a large Visa logo on it and the athletes had been instructed not to have any advertising corporate logos and warned that they would be immediately disqualified. Michael Phelps was not disqualified (this is America's biggest athlete going to Beijing; he is going to attempt to win eight gold medals). He said it was an accident that he didn't know he had put that cap on and I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt however I'm skeptical about it (too many coincidences). Phelps has an endorsement with Visa and it just so happens that Visa's Senior VP was in attendance that night (the only night he was there). This sure gave Visa a little more time in the press. Anyway Phelps's special treatment is not the point of this post. My point goes back to my last post how I brought up the fact that I cheered against the USA in basketball four years ago when team USA lost to Argentina. It was mostly because I hated the way team USA represented us. They were a bunch of individuals who seemed to be out to get their own and not what would help the team win. They seemed to represent Nike, Reebok, Adidas or whatever endorsement they had. That seems to be the case for a lot of mainstream athletes it's more important to represent your endorsements and representing the USA can increase the amount you get paid. Then it hit me, I remember in 1992 there was a big deal about some of the Dream Team members who had endorsements with Nike wearing the Team USA uniform that was made by Reebok at the medal ceremony. They solved the problem by draping an American flag over the Reebok logo. So, was this the start of our representing athletes looking out for their endorsement contracts over representing their country? (I really feel the first Dream Team felt very strongly about representing the USA and they realized they had contractual obligations when they saw what they were to wear.) Now it seems a lot of athletes just want to go to the Olympics because if they perform well they can get some lucrative endorsements rather than the honor to represent the USA. Especially this year with the Olympics going to be in China, the corporations want to get their logos in China.

Wow, just as I have been writing this (for those of you who know, I write my posts at work) I have been listening to the Dan Patrick Show and he is talking right now about the Team USA basketball picture. All of the athletes on the team have endorsements with Nike except for Dwight Howard (D. Wade is with Converse which has been bought by Nike and C. Paul and C. Anthony are with Air Jordan an entity of Nike, Howard is with Adidas). All the players are standing going from shortest to tallest with Howard on the end even though it appears that Chris Bosh is taller (because of his hair). All the players have their hands behind their back and Howard is the only one holding a ball (so that his hand is covering up the Nike logo) and Coach K is sitting down (which looks weird) and positioned in a way that his foot covers Howard's Adidas logo on his shoe. For real, are we that petty that we have to cover a small logo on a team uniform to maintain an endorsement? I guess the almighty dollar is more important.

In all reality, I wish the IOC would not allow professional athletes to compete in the Olympics. It is supposed to be for amateurs only. Although that may take away the world's best athletes that are professional it would be more about representing your country and the honor that that entails. Although I did hear one reporter say that a solution would be to go back to the original Olympics where all the athletes compete in the nude.