There have been numerous layers to my journalistic education.
I’ve learned some of the richest athletes in the world always want something for free.
I’ve learned that coaches still call each other ‘Coach’ long after they’ve retired.
I’ve learned high school football officiating crews always park near the stadium entrance, backing in their vehicles so they can run off the field at the end of the game and speed away in case of an unruly mob of fans.
Also, I learned you can break a leg and almost fully heal it during the Olympics opening ceremony, like the scheduled 4½-hour spectacular tonight to formally open the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.
I discovered this at the first of three Summer Olympics (1988 Seoul, 1992 Barcelona, 1996 Atlanta) as part of the Scripps Howard News Service coverage team when I worked in Memphis for The Commercial Appeal.
Each Olympics host country brings its distinct flavor and culture.
In Seoul, the South Koreans were extremely gracious and ran the Olympics efficiently.
In Barcelona, the Spaniards were excessively laid back and operated the Olympics like they were on LMST (Les Miles Standard Time).
In Atlanta, my fellow Americans had little appreciation of foreign athletes, scoffed at sports they didn’t understand (team handball) and detonated a bomb in a public downtown park.
For many journalists, covering the Olympics is a three-week marathon of 16-hour days. If you are not assigned to cover a specific sport, there are days when you attend and write four different events.
I was a month shy of 32 years old when I flew to Seoul for my first Olympics. I was very apprehensive because I’d never covered something of this magnitude before. I was clueless about the logistics.
The only thing I knew was to power my Radio Shack TRS 80 computer (nickname “Trash 88” in the newspaper business) only on AA batteries. I’d heard horror stories about writers having their computers fried by foreign electricity because they didn’t have an international voltage converter.
In Seoul, my primary beat was covering Team USA baseball. It wasn’t an official Olympic sport yet, but Team USA had LSU pitcher Ben McDonald, Tigers’ coach Skip Bertman as an assistant and the amazing Jim Abbott who was born without a right hand and pitched as a left-handed who flawlessly transferred his glove he stuck on the end of his right arm to his left hand after he released a pitch.
I also learned baseball is played and managed differently around the world.
For example, I watched a skinny chain-smoking Cuban manager stamp out his cigarette, walk to the mound and pull his starting pitcher after the first inning and insert a flame-thrower reliever who finished the game.
Afterward, I asked the manager why he didn’t use a middle reliever and a closer. The manager shrugged his shoulder, inhaled his ciggy and said through an interpreter, “He pitched good. Why pull him?”
And speaking of interpreters, something always got lost in the translation when dealing with the Russians.
Ask a Russian athlete a question and he’d often give a 25 to 30-second answer in his native tongue. Then the Russian interpreter would say something like, `He said `I rebound hard today.’”
Huh?
Long before the NBA tapped heavily into the international talent pool, I learned thanks to the Olympics that there are great players around the world that Americans only hear about until they play in the NBA.
The greatest shooter I’ve ever seen (until Steph Curry blossomed) was Oscar Schmidt, a 6-8 shooting guard from Brazil. He played in five Olympics, is the all-time leading scorer in Olympic history and averaged 42.3 points in Seoul.
The year before in the 1987 Pan Am Games gold medal game vs. the USA, he scored 46 in Brazil’s win.
I asked Oscar about his shot selection. He said, “A good shot can be taken from anywhere at any time.”
When I covered velodrome track cycling, I was interviewed by a Korean TV crew who asked me why the United States was not good at track cycling.
I replied, “Every country has its strength in sports. For instance, if cycling had an event in which a kid on a bicycle could ride by and throw a newspaper on a porch, the U.S. would win gold every time.”
It took about 10 seconds of awkward silence before he realized I was kidding.
I learned Seoul had its French Quarter — Itaewon — that stayed open all day and night.
One day, I walked into a Nike store to browse. Suddenly, I was surrounded by Korean children wanting my autograph.
“Larry Bird, you sign this Larry Bird,” they said. “Sign Larry Bird. Sign.”
I tried to explain just because I was blond, tall and American, it didn’t mean I was Larry Bird.
I ended up signing autographs for 45 minutes.
It was also in Itaewon at a Denny’s at 1 in the morning with my U.S. Baseball Federation friend Bob Bensch that I learned something for the first time.
I surveyed a restaurant packed with partying, inebriated Seoul residents all talking wildly and scarfing down greasy food.
“Bob, here we are halfway around the world at 1 in the morning with a bunch of loud, drunk Koreans eating bad food,” I said.
“No matter where we live or what language we speak, this shows that we really are all the same people.”
Here’s hoping for a smooth, enjoyable and memorable (for all the right reasons) Olympics in Paris.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com
