Thoughts and Musings on Faith, Music, Family, Life

Why Joannie Rochette is better than Brett Favre

Each Olympics has their amazing stories, their high drama: the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan battle in 1994, the underage Chinese gymnasts in 2000, the death of the Georgian luger and the major "oops" made by the Norwegian speed skater coach this year.  It's a big reason why we are so drawn to these games every two years.  But every now and then there is a story that transcends the sport itself - one that reminds us that these are not just skaters or gymnasts doing their thing every four years for their country and for our entertainment.  They are human beings.

Witness Joannie Rochette, Canadian figure skater in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.  By now I imagine everyone has heard her story.  A decorated athlete in her country and in her sport, Rochette entered the Olympics poised to win a medal - which she did, taking the bronze.  But the path she took to get there was far more difficult than the two ladies who stood higher on the platform.  Two days before her short program, Rochette's mother died suddenly of a heart attack. She was in Vancouver to see her daughter skate, as she did every one of her competitions.  Rochette got a frantic phone call Sunday to rush to the local hospital.  Instead of seeing her mother alive she viewed the body.  48 hours later, she was scheduled to take the ice in the women's short program.

There is precious little Rochette and I have in common.  I am, obviously, not a woman.  I lived in Canada for a few months when I was a kid, but I'm not Canadian.  And the few times I've taken to the ice were disasters compared to what this young lady can do on it.  We do have one thing in common, though; something we have in common with lots of others.  We have Moms and we love 'em.  And in this particular situation I cannot fathom how Rochette kept skating.  I know this is what she'd spent the last four years working for and everything, but it is hard to imagine the strength and courage it took to do such a thing.

In the end she did so, according to her interview with NBC's The Today Show after winning the bronze, because in the immediate aftermath of her mother's death, while still in shock, she made a promise to herself that she would skate.  And even though many doubts crept in over the following 48 hours, she felt like she couldn't go back on her word.  She did it for herself, her coach, her father (also in Vancouver) and for her country.  And most importantly, she did it for her mother.

So she skated Tuesday night, which I missed.  But I saw the video and pictures of her after the skate, the tears overflowing, the standing ovation.  Two days later she took to the ice again for the long program.  She was in the top six, the last group to skate, all vying for Olympic medals.  The odds were stacked heavily against her. The young girl from Korea was freakishly good.  The long program is nearly twice as long as the first; a crazy test of combined endurance and grace.  She was on home soil, always an added pressure.  And she was still bearing the heavy emotional burden of her mother's death in a sport where heavy emotions of any kind can spell disaster.

I watched her skate - according to the NBC commentators, who one assumes knows what they're talking about, it was a very clean skate.  The emotions weren't as visible when she finished, but she still got another standing O.  And in what will be for me THE image of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Joannie Rochette looked heavenward and blew a kiss to the air, presumably to her mother, before doing the same to her father in the stands.  When all was said and done, Rochette scored enough points in the two programs to take home the bronze.  It could be argued that no figure skater in the history of the Olympics was more deserving.

No one would've faulted Rochette if she bolted Vancouver the second that bronze medal was draped around her neck.  Instead, she stayed.  She did a couple of interviews with NBC the next day, where the topic of conversation was not just her bronze medal-winning skate but how she managed to do it in light of her grief.  In each of the interviews she demonstrated amazing fortitude and grace, speaking openly and without reservation about the journey she had been on.  Bob Costas, one of the most seasoned interviewers of our generation, seemed in awe of the 24-year old.

Rochette is certainly not the first athlete to play the game despite the loss of a parent.  Who could forget that brilliant Monday night football game in 2003, when then-Green Bay QB Brett Farve led his team in a rout of the Raiders just one day after the death of his father?  It was amazing.  And not just because he threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns - a stellar game for any QB - but because he did so under the circumstances.  I was in awe of Favre that night; still am.

But the thing is, Favre had fifty-some other guys with him.  He had linemen to block for him, receivers to catch his passes, running backs to take the heat off.  He had a defense who held the opposing team to a single touchdown. Not to diminish his accomplishment or his pain that night, but he was surrounded on the field by a band of gridiron brothers who most certainly played above-average inspired football, seeing the agony their leader was going through.  As amazing as Favre was in that game, he had a lot of help.

This past week, Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette didn't have any teammates out there helping her complete triple axels and toe loops, all the while balancing ever-so precariously on two thin metal blades.  As she took to her playing field it was just her and the crowd and the millions around the world watching her on TV.  And she did it not once, but twice.  Both times, Rochette was on the ice all by herself. 

Well, I take that back.  Perhaps her mother was there with her too. A winning combination for sure.

Yep, that's my Dad holding an Olympic torch

A shot my Dad sent us from the Vancouver Olympics, where he's been working the past few weeks, holding a nifty piece of hardware.

If you want the back story on why/how my Dad has been involved in every Olympics since Atlanta in '96, go here.

The Last of Dad's Olympic pics

Thanks for the response - both on the blog and elsewhere - about my crazy 8.26.  I can say with much relief that 8.27 was blissfully blah.

I haven't posted any of Dad's Olympic pictures recently because....I haven't had any.  Dad got pretty busy going into the second week of his work at the Olympics and just didn't have time to send them our way.  But the family got emails about every other day updating us on all he was doing.

This past Tuesday evening Dad's plane touched down at the Raleigh-Durham airport and he was home.  Tired and in need of serious sleep, but home.  Today Dad sent some of the pictures he took during the course of the Olympics but never got around to emailing.  Even though they're not "hot off the press" anymore, they're still pretty awesome.  Check 'em out:

This was a picture Dad took of Michael Phelps getting out of the water after a swim.  Not sure which event it was, or whether it was a prelim or a final.  But really, after the Olympics the guy had, does it even matter?  Anytime this guy exited a pool like this you knew he had just done something spectacular.

This is a picture Dad took of the 4 x 400 Women's IM Relay that won gold. So many things I love about this relay squad.  Rebecca Soni, who swam the Breastroke, only made the relay (and the 200 BR, in which she also took gold) because the girl ahead of her had to leave the team for using a banned substance.  Natalie Coughlin is an amazing all-around swimmer (and does anybody besides me think she bears a striking resemblance to Denise Richards?)  And what more can be said about Dara Torres?  Even though she was totally overshadowed in the headlines by Michael Phelps (who wasn't?), I really believe her accomplishments were just as phenomenal.

This one's a little different - and it's probably best left to Dad to explain, in an excerpt from an email he sent the family:

Also thought you might like the one I took when they were reviewing the close finish (the infamous 100 Fly). Phelps is in the lower right and the Serb is in the upper left. Notice the time of 50.59. Phelps has touched and put enough pressure on the pad to register. The Serb has just a few millimeters to go – you might notice there is a bit of a shadow in front of his fingers which means he’s not there yet. One-hundredth of a second later the shadow disappears. I actually took this picture a day or so later when a delegation from Serbia came into the results room to see the video of the finish.

For me, though, the last picture is the most amazing - even though my Dad didn't take it.  This picture was taken by Heinz Kluetmeier, photographer for Sports Illustrated.  It came from the Aug. 18th edition and was the lead-off picture on pgs. 38-39 for their article about Phelps (the issue came out Friday so it didn't cover all his swims).

Here's the double-page pic - couldn't quite fit it all in there to scan, but you get the idea.  Obviously the picture is focused on a certain swimmer from the Baltimore area who wound up getting eight golds - that's a given (the event, by the way, is the 400IM - his first gold).

But check this out: focus for a minute on the left side of the page, like so:

So now we've got Phelps' size 14 flippers....er, I mean feet, another swimmer, and the crowd.  And if you look down below the crowd you see the starter (the dude in the snazzy blue blazer) and behind him a room with smoked glass.  Look back to the above pic and you'll see that the room runs the length of the picture - in fact, it runs the entire length of the pool.  This is the results room - which, coincidentally enough, is where my Dad worked when he was at the pool.  This was pretty much his home in the Water Cube.

And here's the kicker, folks - my Dad was somewhere in this room when this picture was taken.  And not only was he somewhere in this room, but as it turns out he is, in fact, in the picture.  You see the white racing block that Phelps is launching off of, and the word "Omega" on it?  Look down right below the "A."  Here, I'll help you out a bit....

There.  Now - there are two faces in the results room below the "A" and to the right of snazzy blue-blazer guy.  See them?

My Dad is the one to the left, almost directly under the "A."

And on that note, my friends, this blog officially signs off on the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  Zai Jain.

Dad's almost-15 seconds of Olympic fame

Last night as we were putting the boys to bed, my brother called. "Skyped with Dad not too long ago," he told me.  "Watch Phelps in the 100 Fly semis tonight and see if you can see Dad giving the "time-out" signal across the way in the results room, when they pan the camera down for a low water shot."

Why the time-out sign, you ask?  A little bit of Lindsley family lore.  You may recall back in the spring of 1993 when North Carolina beat Michigan to win the NCAA championship, aided in part by Chris Webber's timeout call when, in fact, they had none. My brother was a junior at UNC that year. That summer he was out working at Yellowstone.  One day, while sporting a "UNC 1993 NCAA Championship" t-shirt, he came across a guy wearing a University of Michigan hat.  As the guy approached my brother he saw his t-shirt; and then glancing back at him he flipped him the bird.  And then, in perhaps one of the best "quick reaction" moves of the modern era, my brother responded with a time-out sign.  Classic - I never tire of telling this story.  No words were exchanged between the two.  None were needed.

Anyway, with this in mind, my father chose the time-out sign to distinguish himself during Phelps' 100 Fly semis.  Alas, neither my brother nor I were able to pick him out of the mass of people in the results room (by the way, you can see this room when the camera pans down for a low shot to show the swimmers at water level - the room is on the opposite side with smoked glass windows. More often than not, my Dad is somewhere in there).  Even though we didn't get to see him, I think it's cool that he tried that. My brother DVR'd it, so maybe a closer look at slower speeds will reveal him.

Dad may not have made it on TV, but he has experienced his 15 seconds of fame in other ways.  I've already mentioned about his brief interaction with US swimmer Katie Hoff.  Got an email from Dad this morning where he said he ran into Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC (International Olympics Committee) at a reception.  He also said at table tennis (another one of his events) he made room for a seat for none other than....Bill Gates.  "Didn't see Melinda," he added.

On the homefront we're having our own 15 seconds of fame.  The boys finished their swim lessons today. They did amazingly well - our youngest made quantum leaps in getting over his fear of the water, even jumping in (with assistance) and allowing his head to go all the way under.  Trust me, this is a big deal for him.  Our eldest acquired the rudiments of freestyle and backstroke, treaded water for 30 seconds, and even touched the bottom of our 9'6" deep end.  Michael Phelps, watch out!

It is very cool hearing all these stories from my Dad, knowing he's having the time of his life; and it is very cool watching my boys grow up. Times like this remind me (as if I need reminding) how truly blessed I am.

Olympics: the real and the not-so-real

Another pic from my Dad, who is in Beijing working at the Olympics (see this previous post to get the back story on why he's there).  This was a shot he took a few nights ago (their morning) soon after the 4 X 100 Free Relay, where the Americans snagged the gold away from the French.  NBC commentator Rowdy Gaines called it "the greatest relay swim ever" - and it's hard to disagree.  Almost as enjoyable as seeing Jason Lezak somehow turn it on to pull ahead in the last 25 meters was the "spirited celebration" by Phelps and Garrett Weber-Gale behind the starting block.  Check out this article by ESPN writer Pat Forde - I think he hits the nail on the head.

Back to my Dad - the day/evening after all of this he told me in an email about a brief conversation he had with US swimmer Katie Hoff after she received the silver medal for her swim in the 400 free.  Katie came up to Dad (who I assume looked like a person in some official capacity) and asked him for directions to the spectator area.  Dad gave them to her and then congratulated her for her silver and gave her an IOC (International Olympic Committee) pin (which he keeps a stash of for such occasions, and for giving to others like his grandsons :).  Dad told me she did a good job of putting on a brave face, but was obviously disappointed at missing the gold by just .04 seconds (and I remember the look on her face right after she touched the wall and looked at the time - you could tell she was crushed).  Good news is she's only 18 and has a bright future ahead of her, which I imagine will involve gold at some point.

So - these are the "real" moments of the Olympics - athletes doing their thing.  But there have been some "not-so-real" ones too.  If you saw the opening ceremonies you may have seen this:

This was the 29 "fireworks footprints" that started above Tiananmen Square and made their way to the Bird's Nest to kick off the Opening Ceremonies.  Lots of cool symbolism here - 29 because it's the 29th Olympiad, and the journey from the "old China" to the new.  I remember seeing clips of this on NBC and being very impressed, especially the fly-over camera work from behind and slightly above the footprints - you kind of felt like you were on the journey to the Bird's Nest as well.

Well, it certainly was impressive.....but not real.  Just a few days ago a British newspaper article revealed that it was totally fabricated - computer-generated special effects that took nearly a year to create (including the youtube clip above, which one would surmise was made to appear as a faked "amateur" video camera shot).  One might ask how they could fake something like this without people knowing.  Well, there were certainly plenty of other real fireworks going on at the Bird's Nest (as my father can attest to), so the audio was certainly there.  That and the fact that if you saw them as part of the television coverage, you were obviously inside watching them on TV - and not outside where you might have noticed their absence. 

Ugh.  I guess this sort of thing is inevitable in our technological, "impress-me" world.  That's why I'm personally thankful for folks like the guys on this 400 Free relay and Katie Hoff and all the athletes in Beijing right now. Because I can promise you - no computer graphics were used in that relay finish.  That was the real deal - and that's what it's all about.

Another cool Olympic pic from my Dad

Got another pic from Dad as he's been working on the Olympics, spending a lot of time at the Water Cube:

This is where Michael Phelps won the gold medal in the 400 IM, beating his own best time (which happened to be the world record) by 1.41 seconds. In case you don't see him, Phelps is the guy in front of the line, behind the lady in traditional Chinese garb; and he's holding a big shiny gold thing around his neck.  :)

I'm awed by this picture for two reasons: one, the fact that my Dad was/is close enough to take shots like this.  Second, because Michael Phelps is an amazing swimmer.  And it's kind of sad - if it were some other sport that draws more collective interest, like football or basketball, this guy would be bigger than, say, LeBron James.  He's that good.  And what he's doing for swimming is unprecedented in the sport.  Probably the best way to describe it is that he's doing for swimming what Tiger Woods has done for golf.

I swam competitively for over ten years myself - never close to this level, of course.  Coached for about seven years and still do on occasion.  I swam the 400 IM in one meet and it about killed me.  So I have a tremendous appreciation for all he's doing.

One gold medal down, seven to go (and hopefully seven more pics like this from my Dad!)

Family Ties to the Olympics

Check this out:

This is a picture my Dad took of the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics last night (or technically yesterday morning, I guess). Which, of course, means he was actually there.  And that, like my Dad, is very cool.

An explanation is in store here.  For the past 12 years my father has worked with the Olympics, beginning in Atlanta 1996.  At the time Dad was employed by IBM, who had been hired to handle all the communications and technology for the games.  A few days before the Olympics started, Dad's boss "asked" him to board the next flight out of Raleigh-Durham to Atlanta - apparently they had run into a few glitches and needed his help.  Dad did and spent the next three weeks working 20-hour days and having the time of his life.

He's been involved with every Olympics since - let me see if I can do this by memory:  Summer 1996 Atlanta, Winter 1998 Nagano, Summer 2000 Sydney, Winter 2002 Salt Lake, Summer 2004 Athens, Winter 2006 Torino, and now Beijing.  I'm still learning exactly what he does, but as I've come to understand it he works as a liaison between the local Olympic committees, the International Olympic Committee, and the various sports federations to make all the arrangements for the technology behind the games.  Dad and few other folks have sports they're assigned to (this time around Dad has swimming, baseball, diving, softball, synchronized swimming and table tennis) and spends the better part of two years prior getting everything ready.  There is understandably travel involved, but he actually gets to do a lot of the work on his laptop computer in his suburban Raleigh home, going to the site 2-3 times for a couple of weeks at a time.

I love the fact my Dad gets to do this.  He always has some amazing stories to tell - how he met certain athletes, saw all kinds of people, experienced things the vast majority of the rest of us never will.  I remember my brother and me going to see him and Mom in Nagano a month before the games started, and how he took us to all kinds of venues (we have pictures of my brother and me in the ice hockey penalty box, on the podium where the ice skaters waited nervously for their scores, at the top of the luge run holding onto the metal handles).  On a more serious note, I remember talking on the phone with him after the bombing at the 1996 games in Atlanta, and how had he been in his office he might've been hit by imploding glass.

Most of all I'm proud of my Dad.  He'll never say this himself, but it's a fact that there are literally only a half-dozen human beings on the planet who know all the nuances and details of the job he does.  Now that's job security!  And I live vicariously through him as he gets to witness some amazing things, like the lighting of the Beijing torch last night (a must-see if you haven't already).

So as we all keep our eyes glued to the set (and the internet, for that matter) over the next three weeks, I'll certainly be thinking about all the great competition and the athletes that make it possible.  But I'll also be thinking of my Dad, and invite you to do the same as well.