The 2016 Olympics finished a week ago and I have been thinking about them all week. I rarely get engrossed in sports and the spectacle of it all. I used to be more into sports just for the stats around it. I have a background in Statistics and it has surprisingly played a key role in many of my jobs over the years. Sports is full of stats. The way they are used to describe and explain everything has been fascinating.
I was really into basketball--especially around March Madness. That is the spectacle of college basketball that occurs every year in the month of March. Teams are ranked and then they play all month until the final two are left. It starts with a field of 68. It progresses through the Second Round, Third Round, Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four, and finally the national championship. All along the way, much is made of the statistics surrounding the teams and the likelihood of any one team making it to the championship. I was well versed in all of it and could blithely rattle off various facts at any point during the month. Then, it became a big spectacle and I lost interest. I still maintain that the greatest draw to March Madness is that there is true randomness and luck at play more often that not. Some people would disagree with me, but I'm willing to bet I'm right.
Which brings me to the Olympics.
I have remained a rabid fan of it ever since I could remember. My earliest memories of the Olympics were of me watching it with my brothers. It was one of the few television shows that our parents would allow us to watch non-stop without supervision. My brothers and I were transfixed as we watched tragedies and winning stories unfolding. None of us participated insports and so watching others perform what seemed to be impossible feats to us was endlessly entertaining and instructive. Naively, we always came away feeling that with enough hard work and perseverance anyone could win medals. We also knew than none of us would ever aspire to that. We just respected it. I have a lot of fond memories of the time that I spent with my brothers watching the Olympics.
I remember when Title IX came into effect in 1972. What is Title IX? Title IX states that: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
There were so many arguments against it. Laughingly, men at the time thought that it would take money away from them and that there would be "preference" given to women. Obviously, that didn't come to pass. But, it's so funny how people interpret these things. They forget the state of sports at that time. All of the money was being funneled into men's sports. Sadly, women couldn't get any attention or get to participate in many sports. I'm glad that law passed and was enforced. Because, we have finally seen the fruit of it, more than 40 years later in the Olympics. Sad, that it has taken that long, though.
Through the years, I remained a fan of the Olympics and would devote whatever time was needed to watch everything happen--real time or not. I watched everything. It was the one time that I could see sports that wouldn't normally be televised. I learned about archery, rowing, judo, boxing, gymnastics, diving, alpine skiing, ice dancing, speed skating, swimming, synchronized swimming, track and field. It was all good, no matter what. I also saw more women doing sports. Men dominate sports the rest of the year. In fact, they dominate all of the time until those 17 days of the Olympics show up.
Despite the politics and all of the economic mess surrounding this particular Olympics, I will remember it as the year when women took home more medals than the men did (at least they did that for the United States). They consistently won medals when the men didn't. Most significantly, African American women took home enough medals to place 3rd as a nation in and of itself. They even swept the 100 meter hurdles--gold, silver, and bronze. Take that, haters! And yes, this is a direct consequence of Title IX.
Women win and wow, do they!
