f ever I wanted to be at the Olympics it was this time in Athens and for a simple reason. Very close friends of ours have a son whose dream it has been to appear as an athlete at the games. They have been a sort of nomadic Swiss family, because Richard, the father, has been the station chief for Swiss Air Lines in several parts of the world; from Hong Kong and South Africa to Los Angeles and elsewhere. Dominic and his younger brother Pascal are both superb athletes. While the younger concentrates on tennis, the older fellow fell in love with swimming long before he entered his teen years. I can remember his plunging into our backyard pool and swimming for seemingly hours on end. And then he had a real crisis. He crushed his hip in an accident and he was told to forget swimming, he'd be lucky if he would ever walk again. He was tenacious.
This weekend gone by I turned on the tube and saw Dominic represent Switzerland in both the 100 and 200 meters. He didn't win the gold, silver or bronze and he didn't match his own best ever times, but he proved himself to be in the top dozen swimmers anywhere in the world. He will return to Switzerland ,a hero in the eyes of that little land-locked country and then go on to U.C. Berkeley. Four years from now, if he retains his drive and enthusiasm, the cameras will be focused on Dominic...at about the same time that Wimbledon will be welcoming Pascal.

I am proudly American and love to cheer for the local team in international contests...but sometimes there are exceptions to that rule. I was not the slightest bit saddened to see our basketball team go down to defeat to Puerto Rico. We played badly, they were a team one might have expected to be out of their league, and they were excellent. Our team, even without the stellar names of the yesteryear Dreamteams, had a fair share of NBA millionaires - they were overflowing with All-Stars. I think the world is playing a much better game than they did even four years ago. Of course this group is not the Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson group of the Barcelona games.
Now, the other nation's teams, having seen how we can play poor defense...how we can even miss sixteen consecutive 3-pointers and look disorganized and hardly coached have suddenly realized that we are merely human and beatable. That has to be good for the game.
I'll be watching. And you?