Light The Cauldron

Olympic fame is weird. It's not like movie fame, or music fame, or even sports  fame, if you can believe it! Olympic fame is an explosion. No one knows who you are, then suddenly you're on the world's biggest stage. If you don't perform well, then you're just going to fade away. But if you do perform up to standards - and even win a gold medal - the spotlight shines brightly on you. You're only known for one thing, and you need to have the stamina and personality to handle all the media attention. The USOC is always trekking out their top athletes for various events because they're hoping to raise the funds needed to support all their athletes. (Our government does not support Team USA with any funds, unlike many countries.) NBC will plaster an Olympian's face all over their advertising and stick a camera in their face when they compete in order to get more viewers. And sometimes, the spotlight can get pretty hot. This week at the US Swimming N

Two years can seem like an incredibly long time. Two years can also seem like the blink of an eye. For me, looking into the horizon at the Opening Ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in two years, I am full of PANIC! Panic because there's so much to do. I like to make lists, and my list for my trip to Japan is very, very long. To make matters worse, I can't start to make plans until the schedules have been set and the reservation windows open, and I don't know when that is going to happen!  Nothing can quite beat the fear that I'm going to be doing something else, then return to find out that not only the reservations opened, but they sold out before I could get there. It's full-on FOMO. Here's a snippet of my list: airline reservations hotel reservations (or AirBNB) make a list of tourist locations to visit (probably save Tokyo Disneyland for another trip) find all the best ramen shops and mark them on GoogleMaps figure out how I'm goin

Every month that we're in school, my students watch a Christian show called Kids Connection . It's a ten-minute program that shows kids from all over the world doing things to "stay connected to Jesus" (that's the tagline of the show). By watching these other groups of kids, my students are getting connected to a global network of kids and understanding that people from all over the world do the same things they do! The global reach of the Olympics is strong for about one month every two years, but it's staying  connected that is the the true challenge. I've written about it before - I know. But over the past few months I've discovered even more ways that sports federations, athletes, and even the IOC are maintaining a connection with Olympic fans during the quadrennial cycle. By the way, I love that name: quadrennial . Social media is the #1 way that we are able to stay connected. Not only can you follow your favorite athlete, but you al

Here's an interesting tweet I saw today: Today, if you weren't aware, was the World Cup Final between France and Croatia. France won, 4-2. Millions of people watched the tournament over the past month. But really? "NOTHING IN THE WORLD is like this?" I disagree. I might write an Olympic blog, but even if I didn't, I feel like the Olympic Games are more of a uniting experience than the World Cup. The World Cup is one sport: soccer/football - whatever you call it. One country wins the title. And that's it! This past week there were four games: two semifinal matches, one third place match, and one final. The other three days, nothing happened. Take a look at the Olympics. Two weeks crammed full of all kinds of sports - including football . You don't like football? Fine. Over here they're doing shooting! Over here is swimming! Over here is table tennis! Is your team not very good at football? Not a problem - they're probably good at some

Thanks for being flexible with my posting schedule as of late! I was attending school for the past four weeks - ten credits worth of classes crammed into a month, if you can believe it. Not only did we have 3 1/2 hour classes daily for two weeks, we had nearly the same amount of homework! Last weekend I had four long-term assignments on which to work, and I just didn't have the time or energy to work out an article. Now that the semester is done, I can concentrate a little more on my blog. However, I do have a little obstacle to overcome that's making me a little nervous: I am cutting my cable. As of tomorrow (Monday, July 9) I will no longer have to pay money for television that I barely watch. Honestly, the only reason I had the cable was to get unlimited access to watch the Olympics. Last year I expanded my package in order to get the Olympic Channel - a worthwhile addition, but not enough to justify paying as much money as I am each month. I purchased the track an