[Vision2020] Keep Skeleton In the Closet

Fri Jan 20 15:27:39 PST 2006

>From Rick Reilly's "Life of Reilly" column of today's (January 20, 2006)
Sports Illustrated -

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Keep Skeleton In the Closet

By Rick Reilly

People do dumb things. Ride grocery carts on I-95. Pet porcupines. I once
saw a guy in Vancouver light his beard on fire for $2. 

But at least they never made a Winter Olympic sport out of those. 

You can't say that for skeleton, which is not just the dumbest Winter
Olympic event ever invented, but it also might be the dumbest sport ever
invented. 

And I'm including lawn darts. 

In skeleton, people dress in rubber suits, lie on a glorified lunch tray and
slide down a hill. 

That's it. There's no strategy, no passing anybody. No getting air, no doing
flips, no Dick Button. Nothing. Get on the slab of metal and point it
downhill. 

And yet for the next month NBC is going to make this sport seem like it's
the equivalent of saving cafeterias full of kidnapped third-graders. Bob
Costas is going to sit there with a straight face and tell you, "In this
next report we'll tell you how one skeletoner bravely slides despite a
pretty big strawberry on her elbow!" 

But that's not the stupidest thing. The stupidest thing is that all across
America, people will actually care! They'll stand around the company coffee
pot going, "Man, did you see that ol' boy win skeleton? Made you proud to be
an American, dinnit?" 

No! This sport is about as Olympian as dwarf tossing! It just happened to
find an unlocked back door into the Games. Most of its competitors didn't
even take up the stupid sport until last Thursday. For instance, there's
2004 national champ Eric Bernotas. He discovered skeleton in 2001 when he
and his former girlfriend took a spur-of-the-moment detour to the Lake
Placid track while they were on their way to Vermont. Wilford Brimley
could've been on the team if he'd have thought of it. 

Do you know how many people skeleton in the United States -- at any level,
including beginners? "I'd say about 100," says U.S. Olympic skeleton
spokesman Tom LaDue. "Maybe 200." 

Whoooo-eee! Skeleton Fever: Catch it! 

What's next? Pizza-box sliding? Synchronized frostbite? 

How did they even get skeleton back in the Olympics, after it was rightly
dumped in 1948? It was rediscovered by thrill-seekers in the early 1980s,
and pretty soon they were pushing for it to be in the Olympics again. And
since the Winter Olympics are stretched thinner than Joan Rivers's neck --
there are enough real sports for seven days, but the Games go 17 -- the IOC
bought it. Probably because it's such a cheap sport to run. "You use the
same venue as the bobsled, same stands, same cameras, everything's already
there," says Jim Shea Jr., a onetime bobsledder who was part of the movement
to get the sport reinstated for the Salt Lake City Games in 2002. 

And do you know who was the best male skeletoner in the USA back in 2002?
That's right, Jim Shea Jr.! And do you know how he'd gotten to be the best
male skeletoner? He was working as a bartender, "saw some jackass doing it,"
he admits, and thought he'd try it. The only trick is to hang on when you
hit 80 miles per hour. You need a strong grip and weak brains. 

Next thing you know, Shea's reading the athletic oath at the Opening
Ceremonies in front of four billion people! Holding the torch! Visiting Bush
at the White House! I mean, it was almost like people thought he was a
serious athlete! 

Anyway, this bunch of lucky stiffs somehow got invited to the debutante
ball, and now they're bathing in the punch bowl. So far, the U.S. skeleton
team has ... 1) suspended its coach, Tim Nardiello, because two female
skeletonesses have accused him of sexual misconduct; 2) seen one of its best
(cough-cough) athletes, Noelle Pikus-Pace, break her leg after falling from
a platform near the bobsled track that got hit by -- guess what? -- a
bobsled; and 3) watched one skeletoner, Zach Lund, test positive for a
substance which can be used to mask performance enhancing drugs. 

And your first reaction is, Dude, you're sliding on a frickin' cake pan! How
much performance enhancing do you need? But then you find out that Lund
claims the drug was from a baldness treatment he was taking. Poor guy. In
one story people found out two embarrassing things about him: 1) He's
balding; 2) he skeletons. 

So I've decided I'm going to invent my own sport -- using a venue that
already exists -- and win myself a gold medal. 

"Man, did you see that ol' boy win the Zamboni jump? Made you proud to be an
American, dinnit?" 

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Footnote for those who believe in jinxes:  Seattle Seahawks QB Matt
Hasselbeck was on this week's cover of Sports Illustrated.

Take care, Moscow.

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
sideways, chocolate in one hand, a drink in the other, body thoroughly used
up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO. What a ride!'"

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