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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>From Rick Reilly’s “Life of Reilly” column
of today’s (January 20, 2006) Sports Illustrated –<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Keep Skeleton In the Closet<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>By Rick Reilly<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>People do dumb things. Ride grocery carts on I-95. Pet
porcupines. I once saw a guy in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vancouver</st1:place></st1:City>
light his beard on fire for $2. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>But at least they never made a Winter Olympic sport out of
those. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>And I'm including lawn darts. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>In skeleton, people dress in rubber suits, lie on a
glorified lunch tray and slide down a hill. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>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!" <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>But that's not the stupidest thing. The stupidest thing is
that all across <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
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?" <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>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 <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Vermont</st1:place></st1:State>. Wilford Brimley could've been on
the team if he'd have thought of it. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Do you know how many people skeleton in the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>
-- at any level, including beginners? "I'd say about 100," says <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> Olympic
skeleton spokesman Tom LaDue. "Maybe 200." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Whoooo-eee! Skeleton Fever: Catch it! <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>What's next? Pizza-box sliding? Synchronized frostbite? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>And do you know who was the best male skeletoner in the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region> 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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>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! <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>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 <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lund</st1:place></st1:City>
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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>So I've decided I'm going to invent my own sport -- using a
venue that already exists -- and win myself a gold medal. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>"Man, did you see that ol' boy win the Zamboni jump?
Made you proud to be an American, dinnit?" <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Footnote for those who believe in jinxes: Seattle Seahawks
QB Matt Hasselbeck was on this week’s cover of Sports Illustrated.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Take care, <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Moscow</st1:place></st1:City>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Tom Hansen<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Moscow</span></font></st1:City><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>, <st1:State
w:st="on">Idaho</st1:State></span></font></st1:place><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>"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!'"</span><o:p></o:p></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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