It's all too easy to forget as we approach the strife-filled Olympics this week what excellence and awe-inspiring accomplishments can happen as the world watches with full hearts and hopeful eyes.
Wednesday was the 80th anniversary of Jesse Owens winning the 100-meter dash in Berlin. In front of Adolf Hitler.
Jay GreesonIn a lot of ways, as the Summer Olympics are set to open in Rio on Friday, we could use another Owens-like performance in the wake of the discontent and ill will inside our borders and out.
With suffocating pressure and scrutiny, Owens won four golds in those Games. A staggering performance under any measure and under even the best circumstances, but a truly historic one considering the racial tensions around the world, especially in Nazi Germany.
It's a pretty fitting reminder, too, as we approach these Games, considering all of the negativity surrounding this event.
Certainly, a lot of those issues have been self-inflicted by the organizers in Brazil and the International Olympic Committee.
It started with concerns about the Zika virus.
It spread to the concerns of the disgusting water where the open-water swimming and many rowing events will be held. The waters are filled with human waste and things so vile that when the report this summer of a human foot washing ashore from that bay and landing about 50 yards from the beach volleyball venue came in, it barely surprised anyone.
The security concerns - both from the constant criminal element in Rio, which averaged about 12 murders a day in the last available stats, and the terror community - are real.
All of this has been well discussed. Now, add in the protests from the Brazilians who are trying to extinguish the Olympic Torch as it makes it to Friday's opening ceremony, and the tension of these games may be as high as any since Owens. The Brazilians are rightfully upset because of the Games' $12 billion price tag picked up by a country that struggles to afford education and health care and even has been forced to delay payment to city and state employees.
Here's a thought about having roughly eight or so venues that the Summer and Winter Games rotate among that already have a large part of the infrastructure to support them. That way the boondoggle that has become one country or the next going bankrupt for a two-week athletic festival can be limited if not entirely avoided.
Case in point, these games will cost roughly $12 billion - about 50 percent more than the NFL will make in the next year - and that's with the country spending about $275 million less than it pledged to clean the bay and with a lion's share of the Olympic village not being done in time.
Still, here's hoping that the headlines and takeaways starting Friday are about the athletes and their accomplishments.
Because between the security threats and the conditions of the venues and facilities and the worries about bugs and viruses, the Olympics should be about history and achievement in arguably the last true meritocracy we have left.
The Games should be about Owens, athletically sticking his finger in Hitler's eye.
The Games should be about a collection of college hockey players shocking the world and stunning the globe by beating a Russian team viewed as the best in the world, amateur and professional.
The Games should be about finding the next Mary Lou Retton or Kerri Strug or fill in the blank about the 10,000-watt smiling champion who wins hearts and claims the cover of the Wheaties box.
The Games should be about finding the next Michael Phelps and saying a heartfelt thanks for the memories to the current Michael Phelps.
You can fill in the blank with a million memories, and thankfully the athletic triumphs have always outnumbered the lasting scars of the bombings in 1972 or in 1996.
On this stage, here's a silent prayer for greatness rather than cruelty. For champions of sport rather than masters of fear.
Here's for a games as magical, memorable and heroic as Jesse Owens was 80 years ago.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and 423-757-6343. His "Right to the Point" column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays on A2.