Daily Trojan - September 29, 2000 I'm A Loser Baby, So Why Don't You Kill Me? by RAYMOND LEW I am, once again, deeply saddened by the state of our society — the society that all too often dotes upon the winners, never bothering to give any attention to the big-time losers. Take the Olympics...please. "Team USA wins baseball gold!" "Jones wins the 100m!" "Krayzelburg sets a new Olympic record!" This time-worn tradition of lauding our Olympic heroes — if you can call them that — has gone too far. I want real headlines. Something new, something revolutionary...something humorously depressing. How about, "U.S. gymnasts stink up Sydney! Five spectators die from suffocation!" or "Devers pulls up lame in the 100m hurdles, claims, 'My shoelaces were untied!'" See what I mean? It's a lot more exciting than, "Dream Team only wins by 45 points! Point-fixing investigation to follow." Sure, you'll hear stories about drugs and doping — not to mention those horrid silver medals (good God! Who wants one of those?). In reality, these "loser" headlines are watered down, always managing to focus on that one strand of silver lining. "Yes, the U.S. gymnasts performed horribly, but there's another Olympics in just four years!" I say, "No more silver lining. No more buried stories. No more downplaying the role of the loser." I like losers. Losers are my friends. That said, here is my tribute to the losers of the XXVII Olympiad. It is a rundown of those who have faltered because of their poor judgment, circumstances beyond their control or their own stupidity. Regardless, they managed to lose with charm and grace, yet were never truly given the attention they deserve (OK, they actually did get a lot of attention in most cases...humor me). It is only through their trials and tribulations, through their heartbreak and disappointment, through their blood, pain and tears that we may one day learn to respect those which we so easily ridicule. Team Handball: They say it's a cross between basketball, soccer and rugby. In Sydney, the four top-ranked teams in the world all made it to the semi-finals. No one cares. Laura Wilkinson: The 22-year-old from The Woodlands, Texas, won an improbable gold in the women's 10m platform; however, Wilkinson refused to take any credit for her own performance, citing God as the doer of all that was perfect in diving. Medal count for the Olympics: God, 73; Mortals, 215. God to Wilkinson: "Sucker!" Gymnastics officials: These are the guys who set the horse on the women's vault two inches too short, resulting in many low scores and teary-eyed gymnasts. But, in all honesty, Olympic coaches should have been suspicious of the officials when they referred to the uneven bars, balance beam, floor exercise and vault as "the little jungle gym," "the square log," "the play area" and "the leap of death." Svetlana Khorkina: The Russian gymnast's chances at the individual all-around title were ruined when she missed her first vault (with the horse set two inches shorter than regulation) and later fell off the uneven bars. Favored to win gold, she finished 11th overall. Regarding the vault controversy, Khorkina was quoted as saying, "It's quite possible to get killed." However, video replays reveal that her actual statement was, "Someone will get killed for this very soon." Khorkina redeemed herself the next day by winning gold on the uneven bars. Overcome with emotion, the Russian gymnast walked back on stage and kissed the apparatus. Privately, Khorkina told the uneven bars, "You're a lot longer and sturdier than that dumb horse. And besides, he was two inches too short." C.J. Hunter: The American shot putter tested positive for drugs not once, not twice, but four times. Hunter flatly denied taking any banned substances, although some speculate that there may have been traces of the drug Nandrolone in food supplements he had been taking. Hunter: "I didn't know they were drugs." Marion Jones: U.S. sprinter was supposed to bask in the media spotlight in her quest for five gold medals; instead, her performance was overshadowed by the plight of her husband, C.J. Hunter. "I didn't know he was my husband," Jones said. Dick Ebersol: The man with the master plan — the president of NBC sports who decided to broadcast the games on an 18-hour tape delay. Ebersol quipped, "With today's primitive means of communication, there is no way that spoilers could reveal the outcome of the Games before they air." It was also later revealed that Ebersol had never heard of the Internet and giggled like a little schoolgirl when someone let him use the telephone. And now for the ultimate losers: TV viewers who watched the entire Olympic Games. Slow week, eh? Copyright 2000 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved. This article was published in Vol. 141, No. 23 (Friday, September 29, 2000), beginning on page 7 and ending on page 8.