A Sports Fans Dream
Why The Winter Olympics are So Important
While We Await the Super Bowl, Winter Sports Takes a Front Seat
The Winter Olympics denotes a special time of the year. For a sports fan during the year of the Olympics, February is a great month. This weekend alone, I’ve watched professional boxing, Professional Bull Riding, NASCAR, PGA Golf, Super Cup Stock Car Series, the NFL Pro Bowl, and all the festivities that go along with it, like the Punt, Pass, and Kick competition. But February also has so many more awesome sporting events like the NFL Super Bowl and of course, the Winter Olympics Opening ceremonies and all the sports activities that we only get to see during these international multi-sport games.
Twenty-five years ago, a movie starring Jodie Foster named “Contact,” captivated me taught me that the 1936 Berlin, Germany Olympic games were the first to be televised with radio broadcasts reaching 41 countries.
In “Contact,” Foster hears the first guttural, throbbing message transmitted by other-worldly life using the world’s most powerful radio telescope, the Very Large Array in Socorro, New Mexico, a collection of 27 antennas spread in a three-armed configuration across the desert.
If you haven’t seen this movie, you should really put it on your list of movies to watch, especially if you enjoy good, engaging science fiction movies. This movie has length — I think it is two and a half hours. It has depth of characters — the cast is awesome and now that they are much older, you are probably very familiar with their work — like James Woods, Angela Bassett, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerritt, and David Morse who also appears in another of my favorite movies, “The Negotiator,” with Samuel L. Jackson.
The first portion of the movie is trying to figure out this mysterious guttural, throbbing message transmitted from outer space. Since I’ve already given the spoiler, and the movie is 25 years old (older than both my children), I’m ok with telling you that the televised Olympic games are a central theme in this first communication — where the extraterrestrials’ make ‘Contact’ with planet Earth.
So just with that point in itself points out why the Olympics are so important. Now clearly, the first televised games weren’t the Winter Olympics, but beyond that, the opportunity for our global community to compete against one another builds upon the spirit of comradery, brotherhood and sisterhood.
As a people, we need goals. We need to have things to achieve and accomplish. While many of us may never compete at the global level, we may still enjoy partaking in the competitions themselves. Even non-sports fans tune in to watch the Olympics. They help to unite us in the spirit of global competition.
About the Author
Julius Evans is a 2X Top Writer on Medium in Writing and Music. He has a Master of Arts degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI; a Master of Arts degree in Strategic Communication and Leadership from Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ; a Bachelor of Science degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from City University, Bellevue, WA, and an Associate of Arts Degree in Liberal Studies from Central Texas College, Killeen, Texas. He is a 1985 graduate of the Defense Information School (DINFOS) of Print and Electronic Journalism and Advanced Public Affairs. DINFOS was relocated from Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, IN, to its current location at Fort George Meade, MD.
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