First, a little background. When squash became a Pan American sport in the early 1990’s, squash fell under the umbrella of the US Olympic Committee.
The USOC is made up of an Executive Committee, a Board of Directors, the Community Based Sports Council (where representatives from things like the YMCA, YWCA, Police Athletic League, NCAA, Disabled Sports Organizations sit), the National Governing Body Council (the USSRA is a National Governing Body) and the Athlete Advisory Council. Each sport covered by the USOC elects one representative to the Athlete Advisory Council (AAC) for a four-year term. Since 1996, one of my biggest honors in squash has been to be squash’s athlete representative to the AAC.
There are 48 athletes on the AAC, and many of them are Olympic medallists. One of the cooler things about being on the AAC is the athletes I have met who are now close friends. At the start of a four-year term (called a “quad”), the AAC elects two at-large athletes to serve on the Executive Committee. Last year, through a series of strange events, I was stunned to find myself elected as one of those two athletes.
It has been a strange and overwhelming experience. Not only am I the first squash player ever to serve on the Executive Committee, but I also am the first Pan American athlete to be so elected. It has taken an incredible amount of my time, but there have been some amazing moments. One of the latter is that I was a member of the Olympic family (code words for “very VIP”) for the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.
As a member of the Olympic family, I received the clothing you saw on television, great seats for the events I wanted to see, and extended opportunities to meet amazing people. But my most memorable moment came about five days before the start of the Games.
I was eating dinner with Chris Duplanty (USA Water Polo goalie and silver medallist) and Cammy Myler (best US woman’s luger ever) at a local bar-restaurant. We were wearing our Team USA jackets, and so we probably were attracting a bit of attention in the bar (“Are those athletes, do you think?”).
About halfway through the dinner, Cammy said that I seemed distracted. She was right; I was watching this very cheerful five-year-old girl have dinner with her ten-year-old brother and mother. She was too little to sit normally in her chair and reach the table, so she was kneeling. I loved that. Sometimes it is the little things that get you.
As their dinner unfolded, it became clear that they were celebrating the boy’s tenth birthday. It also became clear that this was a single mom who was doing her best to make ends meet. It turned out that she is a bartender at the local airport in Salt Lake, and she brought her kids to this place because her friends would help take care of her.
The little boy had bright red hair, freckles and a charmingly innocent smile. When dinner ended, one of the waitresses brought out a cake in a pan and lit the candles. The mom then asked the little girl if she wanted to start the singing.
The little girl nodded eagerly, then got off her chair and stood looking at her brother with a smile. It seemed like she wanted to sing loudly, but her nerves got the better of her, and she started a very sweet, soft and prettily off-key version of Happy Birthday.
But it was enough. The patrons of the restaurant figured it out by the second verse, and moments later, the whole restaurant was singing Happy Birthday with gusto. The boy was trying not to smile, but he couldn’t help it, and his smile eventually grew huge.
Then the crowd started yelling, “Speech! Speech!” Astonishingly, the boy seemed to want to say something. Everyone got quiet, and Robert – as it turned out was his name – timidly waved and said, “Thank you.” The crowd roared with delight.
Well, we were finished paying at this point, and I reached in my pocket to put on the Olympic beret I had received as part of my Olympic family clothing, when I had an idea. I went over to the table, presented him with the cap said, “Happy Birthday, Robert. This is an official US Team hat that only the athletes wear.”
His mouth went wide open, and he didn’t say anything. Unbeknownst to me, the crowd was watching this, and they started clapping. In a moment the cheers turned to a chant of, “U!S!A! U!S!A!”
So, no, I can’t sell my beret on eBay for hundreds of dollars, but I can say I was there when a crowd at a bar unwittingly gave a squash player his first Olympic cheer.
