20-Year Old Olympic Soul

August 6, 2008

 

 

20-Year Old Olympic Soul

 

Seeing the Seoul Olympic stadium again, 20 years after the privilege of competing in the Olympic Games, wasn’t as dramatic as I thought it would be. 

 

Not that my memories of Seoul ‘88 were ordinary.  Quite the contrary, these were the Games when boxer Leopoldo Serrantes won bronze for our country.  I can still picture Serrantes dropping to his knees when the referee declared victory.  I also remember watching Steffi Graf and Greg Louganis compete, plus I saw them at the Olympic Village, heading to the dining hall to eat.  For those moments I felt like their equal — even superstars get hungry like me! 

 

While in Korea last month, I had occasion to return to these memories.  Then I wondered what the adjective “Olympian” has meant to me for the past 20 years.  I had plenty of time to reflect because, for one, I couldn’t flag any cab down at the Seoul stadium.  Upon landing in Manila, my luggage was one of the last to come out.  Then on EDSA, what else can you do but think “heavy” when you’re stuck in heavy traffic.    

 

Over the years, I notice I always pick the wrong line at Jollibee.  I’m still subject to No I.D. No Entry.  And a virus killed the files in my USB.  Truth is the adjective is not a free pass to anything.  I’m not complaining, and I ask for no special treatment.  Other people actually volunteer that bit of info about me (someone said I’m modest and very proud of it).  Truth is I’ve been worried to write this piece knowing I’ll have to say I’m such and such.  Go ahead, roll your eyes, I could’ve picked a different topic, but I didn’t.

 

Not too many people know, but Leopoldo Serrantes has been confined at the Veterans Memorial Hospital the past two years due to a lung ailment.  High profile individuals helped him with medical bills, but he used the money to pay overdue rent.  The world’s third best light-flyweight in 1988 couldn’t pay rent.    

 

Some Filipino Olympians have lost dignity.  At the run-down and dirty national stadium named after our national hero, sometimes I would see them, stooped, shoulders down, hearts down.  Once upon a time they were literally our country’s best.  It is improbable that human beings of such high caliber could fall, but they did.  It appears they don’t even bother to dream of shining again, not anymore in their sport, but in simply belonging to the right line.

 

Some other Olympians have lost a different kind of dignity, and sadly, they don’t even know it.  They’ve lost moral fiber.  Sadder for them if they do know, so, they compensate their consciences with the carnivorous consumption that comes with corruption.  It is sorrowful that sportsmen who grew up being steadfast could spiral so swiftly down and out of scruples. 

 

Maybe it’s unwarranted to place grand expectations on people who just happen to be Olympians.  Many of them cheat, as you know, doping is always in the news.  And people cannot avoid sometimes being down on their luck (with rent, with health, with family, with emotions, with day to day living).  I’ve faced burdens beyond the trivial, and I admit I wasn’t always so strong. 

 

But I owe a duty to the sheer weight of this word.  Olympian is not only an adjective.  It is a big noun.  It is a powerful verb.  I have an obligation to keep my Olympic soul intact.  The once and future Olympians of pure virtue compete not for glory or gold, but for the beauty of what can be.  I cannot dishonor their philosophy.

 

Twenty years is now longer than the years it took me to become one.  By now I should’ve reached heights beyond the peaks of Mount Olympus if the spirit is supposed to keep me surging.  Or have I fallen too?  Do I need to return to sports just to prove my worth (and so be endorsing instead of queuing the slowest lines at Jollibee)?  It’s never too late, nor is anyone too old to be elite if your heart wills it –- just look at 39-year old American Sheila Toarmina, who’ll be competing in Beijing in her fourth Olympics, but in her third sport (Swimming 1996; Triathlon 2000 & 2004; Modern Pentathlon 2008)!

 

Back at the Seoul stadium, fantastic as it is, I realized it’s only a building.   The drama of climbing a whole mountain of valorous living is Olympian enough. 

 

 

Professor Rene F. Concepcion is a full-time faculty member at the De La Salle University Ramon V. del Rosario Sr. Graduate School of Business.  He is currently on his one-year sabbatical, but continues to be the head coach of the DLSU – Manila varsity swim team.  This is the first of Prof. Concepcion’s three-part series on the Olympic Games.  You may send your comments to concepcionr@dlsu.edu.ph.  The second part will appear on August 20, 2008.  

 

ARTICLE FOR THE COLUMN MIRROR IMAGE (BUSINESS MIRROR AUGUST 7, 2008)