London Calling!

Happy Friday to you.

I hope it has been a good week. Today after 7 years of planning the 2012 Summer Olympics shall commence in London England. Two weeks worth of drama, storylines, teams. faces, places, and undoubtedly quite a few surprises. Indeed Texas is going to be well represented for this Olympiad across the water and I expect great things to happen in the interim.

What I am more grabbed by is the veritable plethora of social media that will be flying across the world as events happen. I recently read where over 3,500 hours of footage will be available to watch online one's computer for the next two weeks. This to me would be one way to recoup a modicum of fees for someone like an NBC plunked down for the right to exclusively cover the events. Win a couple of Gold Medals and you will clean up with endorsements a la Mary Lou Retton, Kurt Thomas, or Eric Heiden. How's that for old school?

It seems we learn about new faces when the games are in motion. I still get a chill when I think back to what Sugar Ray Leonard did in Montreal 1976. The Miracle on Ice in 1980 in Lake Placid New York. Mark Spitz 1972 in Munich. Carl Lewis in Los Angeles 1984...

Admittedly it will be tough for me to maintain focus on the summer games as Pro Football training camps also start their buildup to Opening Night. Playoff races beginning to take shape in Major League Baseball especially in places like the Bay Area and Ohio. A 3 team race is now imminent in the A.L. West. I will openly root for the merits of a Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt while wondering aloud how a Mark Spitz or a Rafer Johnson might have fared in a head-to-head matchup.

Here is hoping the events of the day tell the story better than the politics that tend to surround these events or the biases some in the media might try to infuse if certain teams show more mettle than others. Here is also the hope that these games go off without any hitches or unspoken/unforeseen tragedies (Think Munich 9/5/72). May the actions of people proclaiming their patriotism do so in such a manner that they are not scoffed at as behaving inanely ignorant.

More importantly, may the human element of overcoming odds, defying the possible, and performing the improbable, exceed in a manner indomitable. A manner that to the viewer shall amaze and make the world of social media go into a tailspin of conjecture. That in a way would also be a game unto itself.

Happy Viewing! May the English experience be one that carries many magnanimous memories for the athletes, the coaches, the fans, and yes even the sponsors.

Over and out in Big D.

Mr. Will