Olympics

[bkbjones]

Ed,
Please don't take it personal, but I think you're either high, uninformed or just don't know much about this stuff.

There is an international softball body in place. ISF is headquartered in Florida and has helped further the spread of softball around the world. Don Porter and others will admit they were rather blindsided by the actions of the IOC and are working hard to get softball reinstated for the 2012 Olympics. Failing that, you can be certain they will do everything possible to have a major softball event, such as the World Cup, in or around London in 2012. I think Regents Park would be a nice place for it...but failing that, there are many fine places just right for the world's best softball tournament.

A reactionary view such as withholding money from IOC or, God forbid, USOC, would do little to further softball but would serve two purposes:
1. Piss off folks in the IOC who are borderline anti-American.
2. Hamstring American athletes. As we all know, many of them work steady jobs (do they all still work for Home Depot, like in the commercials?). They don't need to be busy with car washes and bake sales.

We've already seen one fine example of when we told IOC to go to hell: the 1980 Olympics. A good friend of mine was on the women's basketball team. Jill Rankin had to go to the White House and pretend to smile when she received her "gold medal" from President Carter. She's never worn it since. It's been in a safe deposity box for most of the last 25 years.

What did many other countries do? Screw the U.S., we're not going to LA in 1984.

Let's not spite the IOC. Let's work to get softball back in the 2012 games - and beyond.