Goodbye, expertise

Well, the Olympics are over. I'm always sad to see the Olympics end, partially for the same reason most people are: the end for another four years of watching history being made and legends being born. The end of watching the greatest athletes in the world competing and imagining yourself in their shoes, if only stupid Mr. Crandall in 6th grade had given you just a bit more of a chance in track, I mean come on, you'd think the old bastard was paying for the cleats himself. And the end, of course, of Morgan Freeman voiceovers.

Those are all valid reasons for being sorry the Olympics are over, but my more personal disappointment is that it marks the end, for another four long years, of me being a sports expert. See, I'm not one of those guys who follows professional sports closely or memorizes statistics. Oh, I'm a pretty athletic person, and I'm always happy to go see a football or baseball game a couple of times a season. (They have beer there. Sudsy, watered down, $9 beer.) But I've never been the guy to closely follow trades, lineups, and win/loss records. Maybe I'm worried it will push other knowledge out of my brain, like the secret identities of Earth's five Green Lanterns (Alan Scott, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner), because God knows I'm going to need that someday. But the fact is I'd just usually rather be playing sports than watching them. No one ever calls me to find out the outcome of the Phillies game last night, or whether the Eagles covered the spread. I'm happy when Michigan wins, I'm happier when OSU loses, and that's about as far as it goes.

But. The one exception to this phenomenon is swimming, because listen: I know my swimming. It's not that I follow the stats any closer than I do other sports, but I can answer most any question someone raises about the differences between strokes, why they're using the butterfly kick off the wall, whether that was a good start or not, etc. If it's within reason, I probably know it, and if I don't I'm at least knowledgeable enough to fake it. So for a glorious week and a half, I get to feel incredibly manly while my wife, who knows more about college football than I ever will, sits beside me and asks questions about how realistic it is that Phelps might conceivably win gold in all 8 events, and how on earth he managed to win the fly even though it really looked like Cavic touched him out. (A: who knows, but while those electronic touch pads are pretty sensitive, just brushing one lightly won't always set it off; you really have to push them. Phelps slammed into his, while Cavic was reaching at the end of his stroke, so Phelps' weight would have registered first even if they technically touched at the exact same time.) And that is just... awesome. If someone at work asks how in the world people don't go crazy during the 1500 free, I can answer them. (You sing songs in your head, preferably something from the AC/DC or Green Day catalogs.)

But now it's over. Back to another 4 years of listening to my friends talk about Detroit's chances this year while I sit there and vainly hope someone asks what happened to Captain America after World War II. So please, everyone- if you're ever out at a bar and you see a group of guys having a heated argument over their fantasy football teams, with one lone dude sitting there quietly nursing his beer... go over and ask him the Vegas odds on the X-Men beating Magneto next Wednesday. Trust me, he'll appreciate it.