Olympics: The last American unifier?

By Maggie Fipps

When was the last time everyone felt truly proud of the United States of America? 

Think back to when you got goosebumps from Lee Greenwood’s classic “God Bless the USA,” not just from the excellently timed cymbal crash, but from pure pride in the red, white and blue. 

The Paris Olympics, beginning in just a few months, could be a chance to regain a sense of national pride that the USA’s breakdancer could beat France in an epic battle, (yes, that is an Olympic sport). 

And with a presidential election looming in the fall, there is a lot more at stake for America than medals.

Professor Andrew Wonders, assistant dean for Undergraduate Programs and assistant professor of Sports Management, served on the Olympic organizing committee for both the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. 

Wonders said the Olympics feel different than any other sporting event in America, which inevitably divides along team or even political lines. 

“It’s different than what we saw in the Super Bowl,” Wonders said. “You have individual teams that people are rooting for, and then you have some people that are just rooting against Taylor Swift.”

The Olympics could be a chance for fans devoted and casual alike, to unite around the United States team. It would not be the first time, as Wonders remembers the unifying impact of the Salt Lake City Olympics of 2002, directly following the terrorist attacks on 9/11. 

“A lot of the people I worked with were from the East Coast, and a lot of them had direct connections to New York,” Wonders said. “So it was extremely personal for them.”

Personal patriotism and sports are inextricably linked, Wonders said. 

“It’s a very American thing to play the national anthem before a sporting event,” Wonders said. “We do that everywhere. Not every place has that as a part of the normal.”

If you grew up in a Midwestern town that had a high school football team, you could easily forget the impact of that first “land of the free and the home of the brave” with the roar of the student section ringing in your ears.

That could be what America looks for in the Olympics, a time to remember that fuzzy feeling of patriotism mixed with good, old-fashioned competition.

Elizabeth Kollmar, junior broadcasting and digital media major, remembers the Olympics as a way for her whole family to connect. The kids snuggled up on the couch in their Pennsylvania home to watch events late into the night, waiting until the triumphant brass chorus opened the Olympic theme, signaling the end of the broadcast and the end of the Kollmar kids staying up past their bedtime. 

“For two weeks, your whole family was interested in the Olympics and it was something to watch and something to stay up late and root for,” Kollmar said. “It’s just special to look back on and just have those memories and those warm, fuzzy feelings.”

The Olympics brings novelty sports to television, everything from rugby, taekwondo and squash. Observers who would never watch their own children dive off the diving board at the neighborhood pool consume hours of swimming content. These sports only have one thing in common, American athletes to root for. People that are just like you or your friends and family. 

Kollmar describes the Olympics as “dream fuel.”

“I could still become, you know, an Olympic figure skater,” Kollmar said. “That’s not realistic at all. But it’s fun to think about what it would feel like to do a triple axle and just how awesome it would feel to land that.”

Maybe that is the Olympics’ allure: the American we see in ourselves is the American we see on the screen. 

Over Olympic history, America has gathered around the television to root for incredibly epic citizens. The “Miracle on Ice” team pitted the pinnacle of democratic freedom against the Soviet Union, not on the slippery slopes of nuclear war, but on the slick hockey ice. 

The 1992 “Dream Team’s” stacked roster with Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen and of course, Michael Jordan, slaughtered opponents by an average of 44 points. 

Mary Lou Retton limped her way to Olympic gold, putting American pride over pain to stick the landing on that final jump. 

“Listen, short of us going to war again, Wonders said. “I can’t imagine a scenario where we could find something much better of a unifier than what exists with sport.”

In a time where America exaggerates differences across party and team allegiances, we need the Olympics to unify us, rooting for Americans just like us to win gold. 

Maggie Fipps is a junior Journalism student and the Sports Editor of Cedars. She enjoys playing the piano and thrifting, and you may spot her around campus sporting Packers gear head to toe.