PETER BUFFA
Every two years, the world throws a party, and everybody comes. A few
thousand athletes from a few hundred countries pack their bags and
travel a really long way to wherever, compete like all get out for
two weeks, then go home.
It's called the Olympic Games.
A few athletes are famous before they get there, or will be when
they leave, but most will never be heard of, or from, before, during
or after. Why do they do it? No one knows. Countries that haven't a
thing in common and no contact whatsoever and, in some cases, can't
stand the sight of each other, get together every two years like
clockwork and say, "Let's play."
Is it commercial? Of course, it is. The Olympics are big business
and make lots of money for lots of companies. But most of the
countries and athletes involved won't see a drachma of it. In fact,
most have to scrimp and save and pay their own way to get there. Why
do they do it? I already told you. No one knows. But I'm glad they
do.
Orange County is always well-represented in the summer Olympics,
and Athens is no different. There are over 40 Orange County athletes
on Team USA, in more sports than you can shake a stick at, although
I've never understood why you would shake a stick at things to begin
with, or why you can only shake it at a certain number of them. There
are the big names, like USA women's soccer captain Julie Foudy from
Mission Viejo.
An impressive five members of the USA men's water polo players are
current or former Anteaters, as in UCI Anteaters, not real ones. Real
anteaters can't play water polo. Their legs are too short and it's
too hard to keep their snoots above water.
Another Olympian is super-swimmer Amanda Beard, who was born in
Newport Beach and now lives in Irvine, and it might just interest you
to know that beach volleyball superstar Misty May lives in Costa
Mesa, which is very close to here.
Misty May. Is that a cool name or what? I say it is. In fact, in
the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Misty was teamed with the all-time
cool-name champion of cool names -- Holly McPeak. You can see McPeak
now and then beneath the dome on Niketown at Triangle Square. She's
the one with the 6-foot-tall head in the sun-visor and wrap-around
sunglasses. "Misty May and Holly McPeak." I'm repeating myself, I
know, but if you had a name like mine you'd be obsessed with cool
names too.
Just one more, I promise. One of the stars of the USA women's
gymnastics team is "Courtney McCool." Anyway, May and her teammate,
