Coping…

July 31, 2021

Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be the GOAT? You know. Greatest Of All Time. Since there’s probably only a handful of such people presently on earth… maybe that’s a bit out of reach. How about being good at something. How about competent at something?

I used to be competent at a hockey game. The one with the players who slid back and forth and spun around. Back in the days before video games rendered it obsolete. The trick for me was not to touch the goalie. Plant him in the middle and maneuver the rest of players into ultimate victory. I was the best at it for a while. Until I wasn’t. So, I stopped playing.

Tokyo 2020 Olympics – Gymnastics – Artistic – Women’s Team – Final – Ariake Gymnastics Centre, Tokyo, Japan – July 27, 2021. Simone Biles of the United States during the Women’s Team Final REUTERS/Mike Blake

I know exactly how Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka and Michael Phelps feel when they struggle within themselves. The pressure of being the best. The expectations. The mental strain. It’s all so relatable.

Of course, it isn’t.

Of course I don’t know at all.

None of us do.

Simone Biles… the best gymnast in the history of her sport…. needs a break at the Olympic Games. The chance to cope. And some of us feel let down by this. Stop. There are some things we don’t get an opinion on. This is one of them.

Category: Press Box
Tag: Bill Pucko, Olympics, The Press Box, Unfinished Business

Published by Bill Pucko

Bill Pucko has spent over three decades as a broadcast journalist working in television, radio and print. He was the featured sportscaster on Rochester’s YYN and WHEC-TV, awarded the Rochester Press and Radio Club’s Sportscaster of the Year Award three times and inducted onto the Frontier Field Walk of Fame in 2006. Bill is a co-founder of Classy Wolf Media, a television and video production company currently syndicating two weekly sports programs, The High School Sports Beat and The Press Box, on WHAM-TV and FOX Rochester. View all posts by Bill Pucko