I had no idea how much I was hoping for Chicago to land the 2016 Olympic Games . . . not until WGTD News Director Dave McGrath slipped into master control while I was recording an interview and handed me a news item which had just come in from the Associated Press. <<Chicago has been eliminated in the first round of voting for the 2016 Olympics site.>> I felt like someone had swung a monkey wrench at my stomach, and if you listen closely when my interview with the author of “Think No Evil” airs, you can hear a moment in the middle of a question when I stop to audibly swallow. That’s exactly when I was absorbing the blow of that bad news. Of course, what shook me back to reality in an instant was when I remembered that I was doing an interview about the tragic shooting in an Amish one room school which left five little girls dead and five others seriously wounded. Next to something as horrific as that, Chicago Losing the Olympics scarcely even qualifies as Bad News, let alone the tragedy that some are calling it. Get a grip, folks.
Nevertheless, the news from Copenhagen was deeply disappointing, even though I don’t have the slightest idea whether or not Chicago would have ultimately been better off financially or politically or socially for hosting the games. People a lot smarter than I am seem to be almost evenly split over that question, and I would never presume to even guess as to who’s more correct. All I know is that it would have been such a blast to have the Olympics right down the road from us. . . even if we never managed to or bothered to buy a single ticket for any of the actual events. Just having it “in the neighborhood” would have been truly thrilling. And actually, Kathy and I joked a time or two about how every hotel in Chicago would be completely filled, so there might have been a few intrepid souls renting rooms in Racine. Maybe we would have hosted the Bulgarian Fencing Coach and his family! And who knows? Maybe we would have ventured down for a day or two, just to absorb some of the color and excitement which would have gripped the city. I got even sadder when my brother in law Mark mentioned in a Facebook posting that he was sad that he wouldn’t have the chance to take his daughter / my niece Lorelai to experience the Games. That made this seem even more like one chance in a million – and a chance not likely to come around again. (The disappointment is similar to how sad I was when my friend Marshall was unable to buy me a ticket for the Metropolitan Opera’s 125th Anniversary Gala. The next time a big milestone comes up – the Met’s 150th – I’ll be 72 years old. Who knows what shape I’ll be in by then – or the Met, for that matter? So this seemed like one of those soul-searing “if only” / “so close” moments that are so hard to accept.)
What softens the blow regarding the Olympics is that Illinois and especially Chicago have been a political cess pool of corruption for far too long- and it’s really hard to imagine that this culture of corruption would not have played out significantly in the Games with certain well-connected individuals profiting handsomely from the venture. That’s probably as big a reason as any why nearly half of Chicago’s citizens appeared to be completely against the idea. (Which is quite troubling.)
Then to top it all off, Mayor Richard Daley gave what turned out to be a rather abominable speech in Copenhagen in which he basically spent all of his time explaining all of the ways in which hosting the Games in Chicago would be so wonderful for Chicago. Wait a minute. As WGN Radio’s John Williams so rightly pointed out, the Mayor had it exactly backwards. His speech should have been about how Chicago would have been great for the Games. This never should have been so much about Chicago, per se. But it’s too late now for that sort of fine tuning.
So it’s not going to happen … and I have to admit to feeling mighty blue about this. It would have been fun to see Chicago rise to the occasion. It would have been fun to see certain Chicago landmarks become the backdrop for big events. It would have been fun to see Oprah and WGN and other Chicago stations and programs wrestle with the Games as they approached and as they were played. And to quote WGN’s afternoon announcer, Gary Maijer, it would have been fun to see them work in Miss O’Leary’s cow knocking over a lantern (the supposed cause of the Great Chicago Fire) as the means by which the huge OlympicTorch would be lit. Mostly, it would have been so neat to see Chicago in the sort of international spotlight which is has basically never occupied- at least for any length of time. It would have been a chance for much of the world to see Chicago for what it is – a vibrant cosmopolitan city worthy of being considered with the great cities of the world.
But no. . . That will have to come another time and in another way. . . and maybe not even in my lifetime. But at least they came close. And it’s weird but I was so tempted to say WE came close. I may have only lived there two years, but Chicago means a lot to me – and to have seen them walk away with the 2016 Games would have been a tremendous thrill. Seeing them bounced in the first round was like watching your best friend get beat up on the playground and being unable to do anything about it.
Of course there are far worse misfortunes in this world. And what is a bitter pill for Chicago is a source of delight for the long-suffering citizens of Rio, who in many ways are far more deserving and who indeed seem much more united in support for hosting the games. So perhaps this was for the best. But saying that- knowing that – believing that – somehow does not make this pill any easier to swallow.