Seven Gold Medals Don’t Ease the Pain of One Black Eye

It’s a funny thing about winning. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with who crosses the finish line first.

Carl Lewis won four gold medals at the recent Olympics and, while doing so, lost America’s heart. He came across as a bloodless opportunist who cynically wrapped himself in his country’s flag.

He blames the media for portraying him in the wrong light. The light was good. What the people saw was the real Carl Lewis--the brilliant athlete and the me-first person. He won four gold medals and lost millions of dollars in endorsements. He won four gold medals and lost a chance to be a nation’s hero.

Thus, the biggest winner at the Olympics was also the biggest loser.

But he was not alone. Mark Spitz is another great athlete who has learned a hard lesson about winning and losing. He won seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympics and came home from Munich a hero. Then he allowed himself, much as Mary Lou Retton has, to be packaged and processed, an assembly-line hero.

It didn’t take. That was OK by Spitz. He retreated into civilian life, became a successful businessman and a retired hero.

At least, he thought he was a hero.

When it came time to select former Olympians to carry the Olympic flag into the Coliseum during the Opening Ceremony, they picked Bruce Jenner, Wyomia Tyus, Parry O’Brien, Al Oerter, John Naber, Sammy Lee, Mack Robinson, Billy Mills, Patricia McCormick.

And not Mark Spitz.

“I was embarrassed and humiliated,” Spitz said recently. “I still haven’t gotten over it.”

Spitz watched the proceedings from the Coliseum stands. He will never forget that day, a day as devastating for him as any since the 1968 Olympics, when Spitz was as big a flop as he would be a success four years later.

He could not believe he had been excluded. In fact, Spitz had held out hope until the final day that he might be chosen not just to carry the flag but also to light the torch. He was working for ABC-TV, and he was told to be at the Coliseum early the day of the ceremonies. Spitz thought it might all be a ruse to surprise him.

He was surprised all right. He was crushed. He didn’t light the torch, he didn’t carry the flag, he was just left out.

How could it happen?

Spitz says he doesn’t know, but he knew where he might get some answers. On Jan. 10, Spitz sent a letter by certified mail to the office of Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, who was, of course, the president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee.

In the letter, Spitz wrote that “the exclusion left me totally devastated.” He wrote that “the issue continues to haunt me wherever I go.”

Spitz wanted Ueberroth to tell him how it could have happened.

A week later, Ueberroth replied. He said that Spitz’s role as an ABC commentator precluded his selection in the ceremonies, pointing out that “those Olympians, including yourself, who were representing ABC on the field of play would want other Olympians to have an opportunity to share the spotlight.”

But was that really the reason? Spitz doesn’t think so. Spitz thinks it might have been because he was quoted as making some critical remarks about the 1983 Sports Festival in Colorado Springs, an event sponsored by the United States Olympic Committee. Or because Spitz had once been involved in a company that had a licensing squabble with the LAOOC.

In any case, Spitz, as one of this nation’s greatest Olympians, deserved to be in the Opening Ceremony. He says he would have been proud to have taken any role. The Olympics were the focal point of his life, the event by which his life has been defined. Now they will never be the same for him.

Somebody owed him at least an explanation, and maybe an apology. Instead, Mark Spitz feels as if someone drove a spike into his heart.

Spitz wrote to Ueberroth: “The other day I was playing with my 3-year-old son, Matty, and as I looked at him I was wondering what I would tell him when he grows up and learns that his dad was denied a part in the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Olympic Games.”

Spitz says Ueberroth’s reply is unsatisfactory. He points out that Jenner and Naber both did Olympic commentary, although not for ABC. He thinks Ueberroth has something against him, and that’s why he was not included.

There is no way to know what was in Ueberroth’s mind, or if he even thought about Spitz at all. What is clear is that Spitz was an Olympic loser in 1984 and that the memory will stay with him forever. And that’s too bad.