Update: Alex Hermann’s perfect bracket ended in the third round when Butler upset Syracuse. He got the other three games right. Still pretty amazing! Congratulations to Alex Hermann of Chicago, an autistic 17 year old, who is the only person in the country with a perfect bracket after the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament. Quite the feat in a contest full of … Continue reading Autistic Kid with Perfect NCAA Bracket
I’m a fair weather fan. I admit it. I don’t follow a team or watch ESPN or read the agate or particularly care about the drama in sports. When a team goes down I shrug and get on with my life. I can’t understand why people get depressed or beat their wives. It’s a game. Hello! I skim over the sports pages and stop to read stories … Continue reading March Madness
It’s hard to believe that the Olympics are almost at an end. It is already Day 15. Soon the closing ceremony will be here and the torch will be extinguished and it’s all over. Vancouver will be back to its old self with perhaps a wicked Olympic hangover. It happens every time a city returns to normal after being the center of the sporting universe. … Continue reading Olympic Moments
I was in a beer garden in Vancouver’s Yaletown when a guy draped in an American flag strutted in. He was carrying on like Superman, all layered up in red, white and blue and making lots of noise. Boy, did he rile up the Canadians. After all today is the Canada versus USA men’s hockey match and as friendly as we are with our neighbors to the north, this … Continue reading Hockey Night in Canada
Immediately after the opening ceremony people began to run. They hoofed it to the International Broadcast Centre to see the after party. Wayne Gretzky rode in a flatebed truck with the Olympic torch aloft to light an external flame outside the building. The crowd went wild, shouting “Gretzky, Gretzky, Gretzky.” Amazing to see how Canadians adore The Great One. A Shaun White look alike and his sidekicks led the crowd in the … Continue reading Gretzky Lights the Flame
My 16 year old son is mad at me. When I call home his anger is palpable. He does not understand why I leave home for extended periods of time every couple of years to work at the Olympics. He won’t listen when I try to explain so I’m putting it out to the world. Being part of a production team at the Olympics is, … Continue reading Why I Work at the Olympics
Hawaii is seeing the biggest waves in 40 years. We were at this exact spot on the North Shore of Oahu at the end of October. Waimea Bay was calm and my son, Blair, jumped off the rocks that these people are videotaping from. To give perspective Da Big Rock, as it is called, is about 75 feet high. Earlier this week the waves were up to … Continue reading Hawaii’s Big Waves
This very well written article is by a senior named Scott Martin at Cherry Creek High School in Englewood, Colorado. In his guest commentary for the Denver Post he sums up the intense competition and pressures of youth sports and all the things adults do to take the fun out of it. As the mother of an athlete I think he hits the ball out … Continue reading Youth Sports: Enough Already
I don’t like flying in the middle seat on airplanes. I feel cramped. But on a recent United Airlines flight from Chicago to Portland, Oregon I sat between two men and had the most fascinating trip. Joe sat on the aisle. He is a 70 year old college professor and psychiatrist. He and his wife were returning home after visiting family in New York. He was reading … Continue reading Flying in the Middle
Andrea Jaeger is a former tennis great turned nun who heard a higher calling. She now runs the Silver Lining Foundation which helps terminally ill children. One of the highlights of the experience has been camp for kids battling cancer which has been held during summer and winter months in Aspen, Colorado. She is now trying to sell her ranch to Chabad. The organization will … Continue reading Andrea Jaeger’s Silver Lining
Vicky Collins Online 