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"Then I started to ask more questions about swimming. And my father pulled me aside, and he said: Look. Swimming is a bad way to go. You have to be in the water at least six, seven hours a day. He said: Where would you train? You can't train in the Harlem River; you lose seven or eight guys a year drowning, which is true. And he said you can't go to the ocean. The water's too rough. He said you can't go to the public pool; everybody's trying to cool off. Everything he said made sense. So I started to walk off like with my lip stuck out. And he tapped me on the shoulder and he said: Look, man, the heaviest hasn't come yet. They have private clubs, but you can't join any of them. And I said: Why? Because we can't afford it? He said no. Because you're colored; they won't let you in. So I walked off in a kind of mystic mood, dejected but not dejected. My old man looked at me and asked: Well, what you going to do? You gonna quit? Just look around and find something else."
Where is the center of this thing? A man who learned how fast his legs could move because as a boy he outran cops in Harlem, who worked out in cordovan shoes on the F.D.R. Drive because his father was a cobbler and cordovans last? Does one watch the Olympics to see a spectacle of individuals? A festival of nerve? Perhaps something collective as well. Something. America bursts into song at the torch relay, and 7 million tickets go on sale.
But they said the boycott would kill the Games. Evidently not. No boycott has done real damage; not the U.S. boycott in 1980 or that of the Africans in 1976 or of some Arab states in 1956 in response to the crisis over Suez. As for this year of Soviet revenge, not only are more nations than ever sending delegations, but people are saying that the Games may be better off without an East-West brawl. Quieter countries will get a chance to strut.
But they said commercialism would kill the Games. Hardly. In a world where weapons are sold like hot cakes, who really worries about getting and spending at a sports event? To the contrary, the commercialism feels right, at least it does for the U.S. Competition in the Games, competition around them. Ever see an amateur capitalist?
So Botswana, a land so arid that its currency is called rain, proudly sends a yachtsman to represent the nation. And Israel cheers 30 athletes and promises 1,000 tourists, though the country has yet to win a single medal. This will be Communist China's first major presence in the Olympics; they are bringing a contingent of 353. Egypt and Italy will be sending the largest delegations they have ever sent. Singapore wouldn't miss it; except for boycotting in 1980, that country has participated in every Olympics since 1948.