Course Correction (20 page)

Determined that no soldiers would die during his presidential tenure, when faced with out-and-out aggressive behavior by his number-one Cold War opponent, President Carter faced limited options to encourage the Soviets to do the right thing. What's a president to do
when all military options are off the table?

Certainly, celebration was not the order of the day, so Carter chose the role of party pooper. He tried to cancel a world party, the one held every four years in the name of global peace. On January 20, 1980, he wrote a letter to the US Olympic Committee president, Robert Kane, advocating that if the Soviets did not withdraw from Afghanistan within a month, the USOC should petition the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to relocate the Olympic Games scheduled for late July in Moscow or cancel them.

The president publicized his position during his State of the Union Address on January 23: “And I have notified the Olympic Committee that with Soviet invading forces in Afghanistan, neither the American people nor I will support sending an Olympic team to Moscow.” He set a deadline for the Soviets to withdraw: February 20.

Since the establishment of the modern Olympic movement in 1896, only World Wars I and II had succeeded in aborting the Games. Now the leader of the free world had determined that abrogating Olympic participation would somehow bolster the prospects for world peace.

That night, in one fell misguided swoop, Jimmy Carter single-handedly threatened the dreams of several thousand athletes around the globe. Over the next several months, he used the power of his office to destroy them. Not only did every American athlete lose a cherished opportunity to compete at the Games, but the US government successfully pressured allies and friends worldwide to join the boycott as well.

February 20 found me competing against Sally Fisher in the main stairwell of Payne Whitney, racing through our sets of chest-burning ascents.

“Why are we doing this?” I gasped at the end of one set. “The boycott is now official. The Soviets haven't withdrawn from Afghanistan.”

“I know. But we have three more sets to finish.” Sally turned to jog down the stairs. I followed her silently, saving my breath.

I didn't know about all the machinations occurring behind the scenes to try to save the Olympics. I knew the name Anita DeFrantz because she was a 1976 Olympic medalist, a member of the bronze-winning US women's eight; because she had earned a reputation in the women's rowing world as an unflinching and powerful competitor, and
was a member of the National Team cadre of athletes who trained and raced out of Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia; and because she rowed on the starboard side, like I did, and therefore was my direct competitor for one of the coveted eight starboard seats (four in the eight, two in the four, and two spares) that would be filled at the Olympic selection camp. In February, I knew nothing else about her, but by June, I would know much more.

A newly minted lawyer, Anita spearheaded an athletes' protest of President Carter's decision to boycott the Olympics. Obviously, the Soviet military would not be deterred from its geopolitical goals by an American president's facile sacrifice of a group of athletes. Not only that, the president's interference in the actions of private citizens represented a fundamental violation of democracy.

Finally, Carter's action threatened the Olympic movement, its role in promoting world peace, and its apolitical status, designed to operate independently of and beyond the control of world governments. The connections that occur when individual athletes meet and compete in harmony, and pursue a shared purpose on a world stage in full view of people from all over the globe who share in those moments and claim them for their own offer vivid examples of a world that, despite the vast differences and disagreements, can unite in a shared experience.

Politicizing the Games undermined their future, too, but the week after Carter's State of the Union announcement, the House and Senate passed resolutions to support the president's decision by overwhelming margins. On February 9, the IOC rejected the United States' request to change the venue for the Moscow Olympics or cancel the Games.

Even the improbable victory of the US men's hockey team over the Soviets in the medals round at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, on February 22 couldn't shake the country's resolve to pursue the boycott of Moscow's Games. The “Miracle on Ice” provided all the evidence needed to showcase the Olympic spirit, as the men's team came from nowhere to challenge “The Big Red Machine,” a team that had defeated the Americans 10–3 in their last pre-Olympic competition, and sent the entire country into a frenzy.

Five weeks later, on the first day of spring, Anita visited the White House in the company of approximately 150 Olympic aspirants, seeking to suggest an alternative that would serve the President's publicly
stated goal to protest the Soviets' behavior without ruining the upcoming Games: send the US delegation to Moscow, let the athletes compete, but pull them from the opening ceremonies, which were broadcast worldwide. Designate a single representative, one lone athlete to carry the stars and stripes into the stadium, and deliver a visual message the Soviets and the worldwide television audience would understand. Our country's absence from Moscow would gain nothing, but lose much.

President Carter was not interested in reconsidering; he granted none of the Olympians an opportunity to speak, but hogged the podium for himself. “I understand how you feel,” he asserted and then proceeded to defend his decision, stating, “What we are doing is preserving the principles and the quality of the Olympics, not destroying it.” His assertion demonstrated profound ignorance of the purpose and promise of the Olympic movement.

On April 12, pressured by the country's leaders and threatened by its financial sponsors, the USOC delegates voted by nearly a twoto-one margin to boycott the Moscow Olympics. Joined by eighteen other athletes, one coach, and a lone USOC official, Anita took one final legal step to fight the boycott, filing a suit against the USOC to force the committee to field a team. The suit and its subsequent appeal lost.

Nonetheless, all over the country, American Olympic aspirants kept pursuing their dreams. The president had destroyed their opportunity to represent their country, but these athletes persisted in fulfilling the part of their dreams that they could still control. Every single National Team vowed to complete their selection process for the upcoming Olympics. They named 461 athletes to 22 teams, from archery to yachting—including athletics, basketball, boxing, canoe-kayak, cycling, diving, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, shooting, soccer, swimming, volleyball, water polo, wrestling, and weightlifting. Playing matches throughout the month of March in San Jose, California, and Edwardsville, Illinois, the men's soccer team earned a spot in Olympic competition. Trials for the women's Olympic basketball team took place in Colorado Springs in late March. After the USOC's April 22 vote to boycott Moscow, USA Swimming held its Olympic trials in Irvine, California. On May
24, the men's marathon trials took place in the humidity of Buffalo, New York, led for thirteen miles by a competitor who wore a T-shirt proclaiming “The Road to Moscow Ends Here.” The US Track and Field trials ran in Eugene, Oregon, from June 21 to 29, ending less than three weeks before the Olympics' July 19 start date.

Because the Olympic Rowing team would still be named, I still had a job to do. But maintaining focus grew increasingly difficult. It was a confusing time. Training for the Olympics had traditionally been a point of pride. Suddenly I felt like a traitor, pursuing a dream in defiance of the president's orders. I lived in the greatest country in the world. I was forced to sacrifice my biggest aspiration for the cause of world freedom, and I was behaving like an ingrate. Citizens of every generation fought for our country and laid down their lives, and I, given an opportunity to do my part for the greater good, no loss of life required, was not stepping up gladly and generously. Even my own family berated me for opposing the president's policy. Coming home for a weekend visit, I couldn't avoid discussion about the boycott. “It's just sports, not that big a deal,” my stepmother lectured me.

Outrage ballooned inside me. “What do you know?” I demanded. I couldn't articulate the rest of my retort, but rowing, competing, and challenging myself beyond the ordinary felt pretty big to me. Sport is one among many human endeavors, one possible path in the search for meaning, self-expression, and purpose. It is intimately personal and universally important, this business of striving beyond one's limits, of aspiring to perfection and inevitably falling short, failing, and risking again, reaching ever higher, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

I couldn't say any of that sophisticated stuff. My stepmother's smugness made me feel small and wrong, as if I were still a child, especially because she was echoing the opinions of millions of Americans: “People are dying all over the world, and all you care about is yourself.”

Everything felt like an outrage. No one would stand up for me, not even my own father, who knew how much I ached to make the team and was ordinarily an avid supporter of individual rights and small government.

All the knowledge I had accumulated from rowing seemed to vanish. Was BG right? Should I just buck up and shut up, take the medicine
my own country has prescribed, and do my part?

Although I left the room and the argument with BG, my thoughts kept coming. I went to my bedroom and flung myself down on my bed. As I lay there, eyes closed, images of rowing flowed by and I regained my calm clarity. This is not bad or wrong. Nothing that can make me so alive and can teach so much could be pointless. Never before had loving something set me apart as a pariah, but I would not walk away.

Of course, I was in no position to sacrifice anything, yet. I wasn't an Olympian, merely a wannabe. As much as the pall of disgust and dismay over the president's dictum hung over the spring weather, I still had nothing concrete to whine about. All I could do was stay focused, keep training, and make that damn team. Until that happened, the boycott was irrelevant.

Somehow, I stayed on track. I garnered yet another invitation to a selection camp. I survived another training camp in placid Princeton. I kept my anger in check and poured my anxiety and eagerness into the strokes I took during the extended tryout sessions. I kept my distance from the coaches: Kris K, the National Team coach from the previous year, and Nat, who'd been named as the assistant Olympic coach. Just my luck. I was the same size as I had been nearly five years earlier when I approached him on the Old Campus at Yale as a curious freshman, when he turned away from me before I even had a chance to introduce myself. I was the same size as I had been two years earlier when he unceremoniously cut me from the European Tour squad. I was part of the juggernaut of one of the university's most successful athletic teams. I helped catapult him to the top of the women's collegiate coaching pile, yet I knew he'd cut me in a second, given half a chance. I didn't talk with him, except when necessity required interaction.

On the morning Kris announced he would post the final roster for the Olympic team after practice, I froze. I had waited for this moment, had done everything I could, had maintained my focus and confidence, had held my tongue, and given no coach any excuse to strike my name from the list. I had rowed hard and well in practice after practice. I'd pulled consistently, stroke after stroke, and prevailed
in every test. And I dreaded the humiliation to come.

The entire flock of aspirants crowded around the flimsy sheet of paper Kris posted on the boathouse door. The mass of people was impossible to plow through. I waited, motionless, my gaze fixed on the floor.

Don't get your hopes up! Remember, remember, you're not good enough … The market, the market, it's telling you something, it's told you you're nothing. Walk away, walk away now! Your name is not on that list.

Could it happen just this once? For once could I find a happy ending?

The crowd thinned quickly; the group of nearly three dozen women knew how to read their own names. I stepped up. Ready to greet the demons of disappointment. Ready to blame myself for dreaming too large and wanting too much, for thinking I could grasp what my heart desired.

Alphabetical. By last name. I forced myself to start at the top, scanned BARBER, BARNES, BOWER, BROWN, but I wasn't solidly in control. My eyes darted down to the middle of the page. I caught GRAVES. I was breathless with the effort of maintaining some modicum of control. Okay, too far. Back up.

Try to look cucumber cool on the outside. Don't let anyone think this is a make-or-break moment. You've been here before. You're ready, braced for another slug of disappointment, ready for another free fall. Taking a deep breath, I blinked, savoring my hope for one last moment. I looked.

GILDER.

I stood staring at the sheet. The news crashed into my heart, stunning me, and then took another beat to reach my brain. Zipping to make the connection, racing ahead and calling back to the rest of me, gleeful and triumphant, my emotions shouted back to my reason: Gilder, your name is on the list!

I forced my eyes back to the middle of the page. There it was, just above GRAVES, below DREWSON. GILDER. The headline at the top of the page, 1980 OLYMPIC ROWING TEAM, in Korzeniowski's scrawl made it real.

Standing there, my eyes stretched wide and my mouth curving
upward, I felt the jumbling inside me sort into a new order. I watched myself toss off the weight of hopeful, fearful aspirant I had lugged around for eons, walk across this brand-new territory, step up to and dance through the door marked “Olympian,” across an interior and private threshold between wannabe and made-it.

As I accepted the congratulations of the other athletes, I looked back across that threshold and saw the door to my past shove shut with a firm click.