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Not Just Another Olympic Twist of Fate — My Ken Eriksen Story
The Olympic Games are the closest thing I have to a religion. Like most all religions, it has its good and bad, its light and dark sides — its triumphs and its atrocities. But the common thread is always an ideal — an aspirational set of principles motivating us to be better than we are. The Olympic Movement is based on the most universal values known to humankind, and that is undoubtedly the basis for its global appeal and inclusiveness. Not that I needed a religion, but as an athlete myself (and even if I wasn’t one), the Olympic Games, at its best, forged a spiritual connection in me that I found both inspiring and motivating.
But my story begins many years ago — 1973 to be exact — when I was in 7th grade. I remember when I first saw him, sitting outside Gelinas Junior High, watching the rest of my 7th grade soccer team exit the locker room after the first practice of the season. Summer hadn’t really ended yet. He was holding a can of Coke and we were all thirsty and coin-less (to buy our own Coke). It was as if he was taunting us as he took a long pleasurable glug of it. That and the body language, which emanated cockiness, brought three words to my young mind: What a dick.
His name was Ken Eriksen, and in the years that followed, we would be brought together numerous times, against our wills (or at least…
