Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 20:39:34 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: 25 years ago today.....
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 10:29 AM 2/22/05, Rich Lynch wrote:
>... an underrated U.S. ice hockey team beat a superior team
>from the USSR at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics in what
>has come to be known as the "Miracle on Ice" game.  ("Do
>you believe in miracles? Yessss!!!!")

Yes.  (And, for those of you wondering why this response is here, it
applies even to SF.)

In our family my father was the only one interested in sports, putting up
with occasional derogatory remarks and to this day he goes out of his way
to not bother anyone else when watching a game.  But that particular night
it was Mom dragged the grumbling teenagers away from homework or a books or
whatever we were doing.  As someone raised in Pittsburgh no matter how
little she paid attention to sports she was aware that something amazing
was going on in hockey, as a person she was excited, and as a mother she
wanted us to have the chance to see it.  Even if she had to drag grumbling
teenagers away from whatever they were doing, making us watch it long
enough to accept or reject it on it's own merits.  "You have to see this,"
she said.

She was right.

To the best of my recollection David bailed early and even Mom went back to
her desk but I remained glued to the set.  I discovered for the first time
the beauty of physical and mental skill and how they went together; tried
to feel what a body had to do to accomplish what I was seeing; saw that
combined with sheer determination.  I saw folks doing the quintessentially
American thing of deciding they wanted to accomplish something and getting
together, recruiting others -- such as their coach -- and just getting on
with doing it.

They had an ability, the amazing one to think in three dimensions at high
speed while exercising it, and one even beyond that: to not think about
what couldn't be done but to settle on a goal and put everything they had
into that.  This home-grown effort of skill, planning, figuring out what
was needed, learning to do what they didn't have the money to buy, and
simple determination to succeed was up against the machine and money of the
Soviet state.

Even if they hadn't won, it was beautiful on so many levels.

"Do you believe in miracles?"

Yes.  And that's thanks to them.

And thanks to them I've looked at what it takes and found that sometimes
what makes a miracle -- or a hero like FDR, a teacher who goes the extra
mile, a person who does more work or thinking than the minimal required --
isn't magic or larger-than-life but something that's in all of us, no
matter how large or small the goal: deciding to do it and simply getting on
with the *acting* on it.

(Oh, yeah: thanks to them, when I'm home Earl sometimes has company when
he's watching various sports on TV, and I'm really, really annoyed about
the NHL season being cancelled.  Meanwhile I chose to spend my 40th
birthday -- and a couple of days after that -- at a ballpark and counted
myself fortunate to do so.  Given where I started, that's a miracle in
itself.  That night of hockey sowed seeds for a lot of thinking but in the
end, God, it was a beautiful game!)

Elspeth