An Olympic 'event' I'll savor awhile

This hasn't always been my sentiment on the last day of the Games. Other years, when the Deseret News has sent me on assignment to the Olympics, I have been counting down the minutes until they extinguish the flame.

I love watching sports, but 17 days of glory is more than enough, especially when you're watching them next to some journalist who doesn't speak English and sweats a lot; it's 97 degrees, and that's in the press box; you're constantly worrying that you're missing the Big Story, and most of the time you are; you invariably get sick; and trying to interview Olympic athletes as they leave the arena just beyond your reach through something misnamed the Mixed Zone is like begging for money outside a bank.

But this year the News sent a full-on sports writer to China, Scott Taylor, who I think has done a terrific job, and who right about now, trust me, is counting down the minutes while I sit at home in front of my TV and bid the Beijing Games a fond and reluctant adieu.

Have they been great or what?

The pizza delivery was a few minutes late one night, but that's about my only complaint.

And yeah, I've muted Bob Costas a few times, but that goes with the territory.

I especially got into the Olympics this past week, when my daughter, Tori, and I watched them together. Going in, I thought Tori and me watching the Olympics was about as likely as China freeing Tibet. Tori is 16. Sports is not her TV entertainment of choice. Instead of watching the Super Bowl with me last January, she watched a "House" rerun. Her favorite shows are "So You Think You Can Dance," "America's Next Top Model," "Last Comic Standing" and some programs on VH1 and MTV she's not supposed to watch but I think she does anyway. She couldn't tell you where ESPN is if it meant a semester's exemption from algebra.

But just as the Beijing Games were entering their second week, Tori had surgery to remove bunions on her right foot, a procedure that required more bed rest than the rest of her life combined.

So her mom moved the TV from my office into her room.

Then a remarkable thing happened I can only attribute to painkilling drugs and a severely weakened condition: Tori gave me control of the remote.

And I switched from VH1 to the Olympics.

Normally this would result in our going to separate corners, but Tori wanted company, and I wanted my TV, so there we were, locked on the island together.

For a week we watched the O-Games. For an old reformed sportswriter, it doesn't get much better. I phased out explaining math to Tori in fourth grade, but I could explain rally scoring, the difference in men's and women's gymnastics events, what the coxswain does, the importance of qualifying in the middle lanes for the sprints, why Bob Costas is overbearing ...

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