I don’t know anything about sports. Josh told me he was shooting at the Arizona Cardinals training camp and I couldn’t understand why a baseball team would hold a training camp this late in the season. I think it’s because I didn’t grow up in a household where sports were followed, and all that information about who’s-on-what-team and how-each-team-is-doing gets chopped into pieces in my brain and tossed out my ears. I can watch the Super Bowl and have no idea two days later who won or who even played. I’m not proud of this; when I spent a few months as a traveling salesman back in the early days of New York, my inability to talk sports was the single most detrimental aspect of my sales pitch. But this is how it is, and at least I’ve learned to admit it upfront instead of trying to bluff my way through discussions in which I know nothing.

And that, my friends, is why I love the Olympics. Because no one knows anything about Olympic sports, yet in the space of a few weeks, we’re all transformed into experts. Every bit of information anyone knows about Olympic athletes is gleaned from exactly the same place: human interest profiles during the coverage. You’re not going to blow my mind with some insider knowledge about Michael Phelps, ’cause guess what? I saw the same damn segment! And in the case of the Olympics, you’re not considered more of a man if you can analyze strategy … no one is impressed by the guy who can tell you that Liukin’s best strategy here would be to go for the reverse triple flippity-flop instead of the back handspring twisteroo. Even the journalists who cover it have no idea what they’re talking about:

Liukin paced back and forth while Johnson, the final competitor, completed her performance, clapping as her teammate floated high in the air. In the end, it was Liukin who soared.

…

While other gymnasts tumble on the floor, their music little more than background noise, Liukin puts on a polished performance. Every wave of her arm and brush of her fingertips oozes emotion, making it easy to forget how tough those tricks in her program really are.

“Tricks”? The writer doesn’t even bother to find out what the names of the moves are. There’s no specialized lingo you have to know to describe an Olympic event. And no one cares! Because the Olympics has nothing to do with actual sports knowledge; it’s all about watching people flip around and hoping your country wins more medals than the Commies. And that’s the kind of athletics I can get into.

I also love this description:

She has one of the most difficult routines in the world, filled with intricate moves that are linked together to make them even harder. But her grace and style make it look easy. When she pirouettes on the high bar, turning her body all the way around not once, not twice but three times, she looks just like a jewelry box ballerina.

This is the journalistic equivalent of writing about a basketball game and saying — “Kobe Bryant is renowned for his skill and agility at getting the ball in the net. He runs so well and fast, and then he leaps over some guys and puts the ball right into the net, where it belongs. His graceful flipping and jumping is truly a sight to behold. He looks just like a big, tough butterfly.”