Commentary:Salute to the Red, White and Blue (and Orange)

In 1999, I was fortunate to take my dad to the Masters golf tournament. For years afterward when friends saw Bob Dooley, they’d walk the other way because they knew he was going to hammer them with stories from Augusta National.

I was that way after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. I could tell stories for days. Most big-time journalists tell Olympics stories because they’ve been to so many. I had one. It was enough.

You want a story? OK, just one: the night the bomb went off in Centennial Olympic Park. I was there earlier and thought about stepping inside to listen to music. Instead, I went back to the dorm room I shared with three other guys to watch Olympic coverage. The next thing I knew there was a loud knock on the door. “Let’s go!” said my friend Bob Padecky, a columnist from Santa Rosa, Calif. We ran toward the commotion a couple miles away. I was wearing flipflops. It wasn’t pretty.

Eventually, we did all the interviews we could amid the confusion of the tragedy, visited hospitals to talk to witnesses and ended up back at the dorm at 6 a.m. I took a shower and stood there crying, thinking about what in the world was going on. I called Dad to tell him I was OK, and then it was time to get back to work sending emails to every University of Florida athlete at the Games to get their take on what had happened. I thought back to the bus driver from earlier in the day who said to me, “I told them I wanted the media bus. I figure if they’re going to blow something up, they need you guys alive to write about it.”

From this story, you’d think I had a terrible experience at the Games — sleeping on a bed too small for a gymnast, eating chicken wings every night from a gas station down the street, getting lost trying to find the cycling event. Covering a terrorist act.

I’ll say this: when I finally crossed the state line back into Florida, I honked the car horn for a long time. I was happy to be done … but also happy I’d experienced such an enormous sporting event. It was checked off my bucket list, along with seeing Muhammad Ali in person (he lit the Olympic torch that year). I think back to the Atlanta Games every time the Olympics approach.

This summer’s Games should be awesome. For most of us, the Olympics are a spectacle not to be missed. We know we’re going to see Gators because we always do. They’ll try to create memories that’ll last a lifetime. Gold is the goal, but this is truly an event that has participation medals of the mind just by being there: “You made it. What you do with it is up to you and the man or woman to your left and right.”

The Gators listed below took advantage of their moments in the Games. It’s difficult to limit the list to 10 because by the time the Paris Olympics are over the University of Florida will have sent almost 200 athletes and coaches to the Games. But here you go:

1. Caeleb Dressel (swimming, 2016 and 2020 Games): Dressel won two golds in Rio and five in Tokyo. That’s seven gold medals … and he’s not finished yet.
2. Dara Torres (swimming, 1984, 1988, 1992, 2000 and 2008 Games): In her amazing career, Torres qualified for five Olympics, the first American swimmer to do so. That’s no easy feat. She won 12 total medals, including three golds.
3. Ryan Lochte (swimming, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Games): Yeah, I could have put Lochte a notch higher, but there was that suspension in 2018 and that trouble in Rio. But the guy won 12 medals (five of them gold), tied for the second most ever. And he’s been on TV more than most Olympians.
4. Frank Shorter (marathon, 1972 and 1976 Games): This one is tricky because Shorter, who started the Florida Track Club and went to UF’s law school, wasn’t a UF undergrad. But he did win a gold in the marathon in Munich in 1972 and a silver four years later in Montreal.
5. Dennis Mitchell (track and field, 1988, 1992 and 1996 Games) and Mary Wayte (swimming, 1984 and 1988 Games): They don’t compete in the same sport, but they do have the triple crown in common. Mitchell (Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta) and Wayte (Los Angeles and Seoul) each have gold, silver and bronze. That’s cool.
6. Tracy Caulkins (swimming, 1984 Games): Caulkins was a Gator legend and won three gold medals in Los Angeles when Team USA dominated the Games with the Russians sitting it out. She would have won more but we boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games when she was in her prime.
7. DeLisha Milton-Jones (basketball, 2000 and 2008 Games): Milton-Jones is in the argument for greatest Gator woman basketball player ever. She also has a pair of gold medals from 2000 (Sydney) and 2008 (Beijing). She was on USA teams that won world championships and had a nice career as a pro before turning to coaching.
8. Dana Vollmer (swimming, 2004, 2012 and 2016 Games): Vollmer was a medals-making machine. She won gold in Athens on the 2004 4×200 relay team, then won three more golds, including one individual, eight years later in London. Then she won another in the 2016 Rio Games.
9. Heather Mitts (soccer, 2004, 2008 and 2012 Games) and Abby Wambach (soccer, 2004 and 2012 Games): Teammates at UF, Mitts and Wambach led the Gators to a national title, then won at the Olympics in 2004 (Athens) and 2012 (London). Mitts was also on the 2008 (Beijing) gold medal-winning team when Wambach was out with a broken leg.
10. Steve Mesler (bobsled, 2010 Winter Games): This one is personal. For a guy who was a decathlete in college to learn a new sport and to win a gold in the bobsled (Vancouver, 2010) is amazing. To come over to my house for dinner and to bring that gold medal with him — the only gold medal I’ve held and bitten — puts him on this list.

You may wonder why I didn’t mention swimmer Katie Ledecky, who trains at UF and is a volunteer coach. I didn’t include coaches and she didn’t go to Florida. But like the rest of you, I’ll be rooting for her in Paris.