Page 14 - Demo

Several years ago, Peter Uberoth was in town. Do you remember the name, Peter Uberoth? He was major league's baseball commissioner for a while, and he also headed up the 1984 Olympics that were held in Los Angeles. When he was speaking in Nashville, Uberoth asked, \ you want me to tell you about the greatest athlete I've ever seen?\think about a man who has had as much exposure in sports as Uberoth, and he says that, every ear perked up. He said in the '84 Olympics, they had a 20,000 kilometers torch run serpetining all the way through the country. And each participant, if he met the criteria, would run for one kilometer. He would light his little torch from the previous runner, go one kilometer and light the next one. He had to pay $3,000 for the privilege of doing that. Every bit of the $3,000 went to charity.Uberoth said, near the end, everybody was getting discouraged. It looked like costs might go over, you know the deadlines. He said, to motivate their forces in Los Angeles, what they would do is gather all their workers early in the morning and show news clips of the torch run the day before. It was just encouraging to see everybody cheering. Uberoth said we were in the office about 10:00 o%u2019clock, late one night, and in comes a volunteer holding a videotape. He said there were only a handful of us there, ready to go home, beat to death, just tired. The volunteer said, \videotape of the torch run.\you've got to see it now.\It showed a narrow little road in New Mexico, and there were people lining each side about five deep. Along comes a runner running with a torch. Then as the runner stops and leans over to light the torch, you can't see the next recipient, it's obviously somebody short. A big burly policeman on a motorcycle is blocking the view. It takes a couple of minutes because apparently the torch is having a hard time being lit and the policeman is looking at his watch and he's obviously frustrated because they're running behind schedule. Finally, the torch is lit and then you see the top of a little blond head starting to move forward.It's a little girl who is nine and suddenly the video catches her face and there's this bright, beaming, beautiful smile. But a second later, you notice one other thing, she is severely crippled. She can barely put one foot in front of the other. She is barely going. The crowds are beginning to cheer. Uberoth found out later her name was Amy and she had been practicing for one solid year, and the best she had ever gone was half a kilometer. The plan was for her to hand the torch off to an alternate at the half kilometer mark. It had to be a slight uphill grade. If it was level, she would have fallen over. They picked a special part of the road. She had worked a year with bake sales, raising the $3,000 for her half kilometer. When she got to the half-kilometer mark suddenly there was rolled out a huge banner a block long with little pictures all over it and in gigantic letters, \elementary school class was holding the banner and her whole school filled the entire block.At that moment, she had already transferred the torch to the alternate; she saw that banner and she took it back. She edged forward again until she got to the end of the block and now absolutely exhausted, she started to turn it again and to turn it over, and at that