Some people naively think that Michael Phelps is a greater athlete than Mark Spitz. This is obviously not true. Why? Mark Spitz did it with a mustache, a feat little men like Michael Phelps can only dream about. I remember it so vividly, he was standing there with his seven gold medals and a full head of hair and a mustache in his red, white and blue--for a moment he was as great as the Beatles. And not just some well-trimmed, thin, pencil mustache of the hip-hop generation, but a full grown, bushy banner and anthem probably inspired by the Woodstock summer of peace and love. As wind tunnel after wind tunnel have shown, a mustache creates almost as much drag as a National Geographic wind sock. So, here's to you Mark Spitz, the only Olympic swimmer that will ever win seven gold medals in the same Olympics while sporting a psychedelic Sergeant-Pepper's-Lonely-Hearts-Club-Band mustache.
Loren M. Lambert
Copyright August 20, 2008
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