How I’d Make the Olympics More Exciting by Sterling Pingree

The Olympics are coming up in Rio, allege. There might not be police, the venues might not be done and oh yeah the train system is scheduled to be done 4 days before the opening ceremonies. I want to get excited for the competition though, I really do. But with so many athletes bowing out from fear of the Zika, the Olympics need some more sizzle. Here is my: Olympic Fix.

Bring back baseball. It was voted out of the 2012 Olympics and I’m not really sure why. Before that, the last Olympic sport that was voted out of the games? POLO IN 1936! Bring back baseball, use minor league players, each team would probably let their prospects take 2 weeks and go to the games. What better showcase for your top guys than to have them playing for a medal? Also, how much fun would it be as a red Sox fan to watch Andrew Benintendi play for the USA? You might say, what about the World baseball classic? Please, this would be greater because it wouldn’t be so forced. If MLB put half the effort into promoting the USA Olympic baseball team that they have for the WBC, it’d be a winner every four years.

Golf is an Olympic sport this year, the only problem is that nobody asked the best players in the world if they would actually want to compete in the games. Guess what? None of them do. Rory, Spieth, DJ and Jason Day have all bowed out, either out of fear of getting a virus or because there’s simply more money and FedEx points to be made by playing on the PGA tour. How do you fix this? TIGER WOODS! The field for the golf in Rio is going to be watered down without the top players in the world, what better stage for Tiger to reemerge, this time with the chance to be a national hero and a medal winner. Perhaps wishful thinking, but you have to admit, you’d be curious if Tiger were to tee it up for his country.

What I don’t understand as far as the Men’s Basketball team goes is that the top players don’t want to go. No Curry, No Lebron Why not?  In the NBA they like nothing more than loading teams to make the odds as unfair as possible to win championships, why not do it for America? Makes no sense to me. This will be the final Olympics for the man who turned USA basketball around, the great Coach K, so who should take the helm in 2020? CHARLES BARKLEY! Lebron doesn’t want to play for his country, Barkley would throw shade on him on Inside the NBA, the most watched basketball show on the planet! Plus, the guys would all want to play for Barkley, he’d be demanding, entertaining and be the ring leader of the after hour’s crowd.

For the rest of the events, I have a solution: BROCK LESNAR! Brock Lesnar calls himself “the modern day Bo Jackson” and after his win at UFC 200, he might be. The guy won the national championship in wrestling while at the University of Minnesota, won the WWE title, almost made the Minnesota Vikings in 2004, won the UFC Championship from Randy Couture, went back to WWE- won the title and then a few days shy of turning 39 went BACK to the octagon and beat Mark Hunt. Lesnar is the most athletic freak our nation has, let’s put him in everything. He’d be a legit threat in Greco Roman and free-style wrestling of course, boxing he’d contend, but wouldn’t you watch every other event Lesnar competed in? Put it this way:

Javalin- Brock Lesnar chucking spears

Shot put- Brock Lesnar hucking cannon balls

Judo- Brock Lesnar fighting ninjas.

Fencing- Brock Lesnar with a freakin sword!

Rugby- Brock Lesnar shedding tacklers like Techmo Bo until he gets aggravated and F5’s a Kiwi.

Shooting- Brock Lesnar owns hundreds of acres of land in North Dakota/Canada, he probably has a gun or two.

Badminton- Brock Lesnar breaking shuttlecocks

Trampoline- Brock Lesnar…….on a trampoline.

You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t watch all of these events or at the very least watch the video the next day on youtube. With my help and these ideas, we can fix the summer Olympics.

 

Sterling Head ShotSterling Pingree (@SterlingPingree) is a co-host on The Drive, weekdays 4pm to 6pm on 92.9fm The Ticket and streaming live at DriveShowMaine.com. Follow us on Twitter, @DriveShowMaine and “Like Us” on Facebook, Drive Show Maine.