Perhaps like me, you were wondering about all the glowing attendance figures for the Paralympics; scratching your head at the reports of sellouts and near sellouts and enthusiastic crowds hustling to the venues, cheering for one and all.
How does this make sense? Where do people find the time? Doesn't anybody work around here?
The Olympics barely ended and more than a million and a half people watched them, after which the majority took the airport by siege trying to beat everyone home. That left us residents, who had already called in sick for three weeks to watch the Olympics, to watch some more.
I traveled to the Paralympic venues at Soldier Hollow, Snowbasin and the E Center to see for myself.
Sure enough, I found stands filled with spectators wildly cheering all competitors.
Then I got closer and discovered . . . school kids.
The venues are packed with school kids.
They're miniature crowds.
The secret to the popularity of the Paralympics can be summed up in two words.
"Field trip!"
And let me tell you, you have never in your life seen happier crowds.
The same kids who say "Are we there yet" five times on the way to the grocery store couldn't care less if they've just been bused from Ogden to Heber City to see a ski race in a blizzard. It's getting them out of science and math, isn't it?
If you're a grown-up, and I'm using the word literally here, there is not a bad seat in the venue. You can see over everybody. You feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Kindergarten Cop."
You also have a strong urge to ask, "Anybody want to trade for a fruit rollup?"
The sight of all those school kids took me back to 1988 when I was covering the Olympics in Seoul. In the men's basketball tournament, the United States and Soviet Union found themselves in a semifinal game that was one of the most eagerly anticipated basketball games in Olympic history.
The only problem, it was eagerly anticipated in the United States and the Soviet Union. In Korea, not so much.
To avoid an arena half-full of empty seats, Olympic organizers hauled in busload after busload of school kids from various elementary schools in Seoul.
To keep things even, half of them were given U.S. flags and half were given USSR flags.
They were all really happy to be there, too, and rooting for overtime.
I don't know who's paying for the tickets, but I know if you took away the kids, and their teachers, from the Paralympic events I've seen, there would have been about 17 people in the stands.
This isn't hard to understand. The Paralympics are all about perseverance, overcoming adversity and never saying die, which is what sets them apart as terrific. But as a spectator event, they rank somewhere between the Weather Channel and championship bingo.
A big reason for this is because in each event — with the exception of sled hockey — there are so many divisions and handicaps within each division that when you're watching from the stands you have no chance to know what's going on.
This can be a major impediment to enjoying a sporting event.
But not to the kids. To them, it's no big deal. Their spectating style is to cheer for everybody and sort it all out on the bus ride home.
And if it's a really good day, the bus pulls up to the school just as the last bell is ringing.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
