Shooting holes in Ryan Lochte’s ‘overexaggerated’ Olympic tale
“Whatever.” That’s what Ryan Lochte claims he said — at first telling — when a highway robber stuck a gun in his face and ordered him to get down on the ground in Rio de Janeiro. Lochte’s original story: “We got pulled over, in the taxi, and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing, just a police badge and they pulled us over,” Lochte said. “They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground. They got down on the ground. I refused. I was like, ‘We didn’t do anything wrong, so I’m not getting down on the ground.’
“And then the guy pulled out his gun. He cocked it, put it to my forehead and he said, ‘Get down,’ and I put my hands up. I was like ‘whatever.’ He took our money, he took my wallet — he left my cellphone, he left my credentials.” Whatever? That’s when I knew that Lochte was, as he later called it, “over-exaggerating.”
Here’s how I knew: I’ve had a gun pointed at me. I didn’t shrug my shoulders … “Whatever.”
I was too busy being scared to death. As a coward with good manners, I did exactly what the gunman told me to do. And fast.
I mentioned that he had a gun, right?
In 1990, as a graduation gift, I took my brother-in-law, University of Nebraska football player Jake Young on a trip to Europe. Jake was 6-5 and 300 pounds,
ripped, first-team AllAmerican center. We got Eurail passes and slept on overnight trains and cheap hotels. Anybody gave me trouble … see the guy next to me.
Sunday morning in Rome, we hopped a bus to the Vatican to watch the pope bless the crowd in St. Peter’s Square. The square can hold 80,000 people, so the busses are very crowded. Packed. You’re jammed in there, sweaty, standing in the aisle, eyeball to eyeball and other body parts.
That’s when we heard a rumbling, people started leaning and falling over, lots of shouting …
A Serpico-looking guy with a beard, dressed in a jeans jacket and jeans, a baseball hat and sunglasses pointed a gun at Jake and me and yelled something in Italian.
Then English — “GET OUT!”
Unlike Lochte, I didn’t think, hmm, I haven’t done anything wrong, can we discuss this?
Serpico jumped off the bus after us and, with his gun, motioned for us to stand on the sidewalk. There was a woman also on the sidewalk, surrounded by children.
Serpico said something to a “polizia” uniformed officer, who explained to us what was going on.
The officer said the woman was a pickpocket. She was working the bus and had lifted Jake’s wallet. Other victims were being escorted off the bus, too. Serpico was an undercover cop riding the bus to catch pickpockets.
Pickpocketing is big business in Italy, especially on crowded public transportation, particularly around the Vatican, Trevi Fountain, the Colisseum and other popular tourist attractions.
We had to wait on the sidewalk for a police woman to come and search the woman. Then we had to follow the police to the station to fill out paperwork and claim Jake’s wallet. We missed the pope. Never got Jake’s wallet back. Police said the woman probably handed it off to an accomplice.
The takeaway: Having a gun pointed at me was no “whatever” moment. It was frightening. When you get that frightened, down to your core, your knees really do knock, it’s not just an expression. Your insides start rattling, too. You hope there isn’t an accident.
And when you talk about it later, you don’t act all brave and tough, or roll your eyes like Lochte said he did. That’s what James Bond does in the movies.
When it happens for real, you don’t say “whatever,” you do it.
I’ve got to give Lochte credit for one thing, though ...
Every athlete hopes for a fairy-tale ending to their career. He got one. They call me mellow yellow
One more concert gets checked off my bucket list Sept. 21.
Donovan is coming to Cullen Theater at Wortham Center. Tickets are $66-86, click on houstonfirsttheaters.com for information.
This is the 50th anniversary of “Sunshine Superman,” Donovan’s first No. 1 hit and the only chart-topping song to mention both Superman and Green Lantern.
Donovan is performing all his hits on this tour, including “Catch the Wind,” “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” “Colours,” “Universal Soldier,” “Mellow Yellow” and “Jennifer Juniper.”
This is going to get me mocked by my “cool” rock buddies, but I prefer Donovan to Bob Dylan. And if I could have only 10 albums on a desert island, one would be “Donovan’s Greatest Hits.”