Sports wishes for 2018
Sending out sports wishes for 2018 to Serena, Brady, Pyeongchang and others
In just a few days, as 2017 comes to an end, we will say goodbye to a sports year that saw unexpected and unprecedented story lines. We know them so well we can just rattle them off by name: Tom Brady, Serena Williams, the Golden State Warriors, the Houston Astros, Colin Kaepernick, Donald Trump.
Farewell to all of that, the good and the great and the uplifting and the notso-uplifting, and let’s say hello to — what, exactly, in 2018?
We have no idea what will happen, of course, no clue what story the headlines and stat sheets will tell us 52 weeks from now. But we can hope, can’t we?
My first wish for the sports year ahead is simple: that the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, come off without a hitch.
As we approach every Olympic Games, winter and summer, there always is concern. Often, the worries are great and overshadow everything else in the weeks leading to the Games. This happened in Sochi four years ago, in Rio a year and a half ago, and in Athens more than 13 years ago.
And so it is with Pyeongchang, an Olympics being held just 50 miles from the North Korean border. As thousands of young athletes gather in competition over 18 days in February, the hope is that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un does nothing to disrupt them or the world at large. This is a big wish, but it has been granted time and again during the Olympics for 20 years, since a homemade bomb killed a spectator in 1996 in Atlanta, the last time terrorism struck the Olympic Games.
No conversation about these Olympics would be complete without mentioning Russia and its state-sponsored doping machine. Here’s hoping the International Olympic Committee’s banishment of the Russian flag and anthem from these Games — as well as athletes who can’t prove their innocence — brings shame to everyone involved with Russia’s Olympic effort. We already know how many medals Russia will offi- cially win at the Pyeongchang Games. Zero. For a nation that cheated so massively in Sochi to try to win the most medals, that’s downright and perfectly embarrassing.
By the time the Olympics begin, the Super Bowl will be over, and Serena very well might have played her first Grand Slam tournament as a new mother. So here’s the next wish: can the greatness of this generation of athletes not go away just yet?
Brady is certainly looking like he’s heading to a rendezvous with Ben Roethlisberger in a Patriots-Steelers AFC Championship Game, and if things go well for him, a chance to win his sixth Super Bowl and his first in his 40s. There’s no cheering in the press box, but that would be one riveting story.
Look at the ages of some of these athletes: Williams is 36, and if she’s at the Australian Open, which she won last year while two months pregnant, she could win her 24th Grand Slam title, tying Margaret Court for the career lead, men or women. Roger Federer, a month and a half older than Williams, is coming back after winning the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2017. Can that please not be the last of it for him?
Tiger Woods turns 42 over the weekend. If his oft-injured-and-operated-on back holds up, might he appear on the leaderboard of another Masters? Love him or not, can you imagine that, especially since so many have given up on him?
Here’s to a bushel basket worth of sports surprises in 2018. The Astros gave Houston something to cheer when the city needed it most. Who gets that kind of joy this year? Perhaps it will be brought to the Los Angeles Angels by Shohei Ohtani, the 23-year-old pitcher/ outfielder/designated hitter from Japan. He’s MLB’s first full-time two-way player since Babe Ruth. What’s not to like about that?
Is it possible we won’t have a Cavaliers-Warriors NBA Finals? That would be something different. Meanwhile, can a northern Ohio native hope that LeBron James doesn’t leave Cleveland for the Los Angeles Lakers?
I’m sure sports and politics and real life will intersect again in 2018, and that’s just fine. So many sports fans despise when this happens. I wish they wouldn’t. Relish that sports takes us to conversations we can and should have. They might not universally unite us, but is it OK to hope that they don’t always divide us?