Patrick Donohue is the proudest Indiana native you're likely to find. Seriously. No one is prouder to be from a state that so many people know relatively so little about than he is. Patrick is a native of Terre Haute and a graduate of the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Indiana University. Knowing this, you might think he’d be a huge John "Cougar" Mellencamp fan, a man considered by some to be the Hoosier State's poet laureate. But you'd be wrong. In a major way. | Let’s just assume that all of what you are about to read is prefaced by me saying that NBC’s decision to air many high-profile Olympic events on tape delay is a money grab, and any argument to the contrary is naive, disingenuous and utterly without merit.
That being said, the Olympics have always had the ability to make me care, however fleetingly, about sports I never knew existed or rarely, if ever, think about.
These Olympics have been no exception, so I thought I would provide a brief synopsis of the events that have piqued my interest.
1. Beach volleyball: Like regular volleyball except with less clothing, fewer people and more sand.
2. Slalom canoeing: Apart from looking like one of the most frustrating sports on Earth, slalom canoeing makes me wonder what life would be like if the athletes were half-man, half-canoe. Going down escalators would be so fun. Going up? An exercise in futility
3. Water polo: Ever watching a group of world-class athletes try to drown each other for three hours? An unexpectedly brutal sport.
4. Handball: The sport I most want to start playing right now. It just looks fun.