In sports teams, apart from talk of sporting prowess and the imparting of inspirational thought, an extraordinary amount of time is spent discussing, and flaunting, material possessions.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
In all Games, there is always a tendency, particularly in the lead up to the Games when there isn't much sport to talk about, to write about things that are not sport.
Sport can bring communities together and can release a lot of pent-up emotions.
Sports is a bunch of people gathering around, watching something that they're not actually connected to - they're just emotionally connected.
We are essentially in the business of telling stories. We would like to think that most of our stories are basically human stories with sports as a backdrop.
For almost 20 years, I've reported on some amazing feats of athleticism for ESPN. But the one thing that stood out, game after game, is that it takes a team to win. When I got cancer, that lesson got personal. And Team Livestrong became my team.
More time than not, athletes, specifically fighters, have a 15 or 20-year career, and unfortunately, we end up right where we started when it's over. All we have is maybe a round of applause when we walk in a room - Hey, there's the champ! That's great; I want that, but I've got to have something tangible to show for it, too.
For many of us, sport has provided the continuity in our lives, the alternative family to the one we left behind. It gives us something to talk about, to preen about, to care about.
We talked about some of our experiences, focusing, hanging together down the stretch, important games. It's not necessarily who has the most talent but what team sticks together and executes their fundamentals the best.
I think that people who have played sports have an ability to relate to people because when you're playing you have to work on teams and with opposing players.
The sports world is an echo chamber. All it takes is one quote from a general manager and a thousand sports columns bloom.