Olympics Seem Headed to Hell in a Handcart? Let's Turn the Games Over to the LDS
Church
BY ROBERT KIRBY SALT LAKE TRIBUNE COLUMNIST
If Utah is a bastion of morality, how did all this bribing of Olympic officials happen?
Plenty of Mormons were on the bid committee. Didn't they know that bribery was way
worse than not doing your home teaching?
According to a story last week by The Tribune's Peggy Fletcher Stack, part of the
reason may be an attitude that some Mormons hold dear, namely that the end justifies the
means. After all, we can't baptize the world until we get our hands on them. So, what's a
few million bucks, a little gun-running and white slavery compared with X number of
baptisms?
Whether this actually happened is anyone's guess. If it did, there's nothing singularly
Mormon about it. Squirrely ethics is a human problem, else how did we get stuff like the
Crusades, the Holocaust and televangelism?
But suppose we did. If the Mormon culture is even partly responsible for the tarnishing
of something as clean and wholesome as who will get paid an obscene amount of money to
be on the next Wheaties box, shouldn't we make some kind of restitution? Absolutely.
That's why I propose that the LDS Church host the 2002 Winter Olympics. For free. Not
only would it solve a lot of problems like housing, venue locations, and culture shock, it
wouldn't cost anyone in Utah one single thing more than peace of mind.
We could do it. Just think of it as a really big ward project. Huge. Bigger than crossing
the plains or whacking crickets. The advance planning alone would help us fine-tune our
plans to be the host church for the Second Coming.
Few other churches could pull this off. Heck, few other churches would be nuts enough
to try. But we are the church that every year convinces 30,000 of its teen-agers to trade
MTV for the MTC. If we can do that, we can certainly do the Olympics.
First problem: venue sites. We have plenty of those. With a bit of finagling, we could
work a speed-skating oval into the new Assembly Hall. Also, we could build a ski jump
down the side of the church office building.
Ward and stake houses could easily be converted to ice rinks. We already are used to
wedding receptions on our basketball courts. This is just taking the whole sports/cultural
hall thing the other way.
Thanks to the Relief Society, housing and feeding Olympic athletes would be a snap.
Frankly, unless it was Fast Sunday, most Mormon families wouldn't even notice an extra
dozen mouths at the table.
Curfew might pose a problem. However, careful explanations should convince more
orthodox Mormons that getting up to train at 4 a.m. is not the same thing as being up way
past your bedtime.
Transportation to and from events is not a problem. High-capacity vehicles R us.
Communications? Covered. There probably isn't a language on the planet, and maybe
even in outer space, that we couldn't find a returned missionary to translate.
However, hosing down the gold medalists with champagne is out. Someone is going to
have to tell the rest of the world that we use root beer in Utah.
See what I mean? It wouldn't be that tough. Besides, it's not like we wouldn't get
something out of it. For starters, an opportunity to showcase ourselves to the world.
Later, when everyone is feeling comfy, maybe we can see about getting venues for
scripture chases and Pinewood Derbies.
Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Kirby lives in Springville. The self-described
"OxyMormon" welcomes mail at P.O. Box 684, Springville, UT 84663, or e-mail at
rkirby@sltrib.com.
Page Modified January 30, 1999