...atleast you realize you are a jerk. :)

I run. I hate joggers who say they run. I ran Boston and I can't stand it when a person who did an 8 hour marathon crows about finishing to me as if we are somehow brothers in arms.

But then my sis, who was born with a crippling birth defect, took up running at the age of 35. As a kid she was constantly warned that the 7 major surgeries she endured before the age of 6 would render her too arthritic to walk by age 20. Total hip replacement has always been a certainty of her life ( and took place a month ago - a 9 hour operation).

But back to my point - 5 years ago she decided to run a marathon, this girl-turned-woman who has never, ever walked without a weird shuffling limp. Her let has these big Frankenstein-y scars, because back when they pioneered the groundbreaking surgeries on her body, she wasn't really expected to be around long enough to care about scars.

She ran a 6 hour marathon. I, her 3 hour marathoner sister, ran next to her. Let me tell you something - it takes one thing to be world class. A big, huge, mind-breaking thing some people never ever can get (maybe I came close: I was a scholarship athlete and played semi-pro in my sport and know about 6 hour practice days and hoping the nerve-induced pee trickles aren't showing on my uniform as I take my place before the eyes of thousands). It takes another thing - a different thing, an important thing - to give it all you've got and still be pretty bad, and be OK with it because the cards you were dealt means you can't really expect anything more - that the great American elixir of *trying* won't get you further, no matter what.

Your pov is not beastly so much as other-wordly - cut yourself some slack. And realize that empathy can take you places that your Olypian body can't.

Not being a jock, I was ready to not like this article, but the more I thought about it the more I came to the somewhat same conclusions as you.

and yes... cut yourself some slack Jennifer. Many, if not most of us have similiar feelings at times concerning sacrifices we had to make to pursue something that carries our passion.

... I feel the same way about ex-athletes who say they write.

... That was a joke, not a serious dig. I worked as a professional writer for ten years and never once broke a femur.)

...you're a professional; there is a difference.

As a professional in another (TOTALLY non-athletic) field-- one in which others engage to one degree or another nearly every day-- I understand your frustration.

BUT... everyone who ever made the cut for the team (or got the lead in the play, or garnered an excellent review for his/her musical solo, etc.) feels a part of his/her community, and watches the Olympics/Wimbledon/Tonys/Oscars/Grammys with a bit more investment than the average citizen.

I know these people are still "amateurs" to you (and they absolutely are, no question), but I think it's important that you acknowledge that their personal connection makes them part of your community, and that connection inspires a HUGE part of the support and enthusiasm you and other professional athletes receive.

This is not a small thing.

There's a wonderful line from a little-seen (yet award-winning) Showtime movie starring Forest Whitaker, Kathy Baker, and Jeff Goldblum ("Lush Life"). Whitaker and Goldblum are close friends and hard-scrabble, working musicians, though it's obvious that Whitaker is the genius of the two. In a to-the-camera "interview," Goldblum's character acknowledges this fact, but makes a point of reminding us that "There is a place in this world for those of us who are merely... excellent."

Jennifer Sey, you are/were an athletic genius. Relax and allow that, if it weren't for the "merely" talented/gifted/excellent, there would be no well from which the geniuses could spring.

P.S. It's under "wraps," not "raps." (Gee... guess what MY professional snobbery is...)

Careful, now. If word gets out that the viewers of NBC's multiple channels are not just like the athletes, it might hurt viewership and then sales.

What is it that entices millions in the US to tune in every four years, if not exactly the sort of identification Jennifer Sey rails against here? And it extends far beyond the Olympics: If I just buy that brand of shampoo, I can look like that model. (No, you can't. Who knows what horrid surgeries or missed meals or tawdry private arrangements went into that 30-sec. turn on screen?)

We don't like being reminded that our weekend club tennis is many orders of magnitude reduced from Federer and Nadal. Break down this identification with the person on screen--the only way most of us become infected with the illusion that we're just like them--and you destroy what media use to get us to watch. What else are all those heart-warming biographical pieces for? If we didn't have that, we'd be reduced to, well, watching the competitions.

Amusing, considering it's in an otherwise excellent article about being a "jerk" around know-nothing amateurs, is this line:

She swam back and forth in the pool, performing the stroke called freestyle.

Nuh-uh. "Freestyle" is the name of the race. The stroke most people perform in that race is called the front crawl (aka the Australian crawl).

Maybe someday some swimmer will invent a faster stroke -- and then suffer the indignity of having people call it "freestyle" -- turning them into a "jerk" around people watching swimming races...

Ms. Sey

Your reaction is incredibly childish. I am awed that you shared it anyone - much less printed it on a website. People try to connect with what they watch and people they know. We are social animals. Sometimes the connection is apt, and sometimes it ain't. Your choice is to (1) be gracious and engaged the person on their life experiences (that's also known as being an adult) or (2) degrade them for not being you (a reaction even teenagers should be scolded for). Good luck as an author.