NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. -- Like many of you, I am enjoying NBC's coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, especially the performances by swimmer Michael Phelps and the American women's gymnastics team. Believe it or not, my family has a connection to international competition.
Do you know who was the first American gymnast to win a gold medal? I know... It was Marcia Frederick, the pride of New England. She and I are distant cousins - enough that we could be kissing cousins, except my girlfriend Sera would not like that.
Any way, Marcia was almost my date for the senior prom. I was shorter than the shortest girl in high school so I thought she might be ideal. She was not available on short notice. You see, she was busy getting ready for the Moscow Olympics, fresh off her nearly perfect 9.95 in the uneven bars. Better than Romania's Nadia Comeneci and the U.S.S.R.'s Elena Mukhina.
Marcia won a gold medal in the 1978 World Gymnastics Championship in Strasbourg, France, the first American gymnast to attain such an honor. This competition was a prelude to the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and Marcia Frederick was our No. 1 weapon.
Problem was President Carter banned American athletes from competing after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Of course, we helped a creep like Osama bin Laden, later the mastermind of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.
Marcia Frederick won a gold medal in the 1978 World Gymnastics Championship in Strasbourg, France, the first American gymnast to attain such an honor. This competition was a prelude to the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and Marcia Frederick was our No. 1 weapon.
Problem was President Carter banned American athletes from competing after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Of course, we helped a creep like Osama bin Laden, later the mastermind of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.
Any way, Nadia Comeneci, as expected, was the Olympic star. Four years later in Los Angeles, we had another superstar emerge, without Soviet participation -- Mary Lou Retton.
Marcia Frederick's window of opportunity had come and gone through no fault of her own. Perhaps Frederick could have scored a perfect 10, mirroring Comeneci's perfect performance at the Montreal Olympics four years earlier. Nadia had the show all to herself in Moscow.
Marcia had a brief acting career, appearing in the 1982 movie, "Nadia," playing Comeneci in the actual gymnastics. Had Marcia Frederick been allowed to compete against Nadia on the grandest world stage -- the 1980 Summer Olympics -- she could have been the "Miracle in Moscow."
Just like the American hockey team did two years prior in the 1980 Winter Olympics, defeating the Soviets, 4-3, in the game dubbed the "Miracle on Ice."
Marcia Frederick is now Marcia Frederick-Blanchette. You can check her out in her prime through YouTube. Here is a link my girlfriend, Sera, found: Marcia Frederick 1978 Worlds EF Bars.
As for that senior problem... I went by myself and I danced with everyone else's date. After all, I was a hot brainiac.