< PREVIOUS ] [ 2002 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
Granted, there aren't a lot of reasons to brag about
being from Colorado. Our history offers plenty of sordid
events, from the brutal Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, to our
infamous days as the Hate State
after the anti-gay
Amendment 2 passed in 1992.
But there may be one source of pride: Colorado is the only place that ever turned down the Winter Olympics.
Actually, it was Denver that was awarded the games more
than 30 years ago, and even though many events would be
held in the mountains far from the state capital, the
propaganda still promoted the Denver Winter Olympics
to the disgust of the hinterland which would have to put up
with the crowds and traffic.
That was one mistake the promoters made, among many. There was the proposed biathlon course in the foothills. The biathlon involves two activities: cross-country skiing and target shooting with rifles. Locals couldn't remember ever seeing enough snow on that wind-blown route to ski on, and the ski-shoot passed by an elementary school -- not an outstanding place for bullets.
Even so, there were promises that the Olympics would
produce international publicity to put Colorado on the
map.
There were a lot of Coloradans who didn't see any
need to get on the map. Petitions began to circulate for an
amendment to the state constitution. It wouldn't ban the
games; it would just prohibit using tax money for the
games.
Without subsidies, of course, there couldn't be a Winter Olympics. Dick Lamm, a young state legislator, led the fight against the games, charging that they were a waste of money and an inducement to tacky development. In the 1972 general election, Colorado voters passed the amendment, thereby forcing the International Olympic Committee to find another site -- one with more generous taxpayers. Lamm was elected governor in 1974, and re-elected in 1978 and 1982.
Utah voters aren't as miserly as Colorado's. The Winter Olympics finally found a home in the Mountain West, in Salt Lake City. Indeed, even my backwater mountain county participated as the torch relay passed through. Perhaps this was an honor, since some places notorious for their winters, like Steamboat Springs and the state of Minnesota, complained about being omitted from the torch route.
But as a Wall Street Journal article explained, the torch relay was more like a 65-day,11,500-mile advertisement for its two major sponsors, Chevrolet and Coca-Cola -- to the extent that the flame was routed so as to avoid any Pepsi or Ford signs that might otherwise sully the background of TV news shots.
Runners weren't paid for appearing in these watch the
torch go by
commercials, of course; there was the honor
of the thing. Finding Olympic honors other than publicity
--some not all that savory -- could take some work
But it's all worth it, right? The Olympics will succeed
in putting Utah and the West in general on the map,
won't it?
Think back to Sept. 11, when the network talking heads said it was the first attack on Americans on American soil since the War of 1812. Well, Pancho Villa invaded New Mexico in 1916, and killed 18 people in the town of Columbus, but apparently that didn't count, since it happened in the West, not on the Eastern seaboard.
Or think back to 1995, when there were celebrations of the 75th anniversary of women getting the vote in America after the 19th Amendment took effect in 1920. But women had been voting in Wyoming since it became a state in 1890. Utah, Colorado and other Mountain states quickly followed -- by 1917, Montana had even sent a woman, Jeannette Rankin, to Congress. Perhaps our foremothers weren't really voting since they lived in the West.
The Utah games have finally put the West on the map? Try
this simple experiment. Watch TV tonight. Observe the
network announcements of the evening fare. You will hear
10 Eastern, 9 Central
but rarely our time zones in
the West.
So much for getting on the map, and as for the Olympics, Utah is welcome to them. There aren't many reasons to be proud of Colorado, but refusing to participate in a marketing extravaganza is a fine reason for local pride.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 2002 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >