Sometimes the home town team isn't who one pulls for, even if he is supposed too. I was born and raised in Hickory and when the Hickory Crawdads came to Greensboro to play the Grasshoppers my wife wondered who I would pull for. That time it was easy. The grasshoppers of course even though I am emotional closer to Hickory and Mom still lives there. Still Greensboro is my hometown team and I know no one one the Hickory team.
But the Olympics are a different story. Of course I want the USA to win but sometimes I want the underdog to win. Not the underdog in athlectic ability but the underdog in life. I know that growing up in an American Ghetto neighborhood is tough but a family doesn't have too in America. I know a child doesn't have a choice where their parents live but most often life can be better if one puts in the effort. Still, life in the Ghetto is better than life in many other countries and those folks have no choice. It is just a matter of which Ghetto and the one you know is almost always better than the one you don't.
You know that chances are almost certain that a person born into one of those situations is going to live and die the same way as they were born. You learn a little about a person that is stuck there and see the smile and the intelligence and the beauty and the determination and one can't help but be drawn to them and hope they can, for once in theiur life, come out a winner. It is more than just a race for a gold metal or a little fame. It is the difference between having an opportunity to live or to be condemned forever into poverty.
Sometimes ones heart just wins out.
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