Yeah he was probably the very first for me too. Although actually I think I first started watching baseball spring of '76 and I did see the Winter Olympics a few months before in '76. I think my first real sports memory is watching the insane downhill and the drama of skier after skier going down that crazy course (or crashing out) and that all-time crazy run by Franz Klammer! And then Dorothy Hamill with the gold in figure skating! Man she was HUGE!!
But the Yankees were next. Reggie Jackson was my favorite. I'd always stop playing and make sure to carefully watch every time he stepped up to bat. I remember Thurman Munson, Willie Randolph, Mickey Rivers, Greg Nettles and of course Billy Martin, in particular too. And of course who can forget the Scooter! and Bill White! on WPIX!
And then in the Summer Games I do remember Bruce Jenner and the Wheaties box later that year! That Wheaties box was everywhere! A Nadia Comăneci and the first perfect 10 ever.
That was such a crazy summer. So hot! And that horrible Son of Sam stuff going on on the news every night!
Then in 1980 the summer games are a no memory because of the boycott but man the 1980 winter games I loved that crazy bobsled track they had. And of course who can forget the insanity of THE MIRACLE ON ICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And then THE CATCH Montana to Clark!!!!!! Been a Niners fan ever since that game! I was in a crowd of much older Cowboys fans and at first I went along with them and rooted for the Cowboys and was gonna make them my team. But the QB for the other team, there just seemed to be something about him. So I started catching myself rooting a bit for the Niners. And then secretly more and more. The dude was just incredible. Just had that factor. And then when they made that play I just leapt up YEAHHH!!!!!!!! to the utter horror of like 99% of everyone else in the room LOL!
But yeah Mary Lou Retton was HUGE in 1984! Definitely burned into my brain! People not around then don't know how crazy huge she was. America's darling. Crush of a lot of middle school guys. Etc.
Carl Lewis was crazy huge too! Did the Jesse Owens FOUR GOLDS thing! Fastest man on the planet. Longest jumper on the planet!
I have short legs, poor balance, and at the time I was so nearsighted I couldn’t tell the difference between a blueberry and a grape until I ate it, but watching Nadia convinced me that I had a definite future as a gymnast
Her age was somewhere between 14 and 16.
I think calling her a 10 was a deliberate pun... All of her scores were 10s... many of them.... plus being called a 10 in terms of attractiveness...
Oh man, didn’t even think of that (“10” being a pun)… but I know for a fact she was 14 in July 1976 because trust me I was obsessed with her as a kid and I know all her stats. Her date of birth is November 12, 1961. She turned 15 in November 1976.
Several of my friends were... my mom was kind of a hippie and insisted on long straight hair for all of us... I actually wanted the haircut to spin around and make the hair and skirt fly out around me... but the answer was no!
I moved from CA to VA summer of 78. Still had my long straight dicso hair. First day walking to the bus stop, I thought, it's all boys! No, all the girls had the dororthy hamill cut and from a distance looks like boys.
Martina and Billie were happy early memories for me. I so admired their skill and toughness. I was a little boy living in Australia, but their moxie was super clear and admirable for me.
Oh yeah. I turned 7 in the summer of 1976. As usual, I spent several weeks with my paternal grandparents. Unless Grandma was watching "rasslin'" (wrestling,) I was absolutely glued to the black and white TV, utterly mesmerized by Nadia. And Grandma was exactly as indulgent of her sweet grandbaby as you might imagine an old southern lady could possibly be. She convinced Grandpa to rearrange the living room for maximum floor space so that I could tumble around to my heart's content. The man moved HIS RECLINER so that I could attempt to break my arm that summer.
LOL, definitely an early memory for me as well! When he died in '07, the London Telegraph published the best-written obituary I've ever read. It starts:
>Evel Knievel, the American motorcycle stunt rider who has died aged 69, combined a considerable talent for self-promotion with a hazardous capacity for bravery; among the several world records he held was that for the most bones broken by one person (433), and he is said to have spent the equivalent of three years in hospital.
>Tall, blonde and nearly handsome, in the 1970s Knievel appealed to America's love of excess, and to her need to be convinced that she had not gone soft, that the pioneer spirit still thrived. That Knievel was more like a Mississippi riverboat card-sharp than Davy Crockett seemed to matter little, and he won both fame and fortune, the former lasting rather longer than the latter.
"Tall, blonde and nearly handsome."!
The genius who put those words together didn't even get a byline.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1571100/Evel-Knievel.html
> more like a Mississippi riverboat card-sharp than Davy Crockett
Hell, Davy Crockett was more like a Mississippi riverboat card-sharp than many people realize. Dude was a just a scoundrel with a good PR team
Remember when there was a bill in Congress aiming to protect young people from sexual abuse, literally called the “Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017” and Mary Lou Retton for some reason went out of her way to oppose it, even meeting with crypt-keeper cosplayer Diane Feinstein to try to stop its passage (unsuccessfully, thankfully)? And then years later crowdfunded a half-million dollars because she had pneumonia? Like, I dunno. We’re all fallible and flawed, and I’ve never been on a Wheaties box, but childhood heroes are all-too-often better left in childhood memories.
Why not both? Pneumonia can be caused by lots of things, bacteria, viruses and fungi. It is more of a symptom of infection rather than the actual infection, so Covid can cause pneumonia.
BTW, I went to the same university as her, a few years after, and I distinctly remember seeing graffiti in multiple locations that said variations on "I F*cked MLR"
For those who watch gymnastics every four years and don't know, Mary Lou Retton is actually not very good. She benefited from a Soviet boycott and had a really good competition at the right time. She then retired to go out on top rather than compete against a full field where she would never medal.
Then there's her defense of the Karolyis and her cheerleading for USA gymnastics all the while saying that nothing bad has ever happened to any of the athletes, even when she watched her contemporaries suffer and in one case, even die of an eating disorder triggered by comments made by judges and her coach.
I'll just let another Redditor explain it all:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gymnastics/comments/ag7nfs/why_do_people_hate_mary_lou_rhetton_so_much/
I did not know that but thanks for context. I was thinking of the ones I really remember even super controversial like Tonya harding.
And the Wheaties box sure did athlete propaganda like no one else.
Full disclosure, Mary Lou is a sad villain in head now. 😉
Totally awful. She's not very popular due to her views about USA Gymnastics:
Retton privately lobbied Congress **against** passing a bill that was designed to protect athletes from child sexual assault. The bill was created specifically in response to the Nassar scandal and to fix existing flaws that it had exposed.
[Here's a Reddit post detailing more.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gymnastics/comments/ag7nfs/why_do_people_hate_mary_lou_rhetton_so_much/)
??? If you were born in 1970 you were in your early 20s when "the incident" they are referring to took place, and it was ALL over the news worldwide... Figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding were rival skaters aiming for the 1994 Olympics. Due to various reasons Tonya or her immediate circle of supporters thought her chances were better if Nancy was out of the way. Nancy Kerrigan was physically attacked -hit on the knee- and seriously injured by someone hired by Tonya Harding's husband (ex-husband?)
It was never fully clear if Tonya was in on the plotting or only found out later. She maintained her innocence and they couldn't prove she knew ahead of time. She was in trouble for failing to report what she learned and banned from the sport.
So when the one person said she was trying to get the "leg up" on the competition give her a "break" ... that was the joke...
Sorry if I over explained, but if you meant it when you implied you DIDNT get the joke I thought it was just as well to give a run down for -- anybody who did not.
It's when you said "but as far as joke detection goes you're up on me lol"
Saying that is what you did to make me think that you might not know that.
😁😁😁😁😁
Sorry if it didn't land well.
Oh, man, we are _not_ doing well at understanding each other!! However I think we both mean well and are almost certainly on the same page if we could ever express it lmao
Tonya Harding definitely brought the drama. Artistic drama, athletic drama and then just plain old drama! I've always been torn on how I feel about what happened to her. I feel like she took heat that she shouldn't have.
I was a teenage figure skater in the 90s. We were not wealthy either. I didn't have the looks or the money but man her 3A inspired me. I "only" got my double axle, but I'd still say that's a pretty good role model until bad decisions were made...
I had a Dorothy Hamill doll when I was really little. But I think the first athlete I really remember is Mean Joe Greene, because of [the commercial he was in](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffOCZYX6F8&ab_channel=stiggerpao). I was also fairly aware of Joe Namath, Johnny Unitas, and Gino Marchetti. And Chrissie Evert, because her name was on my mom's tennis racket. And Johnny Bench, because I liked his name. (I've never been into sports but my dad and brother watched them like it was a full time job, so I got a lot of second-hand knowledge.)
Although not the first I remember, looks like we all collectively have the same people. Let’s not forget, Jackie Joyner-Kersee! I was in HS but transfixed by her skill 🌟
I had a crush on Mary Lou Retton like so many others. She was two years older than me and from about an hour and half away from where I lived at the time.
I also remember in Bloom County, in one of the Star Trek parodies, they were going to “the planet of spunky, chunky Mary Lou Retton clones” and that has lived rent free in my head ever since.
Yeah, I watched that show from early childhood. I can still see that 19" RCA TV, hear the music and watch that guy wiping out to the agony of defeat VoiceOver. :)
OMG, I was such a fan. Mary Lou everything. Including the Wheeties box. I wanted to be her so badly. And then by sixth grade I was 5’8”. Oh well. At least I can still do a decent cartwheel.
David Thompson was probably my first, being from Raleigh, NC. He was a legend and larger than life growing up here. I vaguely remember him at NCSU as a very small kid.
Quite memorable.
What an odd fuckin choice she made, yeah?
I mean, for a chance at an Olympic medal?
And with those 2 knuckle daggers?
Oh Tonya, we barely knew ya
My friend was obsessed with Nadia the gymnast. It has lingered.
I had a raging crush on Jimmy Connors and then Pat Cash, Andre Agassi, Duncan Armstrong, Mark Waugh, Ayrton Senna and Peter Brock.
I loved Nadia Comăneci! She married Bart Conner who was the famous American male gymnast (and heartthrob) the same year as Mary Lou Retton, 1984. Olympics were so much better back then for some reason. Maybe because we were kids & tried copying every move on the monkey bars, even down to using ground up chalk dust on our hands! 🤭
Tegan, please, I know, you've mentioned it before, today, and yes, her life is a fascinating one, but it's been 40 years now, my friend, do you think we could talk about something else? ;)
[Nadia Comaneci would be mine.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Nadia_Com%C4%83neci_Montreal1976c.jpg/220px-Nadia_Com%C4%83neci_Montreal1976c.jpg)
Joe Montana. The first football game I ever watched was Notre Dame with Joe at qb. I was 5 maybe. I thought he hung the moon.
ETA: Johnny Bench. The Baseball Bunch was must watch TV.
I went to high school in the suburbs just North of Houston in the late 80's and I remember seeing her at a McDonald's. She was tiny behind the wheel, I remember thinking she must be sitting on a phone book. Then a minute later I saw inside standing in line, I am 6'4" and boy was she tiny. I also remember her having a squeaky little voice but she was nice and said to everyone and left with her food.
Wow I was worried about her earlier when she almost died.
[https://people.com/mary-lou-retton-health-update-medical-mystery-hard-time-breathing-8652844](https://people.com/mary-lou-retton-health-update-medical-mystery-hard-time-breathing-8652844)
Bruce Jenner? Mark Spitz? Mike Eruzione? Muhammad Ali? They were all famous athletes before the 1984 Olympics.
If we're allowed non-Olympians, I could probably list 100 players from 70s Atlanta sports teams, including Georgia Tech football and basketball players, who I remember from childhood AND were around before Mary Lou Retton:
**ATLANTA BRAVES:** Dale Murphy, Bob Horner, Jerry Royster, Biff Pocoroba, Glenn Hubbard, Rick Camp, Phil Niekro, Jeff Burroughs, Steve Bedrosian, Tommy Boggs, Gene Garber, Bruce Benedict, Chris Chambliss, Raphael Ramirez, Terry Harper, Claudell Washington.
**ATLANTA FALCONS:** Steve Bartowski, William Andrews, Mick Luckhurst, Alfred Jenkins, Alfred Jackson, Billy "White Shoes" Johnson.
**ATLANTA HAWKS:** Tom McMillen, Tree Rollins, Eddie "EJ" Johnson, John Drew, Charlie Criss.
**GEORGIA TECH FOOTBALL:** Ken Whisenhunt, Eddie Lee Ivery, Mike Kelley, Ted Peeples, Rodney Lee, Ray Friday. Drew Hill, Don Bessillieu, Gary Lee, Ray Friday.
**GEORGIA TECH BASKETBALL:** Brook Steppe, John Mannm, George Thomas, Steve Shaw, Kerry O'Brien.
FUN FACT: On November 11, 1978 Georgia Tech's Eddie Lee Ivery broke the NCAA's Division I single game rushing record (356 yards) and also the highest average yards per carry (13.7) against Bill Parcell's Air Force Falcons!
Olga Korbut, Cathy Rigby, Mark Spitz.
Dorothy Hammil, Nadia Komaneche, Bruce Jenner.
Gene Spenarckle(sp) Duke bbball player my older sister was friends with
Bill Jean King, Chris Everett, Martina Navritalova, Jimmy Connors(that two handed backhand), Bjorn Bjorg, John McEnroe, Elie Nastase
Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard
Wilt Chamberlain.
Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Willie Stargill
Lynn Swann and Terry Bradshaw.
Willie Mays.........dad was stationed near San Fran late 60's/early 70's and he would take me to see Mays, MCcovey, and Marichal at the Giants games. I also had a Pete Rose glove in Peewee league baseball. Wish I kept it.
I was a horse girl, so it was all about the equestrian events for me. 1984 is the earliest Olympics I remember giving a shit about, and the US won the gold in Team Jumping that year. [Joe Fargis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fargis), who was on Team USA, also won the gold for Individual Jumping and I took a riding clinic with him about a year after that.
Billy Sims - sitting on my dad's lap as a little girl, both of us watching the pitiful Lions of the 1980s, and rooting for him to do his magic carving up defenses. Good memories.
My brothers and I were just talking about past Olympics memories. Our memory was the LA Olympics where Russia didn't attend. McDonald's did the free big mac for gold medals. We ate free McDonald's for 2 weeks!
Nadia Comaneci
Martina Navratilova and Chris Everett
Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Bruce Jenner
Steve Stone
and, okay not an athlete, but definitely Harry Caray
Dale Murphy
I grew up in Atlanta during the absolute lowest dregs of being a Braves fan and Dale was the only player of any caliber. People forget just how terrible the Braves were in the 80s.
Turns out he’s a Mormon religious right wing nutjob.
Reggie Jackson. I started playing Little League in the mid-‘70s. Not only was he a great player, he wore glasses just like me.
Reggie bar!
I'm a New Yorker and never cared about baseball, but even I knew who Reggie Jackson was!
Yeah he was probably the very first for me too. Although actually I think I first started watching baseball spring of '76 and I did see the Winter Olympics a few months before in '76. I think my first real sports memory is watching the insane downhill and the drama of skier after skier going down that crazy course (or crashing out) and that all-time crazy run by Franz Klammer! And then Dorothy Hamill with the gold in figure skating! Man she was HUGE!! But the Yankees were next. Reggie Jackson was my favorite. I'd always stop playing and make sure to carefully watch every time he stepped up to bat. I remember Thurman Munson, Willie Randolph, Mickey Rivers, Greg Nettles and of course Billy Martin, in particular too. And of course who can forget the Scooter! and Bill White! on WPIX! And then in the Summer Games I do remember Bruce Jenner and the Wheaties box later that year! That Wheaties box was everywhere! A Nadia Comăneci and the first perfect 10 ever. That was such a crazy summer. So hot! And that horrible Son of Sam stuff going on on the news every night! Then in 1980 the summer games are a no memory because of the boycott but man the 1980 winter games I loved that crazy bobsled track they had. And of course who can forget the insanity of THE MIRACLE ON ICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then THE CATCH Montana to Clark!!!!!! Been a Niners fan ever since that game! I was in a crowd of much older Cowboys fans and at first I went along with them and rooted for the Cowboys and was gonna make them my team. But the QB for the other team, there just seemed to be something about him. So I started catching myself rooting a bit for the Niners. And then secretly more and more. The dude was just incredible. Just had that factor. And then when they made that play I just leapt up YEAHHH!!!!!!!! to the utter horror of like 99% of everyone else in the room LOL! But yeah Mary Lou Retton was HUGE in 1984! Definitely burned into my brain! People not around then don't know how crazy huge she was. America's darling. Crush of a lot of middle school guys. Etc. Carl Lewis was crazy huge too! Did the Jesse Owens FOUR GOLDS thing! Fastest man on the planet. Longest jumper on the planet!
I was gonna say Pete Rose but yea Reggie too
Olga Korbut. Nadia Comaneci. Dorothy Hamill.
Nadia was my first crush on a celebrity.
Nadia was the first celebrity crush of a whole generation. Where do I get in line?
I have short legs, poor balance, and at the time I was so nearsighted I couldn’t tell the difference between a blueberry and a grape until I ate it, but watching Nadia convinced me that I had a definite future as a gymnast
Yep! Nadia was my girl crush
I mean, she was a 10.
Yeah but that was older than us.
Yup, 1976, I was 10. I want to say she was 13?
14.
Her age was somewhere between 14 and 16. I think calling her a 10 was a deliberate pun... All of her scores were 10s... many of them.... plus being called a 10 in terms of attractiveness...
Oh man, didn’t even think of that (“10” being a pun)… but I know for a fact she was 14 in July 1976 because trust me I was obsessed with her as a kid and I know all her stats. Her date of birth is November 12, 1961. She turned 15 in November 1976.
Nov 12 is also Tonya Harding's birthday interestingly enough... also my spouse's 🙃
I occasionally watch Nadia’s floor performance on YT when I need to feel good.
How did I forget Dorothy
My mom gave me a Dorothy Hamill haircut. I was cursed with that haircut until I was old enough to absolutely refuse to get it any more.
We were all cursed with this haircut!
Several of my friends were... my mom was kind of a hippie and insisted on long straight hair for all of us... I actually wanted the haircut to spin around and make the hair and skirt fly out around me... but the answer was no!
I moved from CA to VA summer of 78. Still had my long straight dicso hair. First day walking to the bus stop, I thought, it's all boys! No, all the girls had the dororthy hamill cut and from a distance looks like boys.
Nadia Comaneci is the first name i remembered!
She's not a gymnast but Billie Jean King was amazing on the court.
Oh, I meant this as all athletes who we remember being talented/famous etc
Martina and Billie were happy early memories for me. I so admired their skill and toughness. I was a little boy living in Australia, but their moxie was super clear and admirable for me.
Olga was my first idol. I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast, just like her. Wore the pig tails, too.
I got my hair cut like Dorothy Hamil. It was not a good look on me.
lol I had that haircut, my mom, my aunts.
Likewise with the added insult of me not wanting a haircut of any kind. Honestly I still haven't forgiven my mom for that.
Didn't we all? Whether we wanted it or not.
Mine was Bruce Jenner and Evel Knievel.
Yes, Nadia. I was 8 when she scored the first perfect 10 in the Olympics. We all wanted to be gymnasts after that.
We did indeed! And love your username.
Thanks!
Same!
Nadia Comaneci for me.
Oh yeah. I turned 7 in the summer of 1976. As usual, I spent several weeks with my paternal grandparents. Unless Grandma was watching "rasslin'" (wrestling,) I was absolutely glued to the black and white TV, utterly mesmerized by Nadia. And Grandma was exactly as indulgent of her sweet grandbaby as you might imagine an old southern lady could possibly be. She convinced Grandpa to rearrange the living room for maximum floor space so that I could tumble around to my heart's content. The man moved HIS RECLINER so that I could attempt to break my arm that summer.
Evel Knievel.
LOL, definitely an early memory for me as well! When he died in '07, the London Telegraph published the best-written obituary I've ever read. It starts: >Evel Knievel, the American motorcycle stunt rider who has died aged 69, combined a considerable talent for self-promotion with a hazardous capacity for bravery; among the several world records he held was that for the most bones broken by one person (433), and he is said to have spent the equivalent of three years in hospital. >Tall, blonde and nearly handsome, in the 1970s Knievel appealed to America's love of excess, and to her need to be convinced that she had not gone soft, that the pioneer spirit still thrived. That Knievel was more like a Mississippi riverboat card-sharp than Davy Crockett seemed to matter little, and he won both fame and fortune, the former lasting rather longer than the latter. "Tall, blonde and nearly handsome."! The genius who put those words together didn't even get a byline. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1571100/Evel-Knievel.html
> more like a Mississippi riverboat card-sharp than Davy Crockett Hell, Davy Crockett was more like a Mississippi riverboat card-sharp than many people realize. Dude was a just a scoundrel with a good PR team
Should've gone with Daniel Boone?
>He married his childhood sweetheart Linda Bork in 1959. She fell for his romantic nature after he kidnapped her three times.
damn!
Third time charm lol
Thank you for posting that and the link. Much appreciated.
Curly from the Globe Trotters
There for a while they were everywhere. Scooby-Doo, even.
Their theme is definitely part of the music of my childhood.
Oh hell yes! Saw them when I was a kid
Remember when there was a bill in Congress aiming to protect young people from sexual abuse, literally called the “Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017” and Mary Lou Retton for some reason went out of her way to oppose it, even meeting with crypt-keeper cosplayer Diane Feinstein to try to stop its passage (unsuccessfully, thankfully)? And then years later crowdfunded a half-million dollars because she had pneumonia? Like, I dunno. We’re all fallible and flawed, and I’ve never been on a Wheaties box, but childhood heroes are all-too-often better left in childhood memories.
She said it was pneumonia but most people think it was Covid since she’s a big denier and anti-vaxxer. Real piece of work.
Why not both? Pneumonia can be caused by lots of things, bacteria, viruses and fungi. It is more of a symptom of infection rather than the actual infection, so Covid can cause pneumonia. BTW, I went to the same university as her, a few years after, and I distinctly remember seeing graffiti in multiple locations that said variations on "I F*cked MLR"
For those who watch gymnastics every four years and don't know, Mary Lou Retton is actually not very good. She benefited from a Soviet boycott and had a really good competition at the right time. She then retired to go out on top rather than compete against a full field where she would never medal. Then there's her defense of the Karolyis and her cheerleading for USA gymnastics all the while saying that nothing bad has ever happened to any of the athletes, even when she watched her contemporaries suffer and in one case, even die of an eating disorder triggered by comments made by judges and her coach. I'll just let another Redditor explain it all: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gymnastics/comments/ag7nfs/why_do_people_hate_mary_lou_rhetton_so_much/
I did not know that but thanks for context. I was thinking of the ones I really remember even super controversial like Tonya harding. And the Wheaties box sure did athlete propaganda like no one else. Full disclosure, Mary Lou is a sad villain in head now. 😉
Pele for me.
Good one
Secretariat
Ruffian
Totally awful. She's not very popular due to her views about USA Gymnastics: Retton privately lobbied Congress **against** passing a bill that was designed to protect athletes from child sexual assault. The bill was created specifically in response to the Nassar scandal and to fix existing flaws that it had exposed. [Here's a Reddit post detailing more.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gymnastics/comments/ag7nfs/why_do_people_hate_mary_lou_rhetton_so_much/)
Het and also Bruce Jenner
Yeah, whatever happened to him?
He transformed into she now she is a Republican. Last name Jenner........
You should have buckled up, Buckaroo.
Brucey came from Miami, FLA Hitch-hiked her way across the USA Plucked her eyebrows along the way Shaved her legs and then he was a she
That's such a long story.
I was a big Tonya Harding fan. I liked that she was an awesome skater and wasn't like the other girls. Until...the incident.
Well she was just trying to get a leg up on the competition. Give her a break.
Uhhhh....
These are the jokes, kid.
GenX kid... also 1970. I got the joke. 😁😁😁😁
The kid part was a quote, but as far as joke detection goes you're up on me lol
??? If you were born in 1970 you were in your early 20s when "the incident" they are referring to took place, and it was ALL over the news worldwide... Figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding were rival skaters aiming for the 1994 Olympics. Due to various reasons Tonya or her immediate circle of supporters thought her chances were better if Nancy was out of the way. Nancy Kerrigan was physically attacked -hit on the knee- and seriously injured by someone hired by Tonya Harding's husband (ex-husband?) It was never fully clear if Tonya was in on the plotting or only found out later. She maintained her innocence and they couldn't prove she knew ahead of time. She was in trouble for failing to report what she learned and banned from the sport. So when the one person said she was trying to get the "leg up" on the competition give her a "break" ... that was the joke... Sorry if I over explained, but if you meant it when you implied you DIDNT get the joke I thought it was just as well to give a run down for -- anybody who did not.
I'm not sure what I did to make you think I didn't know this.
It's when you said "but as far as joke detection goes you're up on me lol" Saying that is what you did to make me think that you might not know that. 😁😁😁😁😁 Sorry if it didn't land well.
Oh, man, we are _not_ doing well at understanding each other!! However I think we both mean well and are almost certainly on the same page if we could ever express it lmao
Tonya Harding definitely brought the drama. Artistic drama, athletic drama and then just plain old drama! I've always been torn on how I feel about what happened to her. I feel like she took heat that she shouldn't have.
I was a teenage figure skater in the 90s. We were not wealthy either. I didn't have the looks or the money but man her 3A inspired me. I "only" got my double axle, but I'd still say that's a pretty good role model until bad decisions were made...
> Tonya Harding Tonya Harding?!!? *Whyyyyyyyy?!!?*
I had a Dorothy Hamill doll when I was really little. But I think the first athlete I really remember is Mean Joe Greene, because of [the commercial he was in](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffOCZYX6F8&ab_channel=stiggerpao). I was also fairly aware of Joe Namath, Johnny Unitas, and Gino Marchetti. And Chrissie Evert, because her name was on my mom's tennis racket. And Johnny Bench, because I liked his name. (I've never been into sports but my dad and brother watched them like it was a full time job, so I got a lot of second-hand knowledge.)
Johnny Bench definitely. I used to watch his Saturday morning show "Johnny Bench and the baseball gang"
Carl Lewis
Muhammad Ali and Bjorn Borg
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
The great smell of Brut and the punch of Ali
Yes!!
Although not the first I remember, looks like we all collectively have the same people. Let’s not forget, Jackie Joyner-Kersee! I was in HS but transfixed by her skill 🌟
#FLOJO# I’d never seen a woman with muscles like that and she was fast as lightning.
Oh lord she was the BEST - RIP queen, I was so sad when she passed
So was I.
Darryl Sittler.
From Toronto? Great player!
Same here.
I think the farthest back is Pete Rose. My parents listened to Phillies games on the radio on summer evenings.
Nadia C is mine
I had a crush on Mary Lou Retton like so many others. She was two years older than me and from about an hour and half away from where I lived at the time. I also remember in Bloom County, in one of the Star Trek parodies, they were going to “the planet of spunky, chunky Mary Lou Retton clones” and that has lived rent free in my head ever since.
Bruce Jenner just from all of the Wheaties commercials. They must have paid him millions over the years.
Mark Spitz or maybe Jerry West or Wilt Chamberlain. But I think Spitz came to my attention first.
I think for me it's the "agony of defeat" guy on Wide World of Sports. I know, only by looking it up just now, that this was Vinko Bogataj.
Oh you're talking about the ski jumper wipeout?
Yeah, I watched that show from early childhood. I can still see that 19" RCA TV, hear the music and watch that guy wiping out to the agony of defeat VoiceOver. :)
Wayne Gretzky for me.
Bobby Orr for me but the Great One is my all time favourite
I briefly met Mary Lou at the DFW airport right after the Olympics. Boy is she tiny!
Squeaky voice too
Super nice though. I worked with her on a crew and she was easily the nicest celebrity I’ve ever met.
I find it cute and not annoying.
Gymnasts tend to be that way!
OMG, I was such a fan. Mary Lou everything. Including the Wheeties box. I wanted to be her so badly. And then by sixth grade I was 5’8”. Oh well. At least I can still do a decent cartwheel.
David Thompson was probably my first, being from Raleigh, NC. He was a legend and larger than life growing up here. I vaguely remember him at NCSU as a very small kid.
He could put a quarter on the top of the backboard. Definitely a legend. It's a shame his pro career was cut short.
Katarina Witt
sexy momma
I vaguely remember Nadia.
I have a goat named after her.
Is it a milker named Mary Lou Rennet?
Dorothy Hamill!
Hank Aaron, read a book about him in first grade.
Walter Payton and Carl Lewis.
Tonya Harding
Quite memorable. What an odd fuckin choice she made, yeah? I mean, for a chance at an Olympic medal? And with those 2 knuckle daggers? Oh Tonya, we barely knew ya
I remember seeing Michael Jordan for the first time in the 84’ Olympics along w/ Mary Lou, and also remember OJ carrying the torch!
Randy and Tai.
My friend was obsessed with Nadia the gymnast. It has lingered. I had a raging crush on Jimmy Connors and then Pat Cash, Andre Agassi, Duncan Armstrong, Mark Waugh, Ayrton Senna and Peter Brock.
I loved Nadia Comăneci! She married Bart Conner who was the famous American male gymnast (and heartthrob) the same year as Mary Lou Retton, 1984. Olympics were so much better back then for some reason. Maybe because we were kids & tried copying every move on the monkey bars, even down to using ground up chalk dust on our hands! 🤭
https://preview.redd.it/bu7dxyrfrgbd1.jpeg?width=274&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3e631930da28a6e51543b53272b418ea123b1be
Tegan, please, I know, you've mentioned it before, today, and yes, her life is a fascinating one, but it's been 40 years now, my friend, do you think we could talk about something else? ;)
Lol! I liked her because people said I looked like her, so obviously I needed to know who she was. I was very young & fascinated by her story!
Dr. J The 84 Olympics though, that was such a huge deal, my first real awareness of following the games and athletes so closely
Reggie Jackson, Dr. J, Guy LaFleur.
I had the album that had Nadia’s theme. https://youtu.be/Ttc9aCSRqEY?si=9p7-OQRc0etq8sTL Listening again…it sounds like a soap opera theme song
I beeeeegged to learn that song for a piano recital but it was rejected and I had to play the Anniversary Waltz.
Nadia
[Nadia Comaneci would be mine.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Nadia_Com%C4%83neci_Montreal1976c.jpg/220px-Nadia_Com%C4%83neci_Montreal1976c.jpg)
Al Kaline, Mickey Lolich, OJ, Muhammed Ali, Hank Aaron, Gordie Howe.
Yeah. I was already 16 when she was put on the map.
Joe Montana. The first football game I ever watched was Notre Dame with Joe at qb. I was 5 maybe. I thought he hung the moon. ETA: Johnny Bench. The Baseball Bunch was must watch TV.
Meadowlark Lemon
Hard to say as I collected baseball cards in the early 80's.
I loved Mary Lou!!!
Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming. And Mary Lou.
Thurman Munson
Tai and Randy
I was 5 for most of '84, so Mary Lou Retton and Kirk Gibson are the first athletes I knew of. Maybe Steve Yzerman, too.
Reggie Jackson.
Jack LaLane. I remember my mom exercising to his show while I impatiently waited for it to end so I could watch Romper Room.
😂 awww, cute memory!
For me Nadia Comenici, Muhammad Ali, Joe Namath, and Wilt Chamberlain were the first I can somewhat remember.
The first athletes I remember being aware of were Dorothy Hamill, Bruce Jenner, and Wheaties cereal.
Nadia
This is the one who was totally cool with sexual abuse in gymnastics, right?
Had such a crush on her.
I went to high school in the suburbs just North of Houston in the late 80's and I remember seeing her at a McDonald's. She was tiny behind the wheel, I remember thinking she must be sitting on a phone book. Then a minute later I saw inside standing in line, I am 6'4" and boy was she tiny. I also remember her having a squeaky little voice but she was nice and said to everyone and left with her food.
Wheaties
Hello Mary Lou...
Wow I was worried about her earlier when she almost died. [https://people.com/mary-lou-retton-health-update-medical-mystery-hard-time-breathing-8652844](https://people.com/mary-lou-retton-health-update-medical-mystery-hard-time-breathing-8652844)
Debby Fleming. Damn, I’m old.
Peggy Fleming? Or a combo of Peggy Fleming and Debi Thomas?
Supercharged!
My first kid crush
Legend! I was obsessed with both gymnastics and her at my childhood age. And this uniform was by far my favorite ever.
Mary Lou Retton and Dorothy Hamill were my first crushes.
Mary Lou & Peekaboo Street
> Peekaboo Street Picabo, bro.
Bruce Jenner? Mark Spitz? Mike Eruzione? Muhammad Ali? They were all famous athletes before the 1984 Olympics. If we're allowed non-Olympians, I could probably list 100 players from 70s Atlanta sports teams, including Georgia Tech football and basketball players, who I remember from childhood AND were around before Mary Lou Retton: **ATLANTA BRAVES:** Dale Murphy, Bob Horner, Jerry Royster, Biff Pocoroba, Glenn Hubbard, Rick Camp, Phil Niekro, Jeff Burroughs, Steve Bedrosian, Tommy Boggs, Gene Garber, Bruce Benedict, Chris Chambliss, Raphael Ramirez, Terry Harper, Claudell Washington. **ATLANTA FALCONS:** Steve Bartowski, William Andrews, Mick Luckhurst, Alfred Jenkins, Alfred Jackson, Billy "White Shoes" Johnson. **ATLANTA HAWKS:** Tom McMillen, Tree Rollins, Eddie "EJ" Johnson, John Drew, Charlie Criss. **GEORGIA TECH FOOTBALL:** Ken Whisenhunt, Eddie Lee Ivery, Mike Kelley, Ted Peeples, Rodney Lee, Ray Friday. Drew Hill, Don Bessillieu, Gary Lee, Ray Friday. **GEORGIA TECH BASKETBALL:** Brook Steppe, John Mannm, George Thomas, Steve Shaw, Kerry O'Brien. FUN FACT: On November 11, 1978 Georgia Tech's Eddie Lee Ivery broke the NCAA's Division I single game rushing record (356 yards) and also the highest average yards per carry (13.7) against Bill Parcell's Air Force Falcons!
Mark Spitz and Olga Korbet for me
Olga Korbut, Cathy Rigby, Mark Spitz. Dorothy Hammil, Nadia Komaneche, Bruce Jenner. Gene Spenarckle(sp) Duke bbball player my older sister was friends with Bill Jean King, Chris Everett, Martina Navritalova, Jimmy Connors(that two handed backhand), Bjorn Bjorg, John McEnroe, Elie Nastase Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard Wilt Chamberlain. Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Willie Stargill Lynn Swann and Terry Bradshaw.
Willie Mays.........dad was stationed near San Fran late 60's/early 70's and he would take me to see Mays, MCcovey, and Marichal at the Giants games. I also had a Pete Rose glove in Peewee league baseball. Wish I kept it.
Dorothy Hamill. Dr. J. Muhammad Ali.
Those great Steeler’s teams. Terry Bradshaw. “Mean” Joe Greene, Lynn Swann.
For me it was Mark Spritz (sp?)
Kristi Yamaguchi
Among others mentioned here, I’ll name Mark Spitz
I was a horse girl, so it was all about the equestrian events for me. 1984 is the earliest Olympics I remember giving a shit about, and the US won the gold in Team Jumping that year. [Joe Fargis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fargis), who was on Team USA, also won the gold for Individual Jumping and I took a riding clinic with him about a year after that.
Walter Payton Debi Thomas Surya Bonaly Bart Connor Mitch Gaylord Tim Daggett Edit: formatting
Florence Griffith Joyner (Flo-Jo) Track and Field 1988 Olympics.
Walter Payton and I wasn’t even a Bears fan. He was so much fun to watch.
Muhammad Ali.
Billy Sims - sitting on my dad's lap as a little girl, both of us watching the pitiful Lions of the 1980s, and rooting for him to do his magic carving up defenses. Good memories.
Dorothy Hamill...I even had her haircut!
I had the biggest crush on Mary Lou.
Carl Lewis.
Brian Sipe 
Anybody remember Janet Lynn?
My brothers and I were just talking about past Olympics memories. Our memory was the LA Olympics where Russia didn't attend. McDonald's did the free big mac for gold medals. We ate free McDonald's for 2 weeks!
Nadia Comaneci Martina Navratilova and Chris Everett Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Bruce Jenner Steve Stone and, okay not an athlete, but definitely Harry Caray
Reggie Jackson
She was in "Scrooged" as Tiny Tim. I remember Tim Raines of the Montreal Expos because I got to meet him at the Big O in 1988.
I remember Tracee Talevera, another gymnast as well as skater Dorthy Hamilton.
Dale Murphy I grew up in Atlanta during the absolute lowest dregs of being a Braves fan and Dale was the only player of any caliber. People forget just how terrible the Braves were in the 80s. Turns out he’s a Mormon religious right wing nutjob.
He was legend. TBS memories
Not from Atlanta but we had WTBS in our cable package and I watched a ton of Braves games back then. Same with WGN and the Cubs.
But do you remember Bruce Benedict? I remember the Braves were so bad that when he came up to bat, the home crowd would go “Boooooce Benedict”
No, but I remember the Sid Bream slide