Is it us against them at Olympics?
The Olympic Games have always been a tricky sell, which isn't to say that America's television packagers have been unequal to the task. For the past 15 years or so, Olympic viewers have been force-fed treacly tales of young-man-overcoming-adversity (he has asthma!) or young-woman-strives-for-personal-best (and she's only 16!).
Before the mid-1980s, selling the Olympics was a much easier proposition. Back then, the story had built-in bad guys: the steroid-snarfing East Germans and the original Evil Empire itself, the USSR. The brutish Soviet athletes "get shot if they smile," one of the young skaters opines in "Miracle," the delightful, feel-good movie about the memorable 1980 US-Soviet hockey game in Lake Placid, N.Y.
This summer, the Athens Olympics will present a new twist. This time we are the bad guys.
Foreshadowings have already occurred. Some Mexican fans took up the chant "Osama! Osama!" during a recent US-Canada Olympic soccer game held south of our border. Last month, protesters in Athens -- a city polarized by pro- and anti-American sentiment -- chanted "Sept. 11 every day!" during an anti-American rally. Even the casual newspaper reader gets the drift that America's stock is not trading at a big premium around the world right now.
Several Olympic athletes have addressed this issue, although many seem to think the United States is disliked because of its supposed athletic dominance. But I think Terry Steiner, the national women's coach for USA Wrestling, hit closer to the mark when she told the Knight Ridder news service, "Not a lot of countries believe in what we've done in the last 18 months. They think we're pretty arrogant people and want things our way. We're against the world in a lot of ways."
Inevitably, the US Olympic team is taking countermeasures. As many as 10 psychologists will travel to Athens to help the men and women deal with such issues as hostile crowds. The athletes have already been warned not to wear Team USA gear outside their heavily guarded training compound at the American College of Greece. "I don't think you'll be seeing as many American lapel pins as you might've at previous games," says David D'Alessandro, chairman of
D'Alessandro doesn't think the Olympic broadcasts will devolve into an anti-American hoedown, necessarily. Many of the sporting venues are small, and NBC will control the cameras inside them, he says. "If there are protests inside, they can be managed so as to be almost pristine." Outdoors is another story. "If protesters take to the streets of Athens, it will be covered. There will be more media there than at the Super Bowl. If NBC doesn't cover it, CNN will." "If there are incidents, obviously we'll cover them," says Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Sports. On the whole, however, he thinks I'm overplaying the possibility of anti-American demonstrations during the games. "I'd be surprised if anything was directed against our athletes in Greece," he says. "Once you get a block and half away from the American Embassy, everybody will be well treated. There's just a different attitude around the Olympics."
He allows that some spectators may turn unruly, but says "that's just like people chanting `Yankees [expletive]' at Fenway Park or `Red Sox [expletive]' at Yankee Stadium. You don't hear the networks turning up the volume when people do that."
Found object
I recently happened upon the best-seller list of the Straits Times, Singapore's major English-language daily newspaper. Dan Brown novels -- "The Da Vinci Code," "Angels and Demons," and "Deception Point" -- occupy three of the top 10 spots, and his "Digital Fortress" is No. 8. Quite impressive for a young man who more or less keeps to himself, writing out of a modest office above an Exeter, N.H., bookstore.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 
