Victor Davis
Mar. 9th, 2007 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desoto_hia873I love watching the Olympics. Summer, winter--it matters not. If it's Olympic, I will watch it. I will sit in front of the television for twelve hours a day, seven days a week and watch it. Figure skating? I'm there. Diving? I'm there. Track and field? I'm so there. Greco-Roman wrestling? I don't understand it, but I'm still there.
I also have a slight tendency (OK, maybe slightly more than slight) to hero-worship the athletes I'm particularly interested in. I made spreadsheets to keep track of decathlete Michael Smith's scores over the years. I rewarded myself for passing my PhD comprehensive exam by driving through a blizzard to Barrie, Ontario, to watch figure skater Elvis Stojko train at his practice rink for a day. I went to Oakville for the "Welcome home, Donovan Bailey" parade after he won the 100-metre sprint in Atlanta. I had a crush on high jumper Greg Joy for years after seeing him in person at the Montreal Olympics (hey, I was 13 :-). My perfect man is diver Greg Louganis.
When I was an undergrad at the University of Guelph, swimmer Victor Davis came to town for an autograph-signing gig at the mall. I still have the signed pic I got from him in one of my photo albums. My residence went on a pub crawl to a place called Uncle Sam's somewhere in New York that same weekend, and you can just imagine my delight when I discovered that Victor had some friends at U of G and turned up on my bus! After fortifying myself with a few drinks at the pub, I worked up enough courage to ask him to dance with me. He declined--graciously; there was no chair-kicking--but gave me a kiss on the cheek. I twittered for the rest of the night.
Just a few years later, he was dead. He'd gotten into an altercation with someone at a bar in Montreal, and that someone hit him--apparently, deliberately--with his car. Victor suffered a skull fracture and never regained consciousness. He died a couple of days later from his head injury. His funeral was held in Guelph (his hometown), but I couldn't go because of a prior commitment in Toronto. As per his wishes, many of his organs were donated by his family to patients in need.
Why am I bringing this up? CBC will be airing Victor, a film about the life and death of Victor Davis, later this year. Who will be playing Victor? Mark Lutz, our very own Groosalug.
That's just... neat.
I also have a slight tendency (OK, maybe slightly more than slight) to hero-worship the athletes I'm particularly interested in. I made spreadsheets to keep track of decathlete Michael Smith's scores over the years. I rewarded myself for passing my PhD comprehensive exam by driving through a blizzard to Barrie, Ontario, to watch figure skater Elvis Stojko train at his practice rink for a day. I went to Oakville for the "Welcome home, Donovan Bailey" parade after he won the 100-metre sprint in Atlanta. I had a crush on high jumper Greg Joy for years after seeing him in person at the Montreal Olympics (hey, I was 13 :-). My perfect man is diver Greg Louganis.
When I was an undergrad at the University of Guelph, swimmer Victor Davis came to town for an autograph-signing gig at the mall. I still have the signed pic I got from him in one of my photo albums. My residence went on a pub crawl to a place called Uncle Sam's somewhere in New York that same weekend, and you can just imagine my delight when I discovered that Victor had some friends at U of G and turned up on my bus! After fortifying myself with a few drinks at the pub, I worked up enough courage to ask him to dance with me. He declined--graciously; there was no chair-kicking--but gave me a kiss on the cheek. I twittered for the rest of the night.
Just a few years later, he was dead. He'd gotten into an altercation with someone at a bar in Montreal, and that someone hit him--apparently, deliberately--with his car. Victor suffered a skull fracture and never regained consciousness. He died a couple of days later from his head injury. His funeral was held in Guelph (his hometown), but I couldn't go because of a prior commitment in Toronto. As per his wishes, many of his organs were donated by his family to patients in need.
Why am I bringing this up? CBC will be airing Victor, a film about the life and death of Victor Davis, later this year. Who will be playing Victor? Mark Lutz, our very own Groosalug.
That's just... neat.
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Date: 2007-03-09 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 06:26 pm (UTC)