Response to "Glory Days"

I can’t quite figure out Menand’s tone but see it most noticeably surfacing at the beginning and end. The way he opens, with the comic depiction of his family, prepares the reader for a sarcastic piece about the silliness or ridiculousness of the Olympics. But he confuses us by writing, “In this flock, I was the unlikely black sheep.” So he, unlike his family, seems to appreciate sports. But he reminisces that as “a shrimp” in his “prepubescent days,” the actualizing of his basketball dreams were always impossible. After spending most of the article seemingly reporting facts about the development of the Olympics or about different books written about the Olympics or even about how the Olympics are really just an extension of imperialistic Britain, Menand slowly winds his way to the claim that “winning really is what the spectacle is all about.” Menand argues that all “the virtuous talk about the honor or competing and the comity of sport” simply clouds the facts that sport is merely a spectacle about winning. This claim seems a bitter truth.

So does Menand like the Olympics? Perhaps he is a reluctant sports fan, one who embraces sports despite objections to cost, etc. Perhaps he just likes sports for what they are—a spectacle, nothing more, nothing less. Even in the article he can’t decide how he feels, ending with a long string of questions and the so-be-it statement: “We have the Games, however we got them, whatever they mean. Let them begin!”