9802090059
DETROIT FREE PRESS
980209
Monday, February 09, 1998
METRO FINAL
1
Photo
KC Boutiette
MITCH ALBOM
WINTER OLYMPICS
Copyright (c) 1998, Detroit Free Press
FAST TALKING NOT THAT EASY WITH A RING IN YOUR TONGUE
NAGANO, Japan -- People like us, by that I mean Americans, by that I mean American sports
writers, by that I mean sports writers who only drop in on winter sports once
every four years, should be eased into it slowly. No shocks. No jolts.
So why does this speedskater have a ring in his tongue?
A ring in his tongue. A ring in his right ear. Two rings in his left ear. Hair
dyed a shocking blond. And a brown goatee. This is the guy I'm talking to on
the first full day of Olympic competition. He looks like Pearl Jam's role
model. And he is being asked, "How do you feel about the world record being
broken in your race?" And he is answering, "Who cares? They skate. I skate.
Why should I care?"
Hmm. To paraphrase the Oldsmobile commercial, "This ain't your father's
speedskater."
Speedskaters are supposed to mumble and nod, right? Speedskaters are supposed
to have big heartland families watching in big heartland living rooms, right?
Eric Heiden? Sheila Young? Dan Jansen? Bonnie Blair? If there's one thing you
could always count on at the Winter Olympics, it was that speedskaters -- at
least American speedskaters -- were as wholesome as the dairy in their home
state of Wisconsin. And they all came from Wisconsin, didn't they? From the
Blairs, the Jansens, the Heidens, the Nick Thometzes, speedskaters not only
came through the same state, they came through the same town, West Allis, a
Norman Rockwell place with a big ice oval where they lived together and
trained together and drank whole milk together and sang "Kum Bay Ya" around
the campfire ...
OK. Maybe the "Kum Bay Ya" is a stretch. But over the years, I have
interviewed all of the above-mentioned people, and with all due respect to
their enormous accomplishments, they were so bland that, at times, the only
way to tell them apart was the size of their thighs.
Not anymore.
The man with the ring in his tongue has taken care of that.
Moving up from Rollerblades
"I skated good," he says. "I could care less if I got a medal."
This is KC Boutiette, age 27. The KC, he says, stands for nothing special. The
hair dye, the earrings, the goatee -- as well as the baggy pants and oversize
sports jerseys he normally wears -- these are not affectations. They are
perfectly normal in the world of Rollerbladers, which is where KC comes from.
That's right. The fastest speedskater America has ever produced cut his teeth
not on the oval, not in Wisconsin, but at the RollerBowl in Tacoma, Wash. KC
ate corn dogs and ice cream. He washed UPS trucks for cash. He took a job out
of high school crushing rocks. I'm not sure when he had his ears and tongue
pierced. I do know that the closest he came to ice was the stuff the vending
machine dropped in his Coke.
Then one day, five years ago, he took a long bus trip to Wisconsin, at the
urging of his Rollerblade manager. His Rollerblade manager? Well, yeah.
There's good money in being top dude on wheels. KC had a sweet thing going,
being a two-time national in-line skating champion. Kids thought he was cool.
People at the RollerBowl would nod and wave. King of the rink. Not bad, huh?
All the corn dogs you can eat.
But when he got off that bus in Wisconsin, well, that's when KC did something
really impressive. In just six weeks, the Grunge Kid went from wheels to
blades, and won a spot on the 1994 Olympic speedskating team. Six weeks? And
he's in the Olympics?
"They didn't like me very much for that," he now admits. "They saw me as
someone taking away their spot."
Just the same, KC went to Lillehammer -- and was overwhelmed. It was his first
international competition. He crashed and burned. Finished 39th.
But something had been broken. The notion that American speedskaters were
cookie-cut from a Martha Stewart mold. Other in-line skaters began leaving the
roller rinks and heading for the parka-land. Wisconsin was invaded by a small
army of nose rings and dudespeak.
This year, one fourth of the U.S. Olympic speedskating contingent comes from
in-line skating roots. This includes KC's girlfriend, Jennifer Rodriguez, who
hails from that hotbed of speedskating, Miami, Fla.
She also has a pierced navel.
So you can see the attraction.
A quick course in grunge
Anyhow, there was KC on Sunday, taking to the Olympic ice oval and laying out
a personal best in the 5,000 meters, breaking his American record by more than
a second.
And this wasn't even his specialty.
"I'm just using this race to get ready for the 1,500 (Thursday)," he said
after finishing a respectable 14th. "That's my race. If I had won a medal in
the 5,000, it would have been a fluke."
I watch him answer, with that ring in his tongue, and I remember the old days,
when I asked speedskaters, "Doesn't that hurt?" and I meant the skating, not
the talking. KC's teammate, David Tamburrino, likes to wear a Spider Man
outfit, and as he came around the track Sunday I heard someone yell, "GO
TAMBORINE MAN!"
And our best hope on the U.S. women's team, Chris Witty, rides a motorcycle,
plays electric bass and has a tattoo.
Bye-bye, Bonnie Blair. No more Dan Jansen mumbling humbly into his chest. It's
a whole new grungy culture at the big track, a little much for the opening
days of the Games. But I'll get used to it. I'm a trooper.
Besides, when you think about it, the whole thing is still Olympic. I mean, KC
has four piercings -- three in his ears, one in his tongue -- and his
girlfriend has one in her navel.
You've heard of the five rings, right?
To leave a message for Mitch Albom, call 1-313-223-4581.
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COLUMN;OLYMPIC