As the Games return to Athens, U.S. decathlete Tom Pappas journeys to his family's homeland to chase his dream.
By JOHN ROMANO
Published August 8, 2004
The boy left Athens not long after the Olympics did. Kissed his mother and sisters goodbye, and was put on a boat headed toward opportunity.
He couldn't have been more than 9 or 10, and the 20th century was younger still. The idea was the boy would have a chance for a better life elsewhere, maybe in a place where the threat of invasion didn't seem so real.
So Athanasios Pantazis was directed toward America, where a Greek family was to take him in. The boy had no way of knowing, but the Olympics would soon follow on its first journey to those same United States.
Years and generations would pass. The boy's name would be changed and his roots in America would grow. The Olym-pics would come and go, showing up occasionally in U.S. cities before departing again for new ports.
Until now. Until 2004. When the Olympics return to Athens for the first time since leaving in 1896. When the son of the son of the son of the boy on a boat returns to Athens to dream of being called the World's Greatest Athlete.
* * *
So much has changed. These Summer Games? Other than name and spirit, they have little in common with the Olympics held in Athens in 1896.
Those Games featured 14 nations and a little more than 300 athletes, none of them women. These Games will have more than 200 nations and more than 10,000 athletes, nearly half of them women.
So much has changed. The Pantazis family? In America, they became known as Pappas. Athanasios would marry a German woman and father two children. One of those boys would marry a woman of Nordic descent. Genes would mingle. Cultures would learn to co-exist. Eventually, a great-grandson, Tom Pappas, would emerge as one of the top decathletes of his day.
In Athens, they know his story. They are familiar with his Americanized name. They are prepared to claim him as one of their own, even if they will have trouble recognizing the face that goes with it.
His skin is too pale. His hair is too fair. Tom Pappas is proud of his Greek heritage but, honestly, his familiarity with the language goes no further than the Alpha or Omega house symbols on his campus.
Too many years have passed and too many lives have turned for Pappas to have retained much of his great-grandfather's world.
In many ways, his story is like the Games themselves. The Olympics were anchored in Greece for nearly 1,200 years before fading into antiquity. The modern Games resumed in Athens in 1896, but have since grown and adapted, become modernized and politicized, traveled east and west.
So maybe Tom Pappas isn't just a pale imitation of his own ancestry. Maybe he is the perfect athlete for these Games.
* * *
You have to know this didn't happen by accident. Though, it wasn't exactly a lifetime plan either.
Pappas, 27, didn't even begin competing in the decathlon until he hit college. And it wasn't at some big-time, track-styling university.
He got a half-baked scholarship for the high jump at Lane Community College in Oregon. The coach there, Del Hessel, had all his track athletes do a one-hour decathlon as a training session. Pappas did so well, he tried the event at the next meet. He broke the school decathlon record.
This is the kind of thing that happens when you grow up outdoors, competing at games you and your two brothers make up. The Pappas family was settled on an 80-some acre spread Tom's grandfather had purchased in southern Oregon.
Some folks have called it a commune, but that may be stretching things a bit. It was a retreat of sorts. A place where troubled youth would find a home. A place where disconnected adults might land.
Bill Pappas, a former professional wrestler and the son of Athanasios Pantazis, bought the land in the mid 1960s. Three generations of Pappas family members would come to live there.
Bill's grandsons, Tom and his brothers Paul and Billy, would go on to become decathletes. Paul and Billy were good. Tom was something different.
After his two years at Lane, Tom was suddenly in demand. He had colleges around the country offering him deals. He finally settled on Tennessee and, by his senior year, was the NCAA champion. A year later, Pappas finished fifth in the 2000 Olympics.
Three years after that, he beat world-record holder Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic to win the world title.
* * *
Okay, so Pappas is not the quintessential Greek. It sort of evens out, because Greece is not the quintessential location for the decathlon. The presumption is Greece is the home of the event, but the reality is this will be the first Olympic decathlon in the history of the country.
The ancient Olympics had the pentathlon, which was a mini-version of the decathlon. The 1896 Games had neither. The decathlon did not become an Olympic event until the Games came to St. Louis in 1904.
Since then, it has been the place for U.S. heroes-in-waiting. Athletes who have become celebrities because of their versatility on the track. Americans, through the years, have won more than half of the 21 Olympic decathlons.
How many pole-vault champions do you recall? How many discus or shot put gold-medal winners could you name? But Olympic decathletes? That's a different story. There was Jim Thorpe. Bob Mathias. Rafer Johnson and Bruce Jenner.
The decathlon champion is the epitome of strength and speed. Of balance and force. It may be old-fashioned to call the decathlon champion the World's Greatest Athlete, but the title still has meaning for many.
It still has meaning for Pappas.
It still has meaning for people in Greece.
Which should make for quite the strange relationship in the coming days.
The enthusiastic, outgoing Greek fans. The reserved, almost impassive American athlete. Look for their common traits and you could be searching for days. Language, upbringing, appearance. All so diverse. All so unfamiliar.
In the end, their most common bond is a shared dream.
That, and the relics of a heritage temporarily misplaced.
Of a boy on a boat. Of a country and its Games.
[Last modified August 8, 2004, 08:40:50]
