Can anything unite us again like the Miracle on Ice?
Feb. 26—The Miracle on Ice popped up in a lot of social media feeds this week.
Wednesday was the 43rd anniversary of Team USA's 4-3 hockey win over heavily favored Russia in a 1980 Winter Olympics medal-round game in Lake Placid, New York.
Days later USA defeated Finland 4-2 for the gold medal.
Russia had won the last four gold medals and five of the previous six.
It was a veteran team filled with professional players.
The US team was comprised mostly of college players and was the youngest team in the Olympics.
In the Cold War Era hockey was far down the list of ways in which the US and Russia would have been considered rivals.
I remember seeing the final score inch along the bottom of the screen — the forerunner to today's constant bottom line coverage — before the game would air later on tape delay.
In the Deep South back then many of us had just as good a chance of understanding cricket or curling as hockey.
But we understood upsets, had some understanding of a nuclear threat, and we knew that USA had won a game against Russia that it had no business winning.
We swelled with pride.
Could anything so unite us again?
So much divides us today with topics like law enforcement and race, gender, abortion and politics in general.
People have always been passionate about their beliefs and positions.
Somewhere a line has been crossed between passion and respect.
After we cheered the win over the Soviets and the gold medal was clinched against Finland the truth trickled out.
We heard unpleasant stories of how the sausage was made.
Team USA coach Herb Brooks was excessively careful in how he chose team members. Skills on the ice were only part of the process, probably not the biggest part.
As part of his selection process Brooks required a 300-question psychological test.
He pushed players physically and emotionally, riding them hard in search of their best version of themselves.
Team USA played roughly 60 exhibition games in six months leading up to the Olympics.
Part of that was a three-week European tour that kept players who knew little of one another in close quarters.
"You get mad. You get upset. You want to quit. There were a lot of emotions," team member Mark Johnson, who scored two goals in the win over the Soviets, told The Deseret News in 2002. "But through the whole six-month process, the friendship, the togetherness and the team unity really started to develop. That was one of his motivating tools. The end result was the togetherness as a team, the closeness. That is why we won it."
Brooks' plan forced successful young men to squash their egos, to put old rivalries aside and come together as teammates.
He required sacrifice.
The 21-man roster included nine players from Brooks' own University of Minnesota team and four from their bitter rivals, Boston University.
This was hard, and it makes me wonder if under the same circumstances today Team USA would have made it to the Olympics without drama.
Would there have been a leaked video about one perceived injustice or another, and would athletes today be less willing to submit to Brooks' plan?
Would we hear Al Michaels ask, "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"
Beating the Russians might have been the second miracle, the one after Brooks pulled off his plan in bringing everyone together.
PARRISH ALFORD is the college sports editor and columnist for the Daily Journal. Contact him at parrish.alford@journalinc.com.
