I love the Olympics and all it represents: the celebration, the sheer athleticism of the world’s greatest athletes, the competitive spirit of the best and brightest in sports most of us would never otherwise watch and appreciate…

The memories of past and present Olympics are vivid inspirations and lessons in life to me:

Mary Lou Retton’s perfect 10, Roy Jones, Jr. getting screwed in Seoul, the very presence of Carl Lewis, the greatest team ever assembled in any sport in history, the 1992 Dream Team, making magic on the court, and the seizure of Atlanta property to evict approximately 10,000 citizens from their homes.

Ooops.

Didn’t see that last one in a Powerade commercial, did you?

Getting the Olympics to come to your city is a magnificent boom to the area’s economy.

The increased tax revenue, the tourism, the opportunity to present all of the positive aspects of that area’s culture and lifestyle and the opportunities for local businessmen are all major bonuses to having the opportunity to host the world’s most important sports celebration.

The $1.7 billion the city spent to ready itself for the Games was considered a wise investment for the future of the city.

I had always been under the impression that winning the bid to present the Olympics was positive for all the denizens of the host city.

I’m sadly mistaken.

According to Loretta Ross, the executive director of the Center for Human Rights Education in Atlanta, not all of the city’s denizens are profiting from the Games.

The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, an organization of Atlanta’s business leaders in charge of the city’s security, traffic plans, public transportation and city planning has “steamrolled,” to use Ross’ language, the poor and homeless of Atlanta.

Much hullabaloo has been made of the public transportation mess in Atlanta. Shuttle buses responsible for transporting athletes and coaches to and from training and competitive facilities have been woefully inadequate, sometimes taking hours to travel a couple of miles.

The situation has gotten so bad, apparently, Olympic athletes have been commandeering buses and other city vehicles to guarantee they aren’t late in getting to practices or actual competitions.

Officials from various nations have demanded that this situation be improved. Immediately. And Atlanta’s Olympic organizers are on the case. Too bad Techwood Homes hasn’t received nearly the same amount of attention or priority as some delinquent buses.

Techwood Homes was the first public housing complex constructed in the U.S. back in 1935. It was razed to build the Olympic Village.

One thousand tenants were tossed out of their homes at Techwood. Atlanta’s city government utilized the law of eminent domain to seize other property. Ten thousand people lost their homes.

Three homeless shelters were also torn down in order to construct the Olympic Centennial Park.

I watched a portion of the opening ceremonies, and I’ll admit, I was moved by the spirit and the comraderie that the celebration displayed.

The emotion in our President, the athletes proudly waving the colors of their respective nations, the singing of the national anthem…

In addition to the mass eviction of Atlanta’s citizens, legislation was enacted to make sure the embarrassing underside of Atlanta was never seen by its esteemed guests.

The city established “Vagrant Free Zones,” making it illegal to walk through a parking lot if your car isn’t parked on the lot.

It’s also illegal to be in a vacant building, sleep on a park bench or engage in “aggressive panhandling.”

It’s okay, though. In order to compensate for the rise in arrests as a result of these city ordinances, Atlanta had constructed a city jail. It was the first construction site completed after Atlanta won the bid to host the Games.

All done to erase any evidence of homelessness in Atlanta.

It’s ironic. We’re willing to put so much effort into hiding our social problems, but not nearly as much into solving them. Maybe if we got Converse to sponsor a homeless shelter…

As recently as 1980 the Olympics were in danger of being cancelled as a result of poor planning, political boycotts and, in one case, terrorist attack.

Were it not for sponsors like Nike and Coca-Cola, for the companies and corporations that provide the funding and training facilities for the athletes and the Games, the Olympics would probably not exist today.

Yet, must the celebration of the athletic spirit come at the price of thousands of people’s well being? How does one reconcile that with the pursuit of dreams, striving for excellence, the very essence of the amateur athlete?

Oh, yeah, I forgot. They’re not all amateurs anymore, are they?

The bravery of Kerri Strug, the excellence of both of the Dream Teams, and the intense rivalry of Gail Devers and Gwen Torrence stand for all that makes athletics remarkable.

But the seedy underbelly of the Olympics threatens to stain the achievements of these athletes.

As all sports, the Olympics have become more and more about business, about the money that Coca-Cola and Reebok can make off of 15-year-old girls and professional athletes.

I will always cheer for our athletes. The sacrifices they have made for the very opportunity to succeed is admirable beyond mere words.

We will always remember Kerri Strug’s last vault. We will always remember the gold medals, the purity of the triumphs and tragedies that occur on the field of play.

But will anyone remember the price Atlanta’s poor and indigent paid to make these Games possible?

Tim Davis is a senior in theater studies from Carlisle.