Word: sports
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...area to compete in the National Model Airplane Championships. Known widely as the Nats, the show is the largest, most diverse gathering of its kind on the globe. For nine days these earthbound pilots flew, gabbed, crashed, repaired and lived body and soul in the environment of a hobby-sport that has leaped the Iron Curtain, taken root in China and become one of the fastest-growing leisure indulgences in the free world. The Academy of Model Aeronautics' membership is expanding by 10% a year. The Hobby Industry Association estimates that perhaps 8 million Americans dabble at model-plane building...
...model-airplane building and flying a hobby or a sport? That is a chicken- and-egg question endlessly debated by zealous practitioners and uncomprehending outsiders. There is little question in the mind of Chip Hyde, 16, of Yuma, Ariz. Three times he has been champion of the open class of radio-controlled aerobatic flying. That means he has beaten all comers with his skill and his pink-and-blue Conquest, driven by an alcohol-fueled engine the size of a human fist. He must practice continuously to keep up his skill, sometimes four days a week for an hour...
...aggressive -- gung ho -- it's really kind of frowned upon. Whereas, in America, they appreciate that. In fact, it's a prerequisite to getting around. For everybody on the street, every day is a competition." One national trait troubles him: "People in the U.S. tend to value a sport or a sportsman exactly according to how much money is involved. In adjacent arenas, if Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson were running for a $1,000 prize, and six monkeys were racing for $10 million, which place do you think would be filled? Honestly, if Jesse Owens and Jim Thorpe were...
...prize or seems to care about the benefits. "The medals don't mean anything," says Thompson, "and the glory doesn't last. It's all about performing well, and feeling deeply about it." Joyner- Kersee says, "The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport, loving sport, period." Zaharias and Thorpe are around today, honestly, and everyone has heard of them...
...Summer Games, as sure as there will be botched routines and disputed scores, it is a fair bet that an agile sprite in a colorful leotard will emerge as a sweetheart of Seoul. For reasons as difficult to identify as the gradations of excellence that turn silver to gold, sports fans quadrennially bestow their affection on an elfin gymnast. Perhaps it is the daunting mix of skills: the daring speed and height of the vault, the elegance and precision of the balance beam, the strength and fluidity of the uneven parallel bars, the showmanship and gravity subversion of the floor...