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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Weaver’s spot in Olympics
a feel-good storyYOU might think it sounds funny.
But Hilo's Billy E. Weaver has made the Olympic massage team.
Really.
No, it's a real thing, it's serious. This is not like the Swedish Bikini Team.
Weaver, president of the Hawaii chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association, will be in Athens. He'll be in the Olympic Village. He'll be working on the greatest athletes in the world.
"I really enjoy working on world-class athletes," he says. "I like to talk to them. I like to be around them. The energy is there."
That's in part because these days they're getting massages. Even the Athens 2004 Organizing Committee realizes that now. So now Weaver is one of 100 massage therapists from around the world to make the cut for the Athens Health Services Sports Massage Team 2004. They're an official part of the Athens Olympic Committee's Medical and Health Services Team.
They'll be everywhere the athletes are, at every venue, every sport.
Weaver has the village, where many of the athletes will rest, recover, live for the duration of the games.
"Before," Weaver says, "we (massage therapists) used to be out across the street."
That's changing. Weaver was the director of the U.S. national sports massage team for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. One of his students worked in the Salt Lake City games, and was on the selection committee to pick this first international Olympic team.
"He'd better choose me," Weaver says, and laughs. There is soothing "massage" music on in the background.
More than 500 people from 12 countries applied for the honor. Weaver got into this stuff in his retirement, when he competed in marathons and triathlons and healing hands were waiting at the finish line.
"You could really see how much it relieved the pain and stress," he says.
Now, he and his students volunteer at long runs and big events.
Now he's off to Athens.
"I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing," he jokes.
He says he knows a guy who was in charge of intelligence at the Salt Lake games. It sounds as if the Athens people expect something. Not a big "hard target" well-protected, big-splash thing, not athletes. But maybe some "soft target" stuff.
"A bunch of therapists living in a B-class motel on the edge of Athens," Weaver says. "That sounds pretty 'soft target.' "
But he's not scared, not really. He's an old cop -- a sheriff, a police chief, an academy instructor. In Utah, he was a cop for 30 years.
What scares him is the price tag. The team is official, but unpaid. "I think they pay for a couple of meals a day," he says. He's looking at about $2,700 for airfare. Plus the Soft Target Motel.
"If you want to send Billy to the Olympics," he says, you can e-mail him at billyeweaver@aol.com. They're selling official Olympic massage team pins.
Pins? If they're really looking to raise funds there are much better ways.
This has "beer commercial" written all over it.
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Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com