How Figure Skater Scott Hamilton Saves Elementary Education Every Four Years

Craig O'Neil clone only hope for Arkansas teachers, students

We're smack dab in the middle of the Winter Olympics, and as anyone who is married to an elementary school teacher knows, that means sitting in bed late at night as your spouse picks your brain on ideas for how to work every aspect of the Olympic games into his or her lesson plan.

Such was the case last night. My wife and I sat in bed as she pondered different ways to squeeze the luge into her math plans on elapsed time in an effort to make kids enjoy learning.

The most logical option was to go with speed skating instead, but she deeply despises the sport for some reason, and when she pulled the POV camera video of the event, she discovered it's just a couple of minutes of staring at the backside of the guy who's taking your dreams of medaling away.

That's when she said the two words I had hoped wouldn't come out of her mouth – figure skating. 

I immediately let her know that it was a perfectly fine choice if she wanted to immediately lose every 10-year-old boy she has worked so hard all year to reach.

 Nothing shut me down more as a child than the days where the limited Olympic coverage we received in the late 80's early 90's would fixate on figure skating.

Then a distant memory crept up from the back of my mind. I mean WAY back there where I keep the memories of walking past rows of creepy Garbage Pail Kids in the local discount store. 

Ya know, back where every man in his 40s stores the fact he wore acid washed jeans that were rolled at the cuff to draw more attention to how poorly his pair of Dexter's would remain tied.

I could see a vague shadow of a balding man doing flips on skates like he was the Arctic Circle's version of that gorilla from the T&C Surf Design Nintendo game.

Curiosity got the best of me, so I entered the rabbit hole that is Google and sifted my way through every man, woman and child who ever dared do a flip on some sort of icy surface until I found him – Scott Hamilton.

There he was, video after video of him in a wide variety of intriguing costumes with names of songs I had actually heard of in the titles. 

As my wife and I watched, I blurted out two things:

1. Wow! Apparently figure skaters used to be allowed to have fun!

2. Is it just me, or is Scott Hamilton the "Crazy" Craig O'Neil of figure skating?

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Scott Hamilton promotes the Gold Games while Craig O'Neill promotes KKYK.

I don't know when figure skating stopped having personality and a good time to become the nauseous snoozefest that always has to be capped off with a bevy of tears no matter how the performance went, but the change in direction may have been the worst decision in sports until Bobby Petrino bought a motorcycle.

With each performance, Hamilton looked to first entertain. He did so in the Olympics, but he was at his best as a professional. The only boring part of his skates were when he had to stop down to do a triple brown bear or whatever they've termed spinning around in the air a few times. 

Not only did Hamilton work in flips, but he interacted with the judges, did some of the craziest footwork ever, used facial expressions, hip gyrations, sarcastic jazz hands, and even did a brief 1980's equivalent of a twerk for the camera (those were more innocent times). 

He even does a routine that begins by mocking people who did figure skating in the truly ancient times of the sport by doing old man stretches while he's being scored.

But, alas, fun and entertainment weren't long for the world of figure skating. Brian Boitano, known to many of you as being of South Park fame, came along to fill the void left by Hamilton's retirement with his flawless technical precision, more traditional skating music and highly limited fun in his routine.

Watching the sickening perfection that would inspire modern figure skating nearly 40 years later made it clear how much an opportunity was missed by the Olympic committee. Just imagine if Hamilton had popped up out of the crowd and challenged Boitano to figure skating's version of a dance-off set to the "Danger Zone" song from Top Gun.

Hamilton would have definitely been been Iceman to Boitano's Maverick. Just watch it back. Iceman is the real hero of that final scene.

It would have given Boitano the edge he needed to come off the top of the wall with a flying elbow in a moment of gold medal level glory against Canadian Brian Oser in a more direct "Battle of the Brians" on Orser's home turf of Calgary.

So much elementary school inspiration could have come from the airing of such direct competition. But since that didn't happen, elementary teachers across Arkansas will need to use Hamilton's videos if they insist on opting for figure skating.

But for any teacher who does, I challenge you to watch those videos over and over and not have the words "That's enough for another Arkansas Razorback...FIRST DOWN!!!" running through your head every time you see Hamilton's face and nervous energy.