Word: sporting
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...visionary athlete, artist or businessman (all of which he would eventually become), he devised a plan and climbed the mountain. More precisely, he became the mountain. "My parents wanted me to play soccer or be a skier," he recalls. "But I chose body building. It was a very American sport, and I thought, 'If I do well, it could take me to America.' " It was also a very American way for a boy to create a superman in his own image. Following Nietzsche's law ("That which does not kill us makes us stronger"), Arnold spent years punishing and pumping...
...many people, body building is a bizarre pseudo sport: part weight lifting, part boylesque. It stands in that curious crossroads of exhibition and self-flagellation where Narcissus meets the Nautilus. If Schwarzenegger really thought this trail would lead to Hollywood, he would have to blaze it himself. Except for Steve Reeves, the Hercules of cut-rate '60s epics, few body builders had been able to work up so much as a sweat in pictures...
...Arnold did find fame in the sport. By 1975, long before moviegoers knew of him, he was the lone superstar of body building, earning the Mr. Olympia title an unprecedented seven times, Mr. Universe, five. At the climax of the documentary film Pumping Iron, which chronicles Schwarzenegger's last Mr. Olympia contest before retiring, the announcer tries to work some suspense into his revelation of the winner's name. But when he says, "The one and only . . . ," a broad grin breaks over Arnold's face. Who else could deserve that title...
...SPORTS novels seem to fall into two central categories: those which describe a great triumph or defeat and those that are more interested in what happens after the game is over. In both, the sport and its powerful ability to overshadow a life is prominent. John Ed Bradley's new book, The Best There Ever Was, hovers between these two categories...
Oops, wrong sport. That was the Princeton men's basketball team. Looks like it might be a long season at Briggs Cage...