In the center of the ring: what it's like to compete in the Olympic Games.

You are Al Oerter: The only athlete to win the Gold in four straight Olympics (1956-68). And if the Olympics had not been boycotted in 1980, you might have made it five medals and five world discus records. You were a prodigious worker, an awesome competitor, and you remain an eloquent, inspiring spokesman for amateur sport and the Olympic ideal. All of this clearly emerged in an interview with Scholastic Coach on March 13, 1996.

MY FIRST OLYMPICS...

I truly enjoyed Olympic competition. And I knew, in my very first Olympics, that it wasn't going to end right there. There were going to be other Olympics, and it wasn't going to be easy. Whatever I did my first time wasn't going to have any bearing on the Olympics to come.

No one was going to offer me any gifts and I would have to improve myself each time. That was going to be my challenge, and I reveled in it.

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH...AND PANIC

You prepare yourself for four years and then you find yourself sitting in a little room or on a bench waiting to be called into the stadium to compete in an Olympic final.

It's a strange feeling. I've seen athletes work like pack horses for four years, then enter the stadium coolly and confidently - and then, in just a matter of seconds, suddenly come apart. ("Gosh, I'm not ready. I should have done this, I should have worked harder on that...") They may feel a pain, begin to make excuses, start setting themselves up for failure.

The enormity of the Olympics can do that to you. And that's the strange part. How it can all come apart at the last moment. I've never understood that.

YOU HAVE TO PREPARE FOR EVERYTHING...

I used to begin preparing for every contingency two or three years before the Olympics. I would simulate every conceivable situation, down to shoveling off the practice ring. Okay, so it never snowed or sleeted in the middle of summer, but maybe this year it would. You had to prepare for every possible adversity. So if it happened this time you could go to Plan A or Plan F or whatever.

I never wanted to take a throw or two and suddenly realize that things weren't going as planned, or begin visualizing a headline in the hometown newspaper, "Local Olympian Fails to Medal." Those are the kinds of things that enter your mind in competition and destroy your concentration and confidence.

If you prepare yourself as well as you can, you'll never have to fault yourself for mishaps, you'll be able to go out and throw as hard and as well as you can, and enjoy every minute of it.

Medals are very tough to come by, and they will normally go to the athlete who can put himself in the frame of mind that will bring out the best that is in him.

GETTING IT ALL IN...

Every athlete has to put in the time and effort, dedicate himself to the preparation. But that doesn't mean he has to give up everything else in his life - family, friends, and job.

I've had gymnasts, swimmers, and others tell me that there just aren't enough hours in the day to do anything else but work on their techniques and conditioning. Well, I don't care who you are or what sport you play. You cannot go flat out eight hours a day. Your body will break down. You wouldn't last three months. You have to establish some sort of balance.

Let me give you an example. I work out fairly close to the Swim Florida club and I know they start training at five o'clock in the morning. They also have a session right after school and then come back in the evening for some running or steps or whatever. Now these kids are going to school, putting in one hell of an effort, every one of them is improving... and all are enjoying a normal life besides the pool. I think it's great - finding little bits of time every day to do what you want to do or have to do.

For me, the work took about two hours a day. Everyone on earth has a right to work two hours a day at something they truly enjoy and want to improve in. I don't care what the sport is, if you will go flat-out two hours a day, you will do well at it.

I learned this a long time ago from a heavyweight lifter named Norb Schemansky who won four Olympic medals with a training philosophy that impressed me. He said that if you can't do it (achieve success) with a 45-minute all-out workout plan, then you simply haven't got it in you. After 45 minutes, your body mechanism begins to break down, you become distracted, you start looking in mirrors, and you start hanging around on the benches. Whenever he arrived at the gym, he went as hard as he could go for 45 minutes and then got out. That left him a hell of a lot of time each day for family and career arid everything else.

THE ATTITUDE OF STARDOM...

The star syndrome has undergone considerable changes since the mid-50's. The winning of a medal used to be an end in itself. If you were fortunate enough to make your way through an Olympic competition, they put a medal around your neck and you went home and enjoyed it for what it was: a reward for a lot of hard work.

Today, in some of our high-profile sports, the medal can be a ticket to something else. There's always an agent in the stands who will tell you that now we can do the book, now we can do the television deal, now we can do this and that.

The real heroes of the Games, I believe, are the rowers, the wrestlers, the lifters, the archers, who, with little or no fanfare, work their butts off to become as good as they possibly can, with no expectations of reward or fame.

The spirit of the Olympic Games, as I like to remember it over the years, is kept very much alive by these sports; and I like to believe that most of our Olympic sports are like that.

THE FASCINATION OF THE GAMES...

Despite a lifetime of cynicism, the public is still entranced by the Olympics.

First of all, everybody loves a parade, and the opening and closing ceremonies provide all the pomp and circumstance that people love.

Another healthy thing is the new attitude of the public. That old "us" versus "them" mentality and medal count between the U.S. and the Soviet Union no longer exists. Something a little better has replaced it. I do a lot of public speaking these days and I am always surprised at the number of people who come up to me and want to talk about the Games. They are fascinated by the great athletes working at levels that were once thought of as unachieveable, and having some fun while they are doing it.

I often wonder how they feel about Dream Teams, professional tennis players who won't go near the Olympic Village unless they have to, or by some of the stars who won't live there and thus lose out on that sense of team, that sense of camaraderie. They project the idea that they are there just to promote themselves.

Fortunately, there are enough other things at the Olympic Games to captivate everyone.