If you saw the opening sketch of "Saturday Night Live" last weekend, you had to laugh. In it, an Alpine competitor was accosted by two Mormon missionaries on skis, swooshing for Jesus.
You had to laugh, even if you're a Mormon. (Or one with a sense of humor anyway, and I've known quite a few.)
Tonight, the world's eyes will be turned toward the Mecca of Mormonism. Or, as Mark Twain wrote, "the home of the Latter-Day Saints, the stronghold of the prophets, the capital of the only absolute monarch in America — Great Salt Lake City."
We're tuning in to watch the opening ceremonies for the Olympic winter games. But if Twain were alive today, would he, like I, worry just a little about what other wonders the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) might reveal to us?
Reuters reported Wednesday that President Bush is expected to be one of 52,000 spectators at the Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium tonight. He, along with those of us watching at home and elsewhere around the world, will learn the answers to: A) Who will raise the Olympic flag? and B) Who will light the Olympic cauldron?
These burning, biennial questions take on new meaning in Utah.
Often, a host-country athlete does the job. This year's official winter games web site, www.saltlake2002.com, lists some of the memorable past cauldron lightings like:
• At the 1968 games in Mexico City by a hurdler named Enriqueta Basilio, the first woman to light the cauldron.
• In 1996 in Atlanta, by Muhammad Ali – who won a gold medal in 1960 boxing under his pre-Muslim name, Cassius Clay.
• At the 1998 winter games in Nagano, Japan, by silver-medal-winning figure skater Midori Ito, dressed in a kimono.
• In 2000, in Sydney, Australia, by track athlete Cathy Freeman, an Aborigine, in an eye-popping trick combining water and fire.
The coolest opening-ceremony feat to my mind was at the 1992 Barcelona games, when Spanish archer and two-time Paralympic bronze-medallist Antonio Rebollo lit the cauldron with a bow and flaming arrow from a distance of 195 feet.
But there have been exceptions to the athlete-lighter rule. In Tokyo in 1964, the honor fell to a young person who had the tragic distinction of being born in Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945—the day we dropped the bomb.
The Japanese made a statement that year. Will the SLOC make one this year?
This year, according to the Reuters report, we will watch the traditional parade of athletes from dozens of countries and then, "an extravaganza honoring the pioneers who founded Salt Lake City."
The pioneers are, of course, the Mormons.
Although it is expected that the ceremony will at some point and in some way remember the heroes of September 11, the Olympic honors of flag raising and cauldron lighting are not likely to fall to New York firefighters or even to its ex-mayor, Rudy Giuliani.
That's cool. This is an international event and I agree with the International Olympic Committee that neither patriotism nor politics should overshadow the event.
The Reuters report said that SLOC president, Mitt Romney said his choice of who will light the cauldron was not altered by the events of September 11.
Romney reportedly said that, even before that date, "Olympic movement" types had counseled him, "Don't forget the Olympics are an international movement and you are welcoming the world."
But will they be welcoming the world to the Olympics alone?
Reuters reported that wagon trains, like those of the Mormon pioneers, would play a part in the ceremony.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that nearly all of the 5,000 opening ceremony cast members are citizens of Utah. It said that a preview Monday revealed what is surely no surprise to anyone who knows Mormons, that the event will feature lots of children.
Well, duh. I'm sure the call went out to every ward and stake in the state as soon as Salt Lake City won the bid.
Almost 33 percent of Utah's population is under 18 years of age, compared to about 25 percent of the U.S. in general. According to the U.S. Census for 2000, of Utah's over 2 million human inhabitants, nearly three-quarters of a million are kids.
Maybe tonight we'll see an American Indian light the Olympic cauldron. The committee had a Native American bless the flame as it crossed the border into Utah on Monday morning and Native recording artist Rita Coolidge is one of tonight's scheduled performers.
But according to a Salt Lake Tribune report, the flame spent Monday night in St. George — one of the most LDS places on Earth — after "an emotionally charged patriotic rally."
The flame was reportedly transferred to a mobile cauldron by Karl Brooks, the son of a "groundbreaking Mormon historian," the Tribune reported.
I just hope the SLOC doesn't have the Olympic cauldron lit by the LDS president. Or some other revered "elder." Or some "Brigham Young" pixie, for that matter.
Because even though the "SNL" sketch was funny, that wouldn't be.
Dawn Leonard Tripp is a journalism junior. Reach her at dawn.tripp@asu.edu.
