Robservations: Pros in the Olympics test loyalty

It?s been 20 years since the International Olympic Committee changed its rules, allowing pro athletes to compete in the winter and summer games.

But even two decades later, the problems with having pros going for the gold continue to emerge.

Remember the ?Dream Team?? When they won gold, there was talk of them boycotting the medal ceremony, because the medal podium bore a Reebok logo and many of the players were sponsored by Nike.

Bode Miller, if he ever came near a medal stand, would have the same kind of problems this year.

But more than the sponsorship issues, there?s an even bigger problem when it comes to letting pro athletes compete in the Olympics, and it?s a problem that could one day result in civil war among American sports fans.

The Olympics, for all the good they do celebrating athletic achievement and building bridges between nations, burn those same bridges among fans because of pro athletes playing for their home countries.

Case in point: Let?s say you?re a Nashville Predator fan. When the Preds are in action during the season, you join your fellow Nashville fans in cheering them on to victory.

But when the Olympics are in session, you?ve got to choose your loyalty: Do you root for your favorite Predator and his home nation?s team, or do you pull for the gold old red, white and blue?

Sadly, many times it?s the former, and the U.S. gets left out in the cold.

Where?s the blind nationalism? Where are the chants of ?U.S.A.! U.S.A.!? They?re lost because some fans would rather pull for the Czechs, because their favorite pro is on that team.

And who?s to blame for all this? The commies, that?s who!

It all goes back to the ?50s, when the Soviet Union and its 14 Communist allies joined the Games. None of the commie athletes had regular jobs, they were paid by their governments ? making them, in essence, professional athletes.

They dominated the games for two decades, competing against other athletes who had to literally pledge that they were amateurs. So, in 1986, the IOC changed its rules, allowing ?all the world?s greatest athletes? to compete.

And as an American, that?s all well and good ? when the Americans are the ones winning the gold. But when ?our? pros go off and play for ?their? countries, everything gets muddled.

What?s the solution? There really isn?t a good one. Sure, the IOC could go back to the ?all-amateur? rules, especially since there isn?t a U.S.S.R. to worry about anymore. But then we?d have a bunch of no-names competing in all the team sports.

And they could just drop the sports the pros are competing in, the way they dropped baseball from the summer Games. But winter Olympics without hockey? The summer Games without a ?Dream Team?? There goes half your television audience, right out the window.

So the only real solution is a change in the mindset of fans. Get behind your country, people, and make it ?U.S.A.? all the way. Forget about your pros if they play for another nation?s team. They?ll be back in the NHL or NBA before you know it, and you can root for them then.