I have always found the concept of phonetic spelling to be quite fascinating. Saying out a letter in the alphabet like “S as in Sam” as opposed to “F as in Frank” seems like a frivolous exercise, and yet it has great significance in terms of verbal communication. The last time I had a Zoom meeting with Josh, he mentioned an organization consisting of several Olympic and non-Olympic bodies where we could get contact information for Life After the Games. I wrote it down as GIAFF but did not know what that meant, so all I found when I Googled it was information about giraffes. As it turns out, I had written it completely wrong and it is supposed to be GAISF, which is the Global Association of International Sports Federations.
That is a big difference because I got a lot more than zoo animals from the GAISF. There are enough e-mail contacts available to keep me occupied until our next conversation on Thursday. Who would guess, for instance, that more than three dozen nations outside the United States would have a federation for gridiron football? I remember a TV commercial during the 1996 Olympics where Emmitt Smith tried to get it included as a sport in the Games. With all of these countries supporting football, why not? The United States would probably dominate the competition, plus the Summer Olympic schedule is generally not conducive to training camp but it would still be fun to see.