As the news that Mary Lou Retton is “fighting for her life” swept across social media Tuesday, sending tens of thousands to rally virtually to her side, there was an undeniable and uplifting sense that we had all been here before.
Of course we had. This is Mary Lou Retton, and this is us, and there’s something very reassuring in knowing that this nation loves her just as much today as it did nearly 40 years ago, when an ever-smiling 16-year-old tomboy, a tiny fullback in a gymnast’s leotard, barreled toward the vault at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, flew into the air and landed in every American living room.
Forty years of adoration is a lot of years and a lot of love. I have been fortunate to witness it all as a journalist, to interview and catch up with Mary Lou on the phone, at social events, at subsequent Olympics. But it all goes back to those early days in 1984, summed up so succinctly and presciently by a copy of Sports Illustrated I pulled out of a cabinet Wednesday morning, one of my many mementos from the L.A. Olympics, which were my first.
On the cover of the August 13, 1984 issue is a photo of a jubilant young athlete in red, white and blue, fists clenched, arms raised in triumph, with the headline: “Only you, Mary Lou!”
She was lovable from the get-go. We actually met before the L.A. Games. I looked it up in my diary: it was June 3, 1984, the morning after she qualified for the U.S. Olympic team at the gymnastics trials in Jacksonville. I was…
