The Police Olympics

I was perusing the Internet the other day when I came across an article about the Police Olympics that brought back fond memories. I had no idea they were still being held and, in reading the article, found out that they're bigger and better than ever, hosting teams from all over the world with the number of participants in the thousands. In addition, fire departments have been included and it's now called the Police-Fire Olympics.

It wasn't such a big deal back in 1968 when the first Police Olympics was held. I was in my second year on the Tulsa Police Department and played a lot of tennis when I wasn't working with my field supervisor and best friend, Sgt. Jack McFarland. One day at squad meeting, the watch commander read a bulletin that announced the formation of the Police Olympics and solicited participants from police departments all over the country. Tennis was one of the sports included so Jack and I quickly decided to enter the competition.

It was a much more formidable task than we had anticipated. There was a singles and doubles competition and since Jack and I played tennis so often with each other, we decided to enter the doubles competition. There was a total of eight teams in Tulsa competing for one spot to go to Lawton, Oklahoma for the state championship and we worked our way through the bracket and were fortunate enough to win the competition in Tulsa and earn a spot in Lawton.

Police departments from all over the state sent their winning individuals and teams to Lawton and that turned out to be one of the best weekends ever, both on the court and off. We met police officers from all over the state, competed against them in the daytime and then partied with them at night. It was a real bonding experience and one I've never forgotten. But the tennis was grueling.

I don't remember how many teams were in the competition in Lawton but I do remember we had three matches on Saturday and three on Sunday and we had to win all of them to qualify for the first national Police Olympics that was going to be held in Phoenix, Arizona. We DID win them all, beating the host team from Lawton in the finals to nail down our spot in Phoenix.

The only thing better than the trip to Lawton was the trip to Phoenix, except the tennis didn't turn out so well. We took a chartered bus to Phoenix that was filled with Tulsa police officers we both knew and liked representing many different individual and team sports and it was another long party out there and back. But the tennis itself was brutal. We won our first two matches which put us into the semifinals against a doubles team representing Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They weren't as good as we were but for some reason we were tight and they weren't and so they beat us in a close match that put us in the loser's bracket. Our opponent, later on that day, was a doubles team from New York City that could have been playing on the professional circuit because of their talent. We were no match for them and lost in straight sets to end our hopes of medaling in the first Police Olympics.

The trip home wasn't as much fun as the trip out because of our loss but we joined in celebrating with the guys who DID win medals and as we got closer to home, the realization set in that we had just participated in something really important and we should be proud of that fact alone. That took a lot of the sting of defeat away and we vowed to return the next year and win a medal.

We tried but were defeated the next year in Tulsa by a doubles team that hadn't competed the year before and our Olympic career in tennis was over because we never qualified again. That made the year we DID qualify even more special and those memories came rushing back when I found out that the Police Olympics tradition is still being celebrated all these years later.