Mark Spitz Messed Up Mookie Spitz

Lessons learned when rebuke instantly flipped to praise

Throughout elementary school I was the tallest in class, an advantage utterly destroyed by my chubby dorkiness, and inability to keep my mouth shut. Wearing bottle-bottom horn-rimmed glasses didn’t help matters, nor did my ill-fitting clothes, greasy unkempt hair, and cluelessly disheveled appearance. My life was lived between the fridge and TV.

Looking and acting like an elongated Eric Cartman from South Park didn’t do much for my third grade reputation, nor did it salve my already decimated ego. Being a fat half-blind geek was bad enough, but the coup de grâce was my last name, which triggered an onslaught of teasing, bullying, and name calling — and tsunamis of pantomimed and often real saliva.

“Look everybody!” the cutest girl in school, and obviously the one I had a crush on, would shout, part of our classroom’s daily ritual: “It’s Mi-chael” — making the sound of hacking up an enormous loogie — “achhhhhhhh” — immediately followed by the sound of spewing it out — “chooey!” — punctuated by a chorus of laughter and cheers all around — “Spitz!”

I was utterly mortified, each and every time, like it was the first time happening, which it wasn’t, because it literally happened every day. Kids were, are, and will forever be, so cruel. Looking back, my endurance was impressive, perhaps bolstered by the harsh but consequential reality that some attention was better than no attention, the best that I could do.

The 1972 Munich Olympics would be remembered for two major events: the headline-grabbing massacre of eleven Israeli coaches and athletes by Palestinian terrorists, and the record-breaking winning of seven gold medals by swimmer Mark Spitz. That juxtaposition of agony and ecstasy crossed our broadcast TV screen, confusing and enticing me for years.

About the only thing Mookie Spitz had in common with Mark Spitz was our last name, and both our fathers being Hungarian Jews. Small world, chances were high that we were, in fact, somehow related — but this was well before 23andMe for proof justifying an exploratory phone call, or Twitter for DMing the guy and saying hi. That all said, he was a Hero.

Mark Spitz became such a world renowned celebrity athlete that even Mookie Spitz’s classmate-bullied student loser status got a boost. The bar already low, the only place I could go was up, and ascend I did, first incrementally with every world record broken in the pool, and finally in toto as Mark stood up there on the winners’ dais, posing with seven gold.

My transformation from least likely to succeed to most was instantaneous, confusing, and even to my pre-pubescent, clueless self, ridiculous. Nothing about me had changed, yet my entire world did a power one-eighty. Peers who had made fun of me and literally spit at me the day before, were suddenly treating me like I had made sporting history in Munich.

The other famous Spitz — albeit with an extra -er — from that fateful Olympics was Andre Spitzer. The Israeli coach of the fencing team, he got killed in the evacuation helicopter during the botched hostage rescue attempt at the airport. Andre was only thirty-two, father of a newborn girl, and husband to one of his fencing students, who converted to Judaism.

His wife strolled with him through the Olympic Village before the attack, and later told the story about Andre spotting members of the Lebanese team, and wanting to greet them. “Are you crazy?” she said, their two countries then — as they are now — at war. “That’s exactly what the Olympics are all about,” said Andre. “Here I can go to them, and talk to them.”

So Andre did. His wife was amazed to see them shake hands with each other, part as friends. “You see?” beamed Andre. “This is what I was dreaming about. I knew it was going to happen.” What also happened is Andre, along with ten of his compatriots, got murdered. Along the way identities got mistaken, roles reversed, but the players remained the same.

Decades after Mark Spitz helped Mookie Spitz get cool(er), people old enough to remember would ask if we were related. “He’s Hungarian,” I’d say, “and I’m Hungarian, so maybe. I wonder if my webbed feet give it away?” Nobody laughed then, none have even bothered to ask since Michael Phelps broke his broken records. At least I’ve learned not to care.