Back on Board: Greg Louganis

Commentator: Diver Greg Louganis--

reverse two and one half somersault.

Commentator #2: Some say "Lou-gannis" and some say "Lou-gainis."

What is it?

Commentator #3: And here he is-- Greg Louganis, 16 years old.

Interviewer: Greg, you really have the diving world at your feet.

I realize it's no fluke.

- Do you realize it's no fluke? - Uh...

- ( whistle blows ) - Commentator #4: But I'll tell ya,

here's a young man to be reckoned with.

Commentator #5: Nobody has all of what Greg has.

He is the consummate diver.

Commentator #6: Mechanically, he's one of the soundest divers I've ever seen,

but diving is such a mental sport

and it's just awfully tough to put it all together.

Commentator #7: Everybody's wondering,

"Well, when is this kid gonna falter?"

Recording: Thank you for calling Bank of America.

We are a debt collector.

We have multiple loans on record.

Are you calling about your active loan?

Yes.

Was that a yes?

- Commentator: Yes! - ( crowd cheering )

Commentator #2: What an athlete.

Commentator #3: Everyone agrees he has perfect form

in one of the most demanding individual events in the world of sport-- diving.

Female commentator: Best diver in the world.

The best diver in the history of diving.

Commentator #4: When you think of diving, one name comes to mind,

and that's Greg Louganis.

Greg Louganis. Greg Louganis.

Greg Louganis is your gold medal winner!

( crowd cheering, applauding )

Announcer: Well, ladies and gentlemen, our grand marshal,

Olympic gold medalist, we all know,

Greg Louganis!

Considered the greatest diver in American history.

During his diving career, he won an unprecedented 47 national,

13 world championships,

including two gold medals in 1984

and one silver in '76.

- A real Olympian. - Yeah.

- No fake ones here. - Hold on, we're taking lots of pictures.

Louganis: Who is Greg Louganis?

What kind of question is that?

Who is Greg Louganis?

Who is Greg Louganis? I don't know.

It's interesting because I know that if you talk about Olympic diving...

...then my name is the one that comes up.

But I've been absent from diving

for, gosh, close to 20 years.

Female reporter: Do you remember four-time

Olympic gold diving champion Greg Louganis?

Well, now there may be a new reason to recall him.

Barbara Walters: You were in the 1988 Olympics.

You hit your head and there may have been blood in the water.

- Mm-hmm. - Why were you terrified?

Louganis: Because...

I was HIV positive.

Oprah Winfrey: So over the years, has the secret of being gay

and HIV positive exhausted you?

What now, Greg?

Who knows?

Who knows what's around the corner?

Okay.

Louganis: Everybody thinks that...

I'm financially secure, and I'm not.

They'll say, you know, "Oh, an Olympic gold medal is worth millions."

You know, that's not the reality.

That really isn't the reality.

I feel like I've been coming from such a desperate place

because, I mean, I, you know, haven't made a mortgage payment

since October of 2010.

I'm selling all of my belongings just to make ends meet.

I put a lot of my stuff on auction.

Meanwhile, I was trying to work with the bank

to try to remodify my mortgage,

but they told me that I had to default on the loan

before they can sit down and talk with me.

So I've been waiting and waiting and waiting.

I've been in this house for 27 years.

27 years is a long time.

That was the first thing that I really wanted to do, was have a home

because that was a sense of security for me

and it was a symbol of stability.

Louganis: When I first got here, I felt that house

was very reflective of who I was

because you drive onto the property,

you're looking at a very modest one-story house.

We walked around the back and it's like, "Oh, my God, there's a downstairs."

I was like, "Okay, this is it. This is my dream house."

So I do wanna do everything in my power to try and keep it.

Announcer: Today, the Olympic flag is flying high.

This is the last time our divers are going to be seeing that flag

until they get to Montreal, Canada.

We're going to see some really spectacular diving here today.

And here is Greg Louganis.

I've been working hard for this and this is my first Olympic trials

and I hope I do well.

Commentator: He's currently in first place. Can he keep it?

Commentator #2: Oh, yeah, he'll get 10s all the way across.

Commentator: We have seen something that we have not seen,

I don't think, in 50 years,

a man qualifying in both springboard and platform.

And it is Greg Louganis, coached by the great Sammy Lee.

He won two Olympic gold medals from the platform himself.

You can't make a racehorse out of a jackass.

You had a racehorse and all you had to do

was get him on the starting block and he could do it.

I was a member of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports

and they sent me to observe the Junior Olympics at the Air Force Academy.

And I saw this 10-year-old boy diving.

And I said, "There potentially is the greatest diver

in the history of our sport if he wants to be."

When Greg's father called me and asked whether I would coach his son,

it was music to my ears.

And he drove him up every weekend.

With my dad, it was kind of a love-hate

because there was a bit of a resentment

because all of a sudden now he's interested.

I was adopted when I was eight and a half months.

My mom always showed me unconditional love.

I knew that she loved me and she cared about me,

but my dad was always rather standoffish to me.

I always felt that there was a price on everything,

especially the price on his love.

I had a few tapes that played in my head growing up.

You know, I was adopted.

My real parents didn't want me.

My skin was darker than the rest of the kids at my school.

It was a regular occurrence getting beat up.

I got called a lot of names--

nigger, sissy boy, faggot, retard.

I had a very difficult time with reading

and I found out later that I was dyslexic.

I remember I turned to my mom and I said,

"I can understand how a person can die of sadness."

I mean, as a kid, you know, you just wanna be accepted.

So when I was competing in diving,

I had to be the best.

I felt that it was the only thing that I had to offer.

There were a lot of seconds and thirds.

It made an Olympic gold medal that much more important.

Commentator: Here is the boy who's excited everyone in Cleveland today--

Greg Louganis.

He's just so beautiful.

Even if he gets it wrong, he looks beautiful.

- Do you think you can win the gold? - I don't know. I hope so.

Well, if it isn't this time, it'll be sometime, I'm sure of that.

Good luck.

Lee: I invited him to live with me

because I wanted him to beat Klaus Dibiasi of Italy.

Commentator: Dibiasi is the current world champion

and the platform dive gold medal winner

in the last two Olympics.

Lee: I wanted Greg to prevent Klaus Dibiasi

from breaking my record of winning

two consecutive gold medals.

Commentator: I hope that he's in a semicoma

and all he thinks about is the dive

and not the significance of the championship.

- ( whistle blows ) - Louganis: His dream became my dream.

It was my coach's honor.

And I was just such a kid, so I was trying not to embarrass myself.

Commentator: Greg Louganis will lead the qualifiers.

Keep in mind, however, all the scores prior to now are thrown out.

They'll start over again and you will see all the 10 dives coming up.

What everyone's looking forward to

in the tower final here tomorrow night

is the tussle between the 16-year-old American youth Louganis

and 28-year-old defending champion Klaus Dibiasi.

Commentator #2: Coming to you live right now with Greg Louganis.

Commentator #3: Generally his best dive

- and he's gonna have to do it here. - ( whistle blows )

- Commentator #3: Oh, way over! - ( crowd groans )

Commentator #2: I don't know what happened-- all of a sudden just before the entry.

That cost him a gold medal.

Commentator #3: It's just a shame that Greg couldn't do that dive

the way he did it yesterday.

Well, I was upset because I like to win.

I don't like to lose.

Commentator #2: Greg Louganis wins the silver,

but the old veteran, Klaus Dibiasi,

has made Olympic history tonight.

Commentator #4: Greg Louganis...

he's still waiting in the wings just a bit.

Louganis: I went there to win

and then when I fell short of that, I felt like a failure.

Everybody else around me was celebrating.

I was a sophomore in high school.

I was thinking, "Who would ever understand me?"

You know, what I was going through, what I was feeling.

Interviewer: Do you know at one point that you're special?

Do you know at one point that you're better than everybody else?

When you came back to school after Montreal,

did the kids, the classmates, tell you how good you were?

No, I think I got the reverse.

You know, all these big, macho football players and all,

I was taking some of the limelight from them.