Someone recently asked what the big deal was about the Olympics and wondered why people watched. He later speculated that those who watched must be sports lovers.

I’ve been thinking about that the last couple days.

I mean, I like sports. It could even be said that I love (some of) them, but it’s hardly an everyday, every weekend type of deal for me. I love college football, basketball, baseball, softball and soccer, especially where the Universities of Texas and North Carolina are concerned, and I’ve even been known to get into college volleyball, but still, I don’t rearrange my life or schedule around sports.

But I love the Olympics and have for as far back as I can remember. In fact, when I was going through my closet, I found a scrapbook I put together commemorating the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. One section (yeah, there were sections) featured the different faces of victory and defeat.

And that’s when I realized exactly why I — and so many others who probably don’t even watch sports during non-Olympic years — love the Olympics.

For the most part, it’s about ordinary people exerting extraordinary effort to achieve dreams and accomplish what, for years, had been just out of reach for them. I say “for the most part,” because I don’t think professional athletes like NBA players should be allowed to compete in the Olympics. I haven’t watched their games because it’s really nothing more than watching an all-star game, and those guys could care less, really. They get to go home to their ginormous mansions and blinged-out Escalades and will achieve glory many more times in their careers.

But for the rest of the athletes?

You can see the pride coursing through their bodies along with the fatigue and the joy mixed with the sweat and the pain and the tears. That moment is what they’ve been working their entire lives towards, and for many of them, they will never see another moment like it again.

Take South Korea’s Park Tae Hwan. In Athens, the then-14-year-old prodigy was disqualified after a false start and didn’t even get to swim. Four years later, he has returned and yesterday won gold in the Men’s 400m freestyle, setting an Asian world record in the process.

And then there is the United States 4×100m relay team of Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, Cullen Jones, and 32-year-old veteran Jason Lezak. They qualified for Sunday night’s finals by setting a world record Saturday, but they were still considered the underdogs.

France’s team was touted for its speed, and would be anchored by the world record holder in the 100m free, Alain Bernard. Both Bernard and Frederick Bousquet talked trash, with Bernard boasting that France would “crush” the Americans, and Bousquet insinuating that the USA “feared” France.

The Americans did well in the first three legs, but anchor Lezak trailed France — and Bernard — by a full half-second when he dove into the pool.

But Lezak did what nobody thought he would — or could: he swam that last leg in a blistering 46.06 seconds, the fastest time of any of the 32 men who swam the final, and the fastest time of anyone in the history of the event, and he overcame Bernard within the final 15 meters.

Lezak touched at 3 minutes 8.24 seconds, a world record by four full seconds — and just eight hundredths of a second ahead of Bernard.

It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in all my years of watching sports.

And that moment will remain etched upon my mind — with Michael Phelps’ guttural scream of triumph echoing in my ears — forever.

That?

Yeah, that right there.

That’s why I watch the Olympics.

The US men's 4x100m medley team preparing to swim.

(L-R) Australia's Matt Targett, USA's Jason Lezak, and France's Alain Bernard swim the final leg.

Phelps and Weber-Gale celebrate.

(L-R) Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, Cullen Jones, Jason Lezak with their medals