Oh eight, oh eight, oh eight. Sounds like a significant day in the Mayan calendar or when one of those nutty California cults will sit in a parking lot and wait for their master to return from space.

For NBC, and many sports fans, the date is significant because the Olympic Games begin. I'm sure NBC wasn't aware of any numerical significance; they just wanted to make sure the games began on a Friday.

Since 1960, I have watched the Summer Olympic Games every four years and seldom been disappointed. My favorite moments aren't as much about Olympic excellence as the ability to make me smile, shed a tear, or tingle with pride.

The 1972 theft of the basketball gold medal was a memorable Olympic moment, but only because of its sheer audacity for political larceny. The terrorists' attacks the same year are just as vivid. When Jim McKay died the networks ran footage of him saying "They're all gone." I got a lump in my throat then I got mad. Again. These are obviously memorable moments, but not my favorites.

I'm saying my list might not be the most popular or the best researched, but it is based on true personal emotion. If yours is different, get a job at a newspaper, and write your own top five next time.

I'm not usually a fan of gymnastics, which is tough because the current TV game plan is to feature as much of this competition as is humanly possible. Networks discovered years ago women liked the Olympics. The result has been more gymnastics, more figure skating, less boxing.

But watching Nadia Comaneci smile her way through a flawless routine and seeing a ten on a scoreboard was monumental. The crowd reaction was a mixture of exuberance and surprise. Perfection is hard to achieve and hard to get credit for. She did it three times.

The 400 meter hurdles is seldom a glamour event. In 1976 rising star Edwin Moses captured the gold, and teammate Michael Shine won the silver. The moment I remember is the two of them running a victory lap together with a huge American flag between them. One black one white, both delirious. It was magnificent.

Achieving the impossible is usually great theatre. Watching Rulan Gardner defeat Russian Alexsandr Karelin in Greco Roman wrestling in 2004 qualified. Karelin was so imposing he could have been a Rocky villain and was considered unbeatable by most experts.

Seeing Paralympics archer Antonio Rebollo light the Olympic flame with an arrow in Athens was breathtaking. I felt like a boy at the circus for the first time.

Derrick Redmon was only trying to win a medal in the 400 in 1992. He had been injured ten minutes before the medal race in 88 and suffered through five injuries the next year.

As he closed in on a medal in the 92 race, his hamstring popped, and he began to hobble toward the finish line. His father appeared, and the two men finished the race embraced together. Last in the race, first in Olympic moments. Today it is a commercial. I still cry every time I see it.