I am probably one of the few Americans not paying much attention to the Olympics.

So you ask: “How could you not pay attention to these Olympics, especially with Michael Phelps doing what no man has done before him: Possibly winning eight gold medals.

But can Michael Phelps cut my hair? I ask.

I have a hard time getting into these Olympics and goggling over the feats of today’s athletes. There is something very uncommon about them. They are far different than the Olympians of my childhood. Unlike Phelps who makes millions of dollars from product endorsements, the pre-1970 Olympians were strictly amateurs, whose athletic feats were as super human as Phelps’. May be even more so given their circumstances. Nonetheless, they seemed to be one of us.

Take for example a guy by the name of Richard Terrance McDermott, known to the people and his customers at an Essexville, Mich. barbershop where he worked as Terry McDermott. Few people knew of this little known speed skater who was part of a downtrodden American Olympic team that was in danger of being the first American team not to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics.

McDermott was not expected to be the savior of the team either. His specialty was the 500-meter race. However, he was not a favorite to win a medal and besides the top skater in the race and world was a two-time gold medal winner from Russia. But McDermott sent out huge seismic waves through the Olympic world when he handily won the gold medal in world record time. It was the only gold the U.S. won that year. He was an instant hero.

After the Olympics were over, McDermott retired from active competition and went back to his job of cutting hair at Bunny’s Barber Shop.

Four years later he came out of retirement and competed in the 1968 Olympics and won a Silver medal.

In the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, another equally riveting and super human story was being played out.

Among the competitors was Native American William Mervin Mills, AKA Billy Mills.

Mills, orphaned at 12, was reared on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota. He attended the University of Kansas where he became an NCAA All-American cross country runner. When he entered the Olympics he was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves.

Mills was considered an unknown when he entered an event no American had ever won in the Olympics — the 10,000-meter run. The favored runner was world record holder Australian Ron Clarke. There were several other runners who were believed to have a better chance at beating Clarke than Mills. But Mills beat Clarke that year, sprinting past him at the finish. It was the first and only time an American has won the 10,000-meter race. Wikipedia called it among the greatest upsets in Olympic history.

Mills did not go home to a million dollar Nike shoe contract. For a while he continued to run competitively. Today he is the spokesman for Running Strong for American Indian Youth.

In my opinion one of the greatest and most inspiring Olympians of all was Wilma Goldean Rudolph. In the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Rudolph won three gold medals. This was the first such feat by an American female athlete. She won the 100- and 200-meter dashes, and anchored the gold medal winning 400-meter relay team. Those victories earned her the recognition as the fastest woman alive.

That in itself would be enough to suggest this was a very special person, much like Phelps is today. There is more to her life that makes what she did seem even more super human and compelling.