The International Olympic Committee doesn't select a site for the 2016 Olympics for another three years. So why is San Francisco, which was so eager to host the Games, bowing out so early? Well, because getting in the race is a multistep process, and the first deadline (March 31) is rushing up just as San Francisco's planning group received a major blow.

Once plans fell through to build a new stadium in the city for the NFL 49ers, the hopes for San Francisco's Olympic candidacy were dashed.  Without at least a firm promise that an Olympic-caliber stadium will be constructed, there isn't a realistic expectation of getting the nod. Many observers believe this was born out of New York's 2012 failed Olympic bid, which was a victim of its missing link, namely a firm financial commitment on a new Manhattan stadium to anchor the Games. Instead, London, which had secure plans to create a new Olympic Park with a main stadium in Stratford, was awarded the 2012 games.

One of the challenges of any American city in landing the Olympics is that the US is now rich with sport-specific baseball and football stadiums, but not facilities that accommodate 400-meter Olympic ovals. Hardly any city, other than Los Angeles, which hosted the Games twice before, in 1932 and 1984, has such a stadium because track and field barely registers with American sports fans. One indication of this is what happened in Atlanta after the 1996 Centennial Games, when the city reconfigured its Olympic Stadium into Turner Field, removing the track and making it a baseball-only park for the Atlanta Braves.

San Francisco's dreams for a 2016 Olympics might have been salvageable if Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto had not been downsized during its recent reconstruction. The university, however, decided that the stadium that hosted Super Bowl XIX in 1985 and men's and women's World Cup soccer matches in 1994 and 1999 was too large for its current needs. So now, instead of having 85,000 seats, its capacity is down to a more suitable 50,000.

That leaves two American cities in the running to get the US Olympic Committee's endorsement: Los Angeles and Chicago. L.A. still has the Coliseum, the centerpiece for both the 1932 and '84 Games.  Chicago has most everything else it would need to host the games but a main stadium. Mayor Richard M. Daley's suggested solution to this problem involves building a new temporary stadium in Washington Park, an idea with doubtful public support. Another possibility that's been floated is to bring a second NFL team to town in order to underwrite a stadium that meets Olympic standards. The Bears, though, can veto any NFL expansion within 50 miles and surely would do so.

Soldier Field near Lake Michigan, where the Bears play, has been totally rebuilt in recent years (so much so that it lost its place on the National Register of Historic Places). Its new seating capacity  of 61,500 makes it smaller than Olympic officials would probably like and the running track that used to surround the field has been removed to bring fans closer to the football action (a consideration at Stanford as well). Still, Soldier Field is a reality, not some pipe dream that may or may not materialize, so Chicago should try to persuade the Olympic brass that Soldier Field can suffice as a venue, at least for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the 2016 Olympics.

Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Ron Rapoport suggests reconfiguring the seats enough to accommodate a running track without building a whole new stadium. Any insistence that Chicago build a new stadium, he says, should be a deal breaker. "The Olympics use the facilities we have now, or we're out of here," he says.

Chicago, a case can be made, has enough going for it otherwise to make a terrific Olympic site. The City of Broad Shoulders has a multitude of pro and college facilities (including Wrigley Field and Allstate Arena) not only in the city, but within driving distance at major colleges like Illinois, Purdue, and Notre Dame. It also has beautiful Lake Shore Drive, along with Millenium Park, which could serve as geographic focal points for Olympic events and visitors. 

Then, too, Chicago has the El and train and bus lines that funnel into the city above ground so that visitors can enjoy the city's sights, not least of which is the towering skyline. Chicago, overseas spectators might not realize, isn't Kansas, a fact many world travelers learned more than a century ago at the spectacular Columbian Exposition, i.e. the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

Already, Maggie Haskins, writing on Sports Illustrated's website, envisions an Opening Ceremony in which Michael Jordan could light the Olympic cauldron, a moment, she believes, that would rival Muhammad Ali's lighting of the Atlanta torch in 1996.

Touching other bases

• What I've never understood about Bob Knight's approach to coaching basketball is how he can insist that his players be so disciplined on the court and yet not demand of himself the same self-discipline. The way he smacked Texas Tech reserve Michael Price under the chin this week to ensure eye contact may have been shrugged off by Knight, the school, and even Price, but it was forceful enough not to be ignored by others. The news media surely paid attention, showing footage of the incident over and over, at a time when Knight is closing in on the all-time record for men's NCAA Division I coaching victories. The jab couldn't have come at a worse time, since it detracts from his impressive record. This was a time Knight owed it to himself to refrain from any displays of temper and to practice what he preaches to his charges.

• The article cited in a recent "We're Just Fans" blog, which noted the high salaries of NFL pass blockers, credited the New York Times magazine. More to the point, the piece was an excerpt from Michael Lewis's new football book, "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game." Lewis's book was bound to receive considerable attention since he also wrote "Moneyball," the highly acclaimed story of how general manager Billy Beane of the Oakland A's pieces together contending teams on a shoestring budget.

• Granted, I don't always keep a close eye on the National League, but I was surprised to learn that a pitcher I'd never heard of, Arizona's Brandon Webb, was named the 2006 Cy Young Award winner. Although the four-year major leaguer came up short of the magical 20-win mark (he was 16-8), his sinker made him baseball's leader in ground ball-to-fly ball ratio. As the Diamondbacks' lone representative in the All Star Game, he also set down, in order, Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, and Alex Rodriguez during his one inning of work. Five other National League pitchers also had 16 wins, including St. Louis's Chris Carpenter, who finished third in the Cy Young balloting. San Diego closer Trevor Hoffman was the runner-up.

• A few months ago, before his resignation as Defense secretary, The New York Times decided to take the measure of Donald Rumsfeld by looking at his regular squash matches. Rumsfeld, who many years ago was a varsity wrestler at Princeton, was described as very aggressive, intense, and "very good at getting inside your head" by one of his playing partners. Under the headline, "Rumsfeld also plays hardball on Pentagon's squash courts," an observer of his matches noted that he often didn't get out of the way of opponents trying to return his shots, a practice known as "clearing."

• Manny Acta, the newly named manager of the Washington Nationals, apparently plans on having things both ways, judging by this statement at his introductory press conference: "We're going to be patient, and we're going to be a winner here, sooner rather than later," he said. That might not quite qualify as a Yogi-ism, but it's mighty close.

• The New England Patriots belong in some sort of record book, maybe one of Guiness's, for switching from a grass field to artificial turf between two home games in midseason. The team is out of town this weekend (in Green Bay), but when they next play at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., a brand new FieldTurf surface, laid over rubber, sand, and crushed stone, will be in place. Team owner Bob Kraft was tired of seeing his team playing on a field that was worn out between the hashmarks. One of the reasons, reportedly, that grass didn't recover well once the season began is because the sides of the stadium are so high that the grass is often left in shadows. This change may go down as one of the most talked about midcourse corrections since the New York Giants switched footwear at halftime of the 1934 NFL championship game. Coach Steve Owen ordered the Giant players out of their cleats and into basketball sneakers for the second half at New York's icy Polo Grounds. The Giants improved their traction, and, after trailing the Chicago Bears 10-3 at the break, went on to win, 30-13.