Prior to last night I was a lost soul, wandering aimlessly about hutongs of life in search of anything, but usually hookers, to inject meaning to my life. So what, I'm at the Olympics? That means nothing divided by zero to me. My life was as empty as my whiskey glass and my colon.

That all changed in an adderall heartbeat when I met Craig Saiger. I was alone in an elevator following the USA / Spain post game press conference. The doors began closing when an arm thrust between them. They reopened, slowly revealing him. The man who once supposedly scored 106 points in a single high school basketball game. The man who openly admits to having a blonde fetish. The man with more tricked out blazers than the corner or York and Roosevelt Roads. The man who would in a few short minutes would buy me one beer and seven for himself, Craig Sager.

We talked basketball and about Beijing as we walked towards the media concession stand.

"Beeeeeeer," he hollered at the employee like an alcoholic zombie. He even left a tip.

"NBC's really toned down your image," I said. "What's with that?"

"Yeah I know," he said. "They got me in this polo."

Shoving cans into a bag already overflowing with roster sheets and player bios, he shook my hand and said "Good luck," disappearing into the bathroom, likely to shotgun the seven beers he'd just purchased.

Just then, Sager's wisdom was tangible. I realized, that in the wardrobe of life, sometimes you have to wear the polo to arrive at the tangerine suit with lilac piping. And when life's got you in that polo, stifling your outter flamboyance, your inner flamboyance can still shine as brightly as a cannery yellow, mandarin-style blazer with matching wing-tip shoes, as Sager exemplified with his excessive beer order.

I know that pale yellow polo and khaki pant wasn't the real Craig. But there was no mistaking his true, polychromatic essence, radiating its brilliance onto my newly uncovered soul.

Sager, you saved my life.