ATHENS, Greece -- Apart from peaceful competition, international brotherhood and alarming t-shirt prices, what stands out most from the Olympics is the way that watching a game is remarkably the same no matter where you go in the world.

Consider the basketball venues. They played loud music ("Hey Ya" was getting good air time Saturday). They had volunteers shooting t-shirts into the stands. And they had dance teams performing during timeouts. All that was missing was a gorilla leaping off a trampoline.

They didn't need the Gorilla, though, because the Olympics had a guy who bounces basketballs on his head during halftime. You really have to see this guy. He could be in his 40s or 50s, he has a paunch, and he walks onto the court in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. You would mistake him for a sportswriter in search of the open bar except for one thing: He's leaning his head back slightly and bouncing a basketball off his forehead.

I'm told that the guy has been training ever since he was a little boy, dedicating himself to a craft whose very existence had somehow escaped everyone else in the world. He bounced the ball off his head whenever he could -- "I don't imagine he had a lot of girlfriends interrupting his training schedule,'' my informant commented -- until he was the very best in the world at it. I mean, I can only assume he's the best in the world at it -- I certainly haven't seen any challengers.

He starts his act off slowly, bouncing the basketball just a couple inches off his forehead. He steadily increases this until he's bouncing it 10 feet and more in the air. Then he lies down on the court while continuing to bounce the ball on his forehead. Then he walks to a stepladder at halfcourt where he has three t-shirts hanging. One by one, he puts the t-shirts on while continuing to bounce the basketball on his head. Then he climbs up the stepladder. Then he takes off the shirts, one by one.

You can't question the heart of the Brazilians fans ...

Then he drives to the basket while still bouncing the ball on his head and bounces a shot in for an easy lay-in. Then he does it at the other end of the court.

Finally he tries bouncing the ball off his head from the three-point line. He missed three times but he got a huge ovation anyway, if only because he came much closer than the U.S. did against Puerto Rico.

Everyone wrote about the Bikini Dance Team at beach volleyball but the basketball dance teams deserve some pub as well. The women were gorgeous -- that should go without saying since so many women are stunningly beautiful in Athens -- but they took more of an artistic approach to their routines than the Laker Girls would. Instead of bumping and grinding and wiggling their butts to fire up the crowd, the Greek dance team threw in a puzzling mix of ballet, ballroom dance and even rhythmic gymnastic moves. They had one particularly silly routine that involved balancing and rolling a dozen basketballs and tossing them into two enormous hoops while flexing their bodies into inexplicable positions. It was like watching the U.S. team run its offense.

Baseball games are also remarkably similar to games in the U.S. The fans dance to "YMCA'', they do the wave, they stand to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame'' and they bitch about the strike zone. Which is amazing given that most of them don't even know what a strike is, let alone that it has a zone.

Which country had the best fans? That's a closer call than the men's 100 meter dash final.

The American numbers were down from usual but they were a huge presence at women's soccer and softball (and fortunately they were because no one else showed up at soccer). The Greeks were extraordinary spirited, breaking out into national song at any moment, whether a Greek was competing or not. (Their one blemish was when they held up the start of the men's 200 by booing the American sprinters. It was a classless gesture. It's understandable that they were upset that the defending gold medalist Kostas Kenteris missed his drug test and couldn't compete, but how was that America's fault?). And everyone loves the Brazilians.

I have to give the Australians the slightest of nods, however. They sing, they have chants and they're always enjoying themselves. And they come out in droves to support their team. But what put them over the top was the guy who showed up at the women's gold medal basketball game in a Spider-Man costume. Which is really amazing when you think that he had to actually pack that thing.

OK. Do I have everything? Sunscreen? Check. Passport? Check. Tickets? Check. Travel guide? Check. Spider-Man suit? Check.

We also must remember the Iraqi fans. Mostly exiles from Saddam Hussein's regime or the war now living in Greece, they printed their own t-shirts, sewed their own flags and traveled up to 15 hours by bus and ferry to support their team. They may have been the most spirited group at the Olympics.

And you don't want to mess with them. After Iraq was charged with a controversial call late in its semi-final game with Paraquay, their fans went crazy, tossing bottles and garbage toward the field. Because it is surrounded by a running track, only one of the bottles reached the pitch, a throw that rivaled the bottle that hit the referee after his pass interference call against the Vikings in the 1975 playoff game. But even though the fan who threw the bottle was clearly identifiable -- he was sitting right in front of me -- the stadium crew didn't kick him out. Oh, they tried half-heartedly. They surrounded him and glared at him and spoke some stern words. But he just waved his hand dismissively and barked some insults. And then the ushers walked away.

I don't think these ushers would last more than three innings at Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park.

... or the dedication of the Iraqi soccer fans.

I interviewed a dozen or so Iraqi fans that night and almost all said the same thing. After so much misery and horror in their country for so long, the soccer team's success was a gift. Finally, they had something to celebrate. Finally they had something that brought them a few moments of joy.

That's the point of the Olympics. Yes, there is widespread drug use, corruption and gymnastic judges. Yes, it's over-commercialized. And no, none of what happened in the past 17 days is going to end the fighting or repair the electricity or resolve the turmoil in Iraq. As big as they are, after all, the Olympics are just a sporting event.

But at least it allows the world those precious moments of diversion, when we can gather together and sing and dance and overcome our prejudices for as long as we can keep that ball bouncing.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com