In its seemingly continuing quest to redefine the core values of the Olympics, the U.S. men's basketball team played its first exhibition game on the Las Vegas strip before a crowd that included Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, set up training camp at a plush waterfront resort in Macau and soon will check into the first five-star hotel built in an area of Beijing. They're big and they know it.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Benn Fraker.

AP (ENLARGE)

Benn Fraker trains for his Olympic whitewater event, which gets under way Aug. 11.

Special (ENLARGE)

Benn Fraker is a member of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Canoe/Kayak team.

As a rule, a 19-year-old canoeist from Peachtree City, who may or may not want to be a writer one day, is not going to command the attention of LeBron James, who may or may not want to rule the world one day. But they do get to wear the same warm-up suit and march in the same parade.

Fraker is not that far removed from messing around on Lake Peachtree. But if he is fazed by any of this, he's not showing it. Asked whether he felt he had gained celebrity status, he gave one of those are-you-from-Neptune looks and answered, "Some friends and family have thoughts of that nature. But I set them straight pretty quickly. I tell them I just paddle canoes.

"One of the things about my sport is that there are so few people involved in it, any delusional guy with a slalom kayak can probably convince himself that he has a shot at the Olympics."

Tom Fraker laughed when those remarks were relayed to him. He realizes his son hasn't fully grasped the magnitude of making it to the Olympics.

"I'm glad he has that attitude," said the father, a technology consultant for Delta. "He made a comment to me the other day when he was in Maryland for a training camp about how there were so many media members there. He said it was the first time he realized how few people go to the Olympics. I said, 'Benn, very few people even know someone who goes to the Olympics.' "

Yes, he paddles boats. It just so happens Thomas Bennett Fraker — who decided to adopt the name "Benn" because there were too many other Thomases in the family — paddles faster than anybody else in the U.S.

He made the U.S. canoe/kayak team in C-1

(one man) whitewater slalom. The assumption is that of the 596 American athletes going to Beijing, Fraker is the only one who celebrated his finish in the junior world championships when he was 15 by marching in the parade with a purple spiked mohawk. Meet the Summer Olympics' version of a snowboarder.

Tom Fraker, who ran track and played soccer in college, is a recreational kayaker and introduced Benn to the sport when he was 9 years old. Benn said he started to get serious about it two years later when pain in the growth plates of his heels (Severs disease) forced him to quit playing soccer.

"That was my plan — I was going to be a professional soccer player," he said, smiling

Fortunately, the crushed dreams of an 11-year-old didn't linger. He got serious in the boat. During the week, Tom would strap the canoe to the roof and take him to local lakes or Atlanta Water Works. But on weekends, they would take 3 1/2-hour drives to the Nantahala River in North Carolina or the Ocoee in Tennessee.

Soon, their life became a TripTik. Colorado, Wisconsin, Indiana, Washington, D.C. Father and son bonded like they never had before.

"It's been sort of a partnership with me and Dad since the beginning," Benn said. "The sport's not very convenient, so before I got my driver's license, he had to take me everywhere. We sort of became best friends in the process. He bought a slalom boat and did the practices with me. It's a lot of fun."

Tom said by the time Benn was 14 and competing in Europe, "I realized he was getting pretty good."

Like most 19-year-olds, it's difficult to discern when Benn is being serious and when he's just musing at somebody's expense. He says of himself, "I'm a pretty complex personality."

He says he'd like to be a writer, then adds: "I don't really regularly read any periodicals other than the Onion [a satirical Web site]."

When asked about the potential for athletes or officials to boycott the Opening Ceremony because of human-rights violations in Tibet, Fraker said, "I've read some pretty discouraging articles about the situation in Tibet. But really, I'm just a self-absorbed 19-year-old. I don't know much about it."

He frequently changes his hair — color and cut. Father's update: "Now it's black. Long on one side and short on the other."

But his family should recognize him. Delta is providing his parents, brother and sister with airline tickets, and neighbors set up a Web site for donations to help with other expenses.

Benn was only 7 when the Olympics were in Atlanta. He remembers seeing some track and field and his grandparents "dragging me and my brother to equestrian."

Twelve years later, he will share the same stage as those athletes in 1996. That reality just hasn't hit home yet.