In the weeks leading up to the just-concluded Winter Olympic games in Turin, Italy, American skier Bode Miller was portrayed as something of a rebel, a swashbuckling character on skis. Think Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean," and you have a pretty good picture of how we were supposed to view Miller.

Now that the games have disappeared in the rear-view mirror and the majority of the athletes featured in Turin are going to shrink from our consciousness for the next, oh, three years and ten months or so, I'm wondering if Mr. Miller, despite his public assurances that he has no regrets, is wishing, in those quiet, still moments before he falls asleep at night, that he had handled himself a little differently these last two-and-a-half weeks.

It's not that a famous, probably rich young kid shouldn't have gone to Italy and enjoyed what was probably the experience of a lifetime. It's just that instead of reading his press releases and being a character for the entire trip, he should have shown some character and saved the partying for the nights when he wasn't competing the next day.

Bode Miller made it clear early-on that he wasn't necessarily about winning medals; rather, what mattered to him was the process, trying to ski cleanly and well. "I'm just trying to ski in a way that's exciting for me." Unfortunately for him, when you possess the kind of skill at your sport that Miller does, if you ski cleanly and well, medals tend to follow, like sycophants follow the famous.

In an article filed in the Rutland, VT Herald, U.S. National skeleton team member Marci Francis writes of an ugly encounter in which Miller reacts with vulgar hostility to the request, from another U.S. athlete, for a picture with him. Ms Francis writes, "Miller himself had been one of the major driving forces behind the mania that now follows him, yet seems unwilling to accept the responsibility of becoming a household name."

The problem with being Captain Jack Sparrow is that if you don't ultimately recover the treasure and save the girl, you're really nothing more than another down and out, drunken sailor. It seems to me that Miller simply swigged his rum and sang his chanties as he went down with the ship in Turin.

It's possible that Bode Miller will have a chance to resurrect his tarnished image, in Vancouver in 2010. He's only 28 years old, and a world-class talent in his sport. For his sake, I hope he can do it. Missed opportunities can weigh heavily on one's soul, and ultimately, he didn't just let the United States or his teammates down, he let himself down. Someday, whether it be 5 years, 25 years, or 50 years from now, Bode Miller is going to look himself in the mirror and realize just that.