‘Here we are 30 years later’: the Olympic team that transformed US basketball

For the US women’s basketball team, the 1996 Olympics weren’t just about winning gold in front of their home crowd.It was about the future of women’s basketball in America. The US women were knocked out of the 1992 Olympics in the semi-finals by the Commonwealth of Independent States – a stunning and embarrassing defeat. Heading into the 1996 Games, which were held in Atlanta, turning around the program was a top priority not just for USA Basketball, but the NBA as well, which was looking to start a women’s league that would become the WNBA.With the support of the NBA, USA Basketball selected a national team to travel around on a year-long international tour, led by Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, who took a sabbatical from the Cardinal to coach the team.“Our group was a really tight-knit group, really tight,” Olympic guard Dawn Staley said Friday. “We had been through so much together that yes, we often talked about what it meant [to be competing for the US at the time]. We had the perfect, in retrospect, the perfect coach in Tara that allowed us to handle any type of pressure that we would face because of the pressure she put on us to perform at a high level daily. She didn’t let her foot off the gas.Dawn Staley smiles during Friday’s media availability ahead of the Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut. Photograph: Nathaniel S Butler/NBAE/Getty Images“And because of that, we knew we could handle anything physically, because the physical part of what we were doing strengthened us mentally and it never really broke our spirit. So we felt like if this team was going to be the team that pushes women’s basketball, professional women’s basketball over the line, it was [the team] that we could handle the pressure.”By the time the Olympics came around, the gamble paid off: Staley, Lisa Leslie, Teresa Edwards, Carla McGhee, Ruthie Bolton, Nikki McCray, Sheryl Swoopes, Venus Lacey, Katy Steding, Jennifer Azzi, Rebecca Lobo and Katrina Felicia McClain had become unstoppable – and the excitement domestically was palpable.When the US team brought home gold, it helped boost the launch for not only the WNBA, but the league that directly preceded and briefly overlapped with it – the ABL – as well.The WNBA celebrated its 30th season this year.“It was pressure enough to play in the Olympic games in our home country after losing in Barcelona,” said Staley. “And then you’re adding another big ticket item of a women’s professional league starting in the States. And we felt somewhat responsible for the league starting and growing. And I mean, here we are 30 years later. It’s incredible.”For USA Basketball, it also was the start of what has been a winning streak of eight gold medals.Sheryl Swoopes, Jennifer Azzi, Lisa Leslie, Carla McGhee, Katy Steding, Katrina McClain, Rebecca Lobo and Venus Lacey (left to right) look on from the podium. Photograph: Rick Stewart/Getty ImagesOn Saturday, the 1996 US women’s basketball team will be inducted in the Hall of Fame along with three players who followed in the league they helped create: Chamique Holdsclaw, the first overall WNBA draft pick in 1999; Candace Parker, drafted first overall in 2008 and Elena Delle Donne, the second overall pick in 2013.The inductee group also includes NBA coach Doc Rivers, NBA referee Joey Crawford, and retired NBA player A’mare Stoudemire.More than 15 years before she was drafted, Parker remembered watching the Olympic team on her couch, idolizing the game of Leslie, Swoopes and Edwards.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“[The 1996 team is] a catalyst for the reason why women’s professional sports, not just basketball and sports, exists,” she said.For Staley, who went on to play in the ABL and WNBA before a decorated coaching career, that gold medal was the biggest achievement of her lifetime.“It was the tangible thing that I wanted and I worked really hard for because I only saw women play in the national championship game and the Olympics,” she said. “So those were my two goals that drove me. And when I left college in ‘92, I knew I wasn’t going to get a national championship, right? Because I had not thought about coaching.“But then when I got the gold medal, it was the only one that I thought I had left to check off as a childhood dream.”Parker and Holdsclaw join their late coach, Pat Summitt, in the Hall of Fame.“I think Coach definitely wrote this in the stars for us to go in, in the same class,” Parker said. “I think she’d definitely be super proud. I know she would be on stage with both of us 100%.”