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Once upon a time, the Olympic Dream Team might have helped college recruiting.
With the Summer Olympics about to open in Paris, let’s look back 32 years ago when the U.S. Olympic Committee dropped the facade of amateurism.
The so-called Dream Team was born with Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Kobe Bryant and other NBA stars, plus one college player – All-American Christian Laettner from Duke.
An interesting juxtaposition, since in 1992 Mike Krzyzewski served as an assistant coach to Chuck Daly in Barcelona and 16 years later began his three-peat as the head USA coach in Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro.
Coach K won three straight gold medals after Larry Brown’s 2004 team bombed out in Athens when 9 of his 12 players who had qualified with an undefeated record in Puerto Rico the summer before left the team for various reasons.
Oklahoma State’s Hank Iba coached the U.S. team in three straight Olympics, losing in 1972 on crooked officiating on the last possession. Those Games in Munich were also where 11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped and two killed.
Dean Smith coached the Gold Medal team in 1976 in Montreal and Dave Gavitt was appointed for the 1980 Games in Moscow, from where our athletes stayed away in protest of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Bob Knight’s team won the 1984 Gold Medal in LA, John Thompson’s team win it all at Seoul in 1988 before Daly and Lenny Wilkens romped to Gold Medals in ’92 and 1996.
In those days, alumni could not help coaches recruit by contacting them or giving them money or gifts. But the Dream Teamers, as long as they weren’t Dukies, could help Coach K recruit by calling prospects.
In Paris, Steve Kerr is the head coach with a team highlighted by his own Warriors star Stephen Curry, Jayson Tatum of the World Champion Celtics and LeBron James in his fourth Olympics. Curry can’t help Davidson recruit, same for Tatum and Duke, which doesn’t need more recruits, and James can call whomever he wants and tell them to go anywhere they want.
Personal Footnote: Before Beijing, which was the first time the Summer Olympics was held in China, a young friend who was fluent in Mandarin Chinese wanted to see if he could help the U.S. team get acclimated when it arrived there. I left a message with Coach K, asking if he would meet my friend. He never returned my call.
A few months later, I asked one of his associates, who laughed. He said, “We all thought the kid would teach everyone to say ‘Duke Sucks’ in Chinese.”
Featured image via Associated Press/Michael Conroy
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
I don’t believe amateur status practiced by the USA was a “facade”, but of course the Soviet bloc countries were all professionals owned by the state and aided by illegal drug use.
“We all thought the kid would teach everyone to say ‘Duke Sucks’ in Chinese.”
Reasonable. I would have.