Dein erstes Forum » rols a game better than anyone

Jennifer Azzi couldnt eat. The 1996 Atlanta Games were about to open for the U.S. womens basketball team, and food was the last thing on her mind as she sat next to Lisa Leslie for breakfast in the Olympic Village.I just had this nervous excitement, and then I look over, and Lisa couldnt eat either, Azzi said. We were all just so over-the-top excited.U.S. national team director Carol Callans memory drifts to a different point that day, when the teams bus pulled into the parking lot of the Georgia Dome.It was a school-girl level of excitement, Callan recalled. People were screaming on the bus. Theyd been playing and training together for a year, and it was time to see the end result.As the U.S. womens team prepares to begin its quest for a sixth consecutive gold medal in womens basketball in Rio, the groundwork laid by the groundbreaking team of 1996 has never been more evident.That team readjusted the balance of power in the world, USA Basketball coach Geno Auriemma said. Starting 20 years ago to today, theres never been a more dominant team in the Olympics in any sport than the U.S. womens national team.The 1996 Olympic womens basketball team accomplished things that had never been done by preparing in a way that had never been done. For the first time in program history, the womens USA Basketball team trained and played together for nearly a year in preparation for the Olympics. In the end, that group made more than history, going 60-0 (52-0 in pre-Olympic competition and 8-0 in the Games) and capturing one of the most visible gold medals in an Olympics that was a marking point because of the overwhelming success of female athletes.The 1996 team created stars in players such as Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes, set a new bar for the level of play in womens basketball, and launched two professional leagues, including the WNBA, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this season.Callan calls the creation of the 1996 team, and in a way, all that came after, a perfect storm.The womens college game was growing in popularity, as Connecticut won its first national championship in 1995 and had a burgeoning rivalry with Tennessee. The NBA was exploring a business model for professional womens basketball in the United States and was willing to put some money behind the USA womens team as a marketing project.The U.S. team was coming off a pair of disappointing performances, finishing with bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Games and at the 1994 world championship.We knew we had to make some changes, Callan said. We created a program that allowed the team to train together over a sustained period, like the rest of the world does.USA Basketball convinced Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer to leave her program for a year to coach the team. It assembled a roster mixed with veteran players such as Teresa Edwards, who had been playing for years in anonymity overseas, and young guns such as Leslie and Dawn Staley, who were best known for their NCAA résumés and were about to break through on a different level.USA Basketball scheduled a years worth of exhibitions, a 22-game college tour that introduced the team to the country, and a full slate of international games to prepare the U.S. womens basketball team for international competition. A handful of those games were on national television.The college tour began in Atlanta, with VanDerveer taking the players to the Georgia Dome and asking them to visualize their place on the medal stand.In between games and trips, there were autograph sessions, photo shoots and media interviews. There was no social media. The players were tightly bonded and exceedingly focused.It was almost like we were still girls waiting to become grown women, Edwards said. We grew up really fast, and the grown-up part of us allowed us to be great basketball players.But the kid part of us really enjoyed each others company. We laughed so much. We messed up each others hair and fixed it back. We paid for each others dinners. Wed send room service to the wrong rooms. We had fun. But when it was time to play, we killed each other. We brought the best out of each other.Azzi remembers a day when the U.S. women practiced at Georgetown while legendary coach John Thompson stood on the sideline and watched. Thompson came into the huddle at the end of practice to address the team.You are making people respect you, he told them, and the compliment stuck with Azzi and her teammates.We showed people a different level of basketball, Azzi said. No one had seen professional womens basketball in the States. We would go into college arenas, and teams thought they were going to be able to beat us. We were beating national championship teams by a significant margin. It was the first time for people to see the game played by women at that level.Once-in-a-lifetime opportunityThe legacy of the 1996 team goes beyond the history that was written, the ripples of that seminal experience casting off in all directions. They established professional basketball in the United States, cementing a place for pro womens team sports in the landscape. To the players on that team who eventually would go on to coaching careers, such as Staley (South Carolina), Azzi (San Francisco), Swoopes (formerly of Loyola) and Katy Steding (Boston University). To the influence over the U.S. teams current batch of stalwarts such as Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird and Tamika Catchings. To the other side of the country to the coach who cemented her own Hall of Fame legacy without taking home a medal.Coaches dont receive medals in the Olympics, so while the players stood on the platform after beating Brazil in the final in front of nearly 33,000 fans that last day, VanDerveer stood just off to the side. She didnt need a medal to realize shed created a gold standard.VanDerveer was demanding, unrelenting. She had the most talented roster in the history of the game, and she wanted those players to give her everything, from the first game to the last. After all, she was giving significantly as well.VanDerveer had resigned from her head-coaching job at Stanford, taking the year away to not only lead the U.S. women back to the gold-medal stand, but to prime the country for professional womens basketball and to alter the culture of the womens national team program.It was a really difficult decision, said VanDerveer, who turned her program over to longtime assistant coach Amy Tucker and brought old friend Marianne Stanley in as co-head coach for one season. You put so much into your own program. The hardest part of it was having to resign for that year. But I recognized it as an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.People told VanDerveer she was never going to be able to go back to the college game after her experience coaching the best team in the world. Her name came up as a coaching candidate for the WNBA and the American Basketball League, which was going to have a team in San Jose and feature Azzi as its founding player. But VanDerveer never wavered about her commitment to return to Stanford.I was excited about going back, she said. I had learned things from the Olympic experience that I wanted to take back to my team.Twenty years later, VanDerveer is a member of the Naismith Hall of Fame and is on the cusp of reaching 1,000 career wins as a college coach. Many players on that 1996 team regard her as the best coach they ever played for.Ruthie Bolton knew that playing the Olympics on home soil had the potential to make or break womens basketball in the United States.There was so much at stake, Bolton said. We didnt want another feeling of sadness, agony and defeat. We made sure that didnt happen. Tara was preparing us to have a state of mind that was above and beyond. It was like going overboard a little, but we didnt want to leave any questions of whether we were ready.Azzi said that experience challenged everybody to the core.At one point, everybody had a meltdown, she said. But we were all in it together, in a very professional way. It was a sisterhood with a level of trust and respect that I had never experienced before.The legacy of the 1996 womens basketball team is one that changed the landscape of the sport, setting a tone for everything that came after.Players like Lisa and Dawn and Sheryl taught Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird what it mean to be on the national team, Callan said, and those players have taught the next generation.Seimone Augustus, who helped the United States win gold medals in 2008 and 12 and is in Rio for her third Olympics, had a poster in her room as a kid of the 1996 team.My dream, my goal, was to be like those strong women I saw in that poster, Augustus said. To be able to be a part of that legacy and tradition thats so rich in success and winning means a lot. Darwin Thompson Super Bowl Jersey . The Montreal Canadiens announced on Friday that the veteran forward will return to the teams line-up on Saturday night when the Habs visit the Nashville Predators. Cameron Erving Super Bowl Jersey . -- The Sacramento Kings are set to become the first major professional sports franchise to accept Bitcoin virtual currency for ticket and merchandise purchases. http://www.thechiefsshoponline.com/Youth-Harrison-Butker-Chiefs-Jersey/ . Olli Jokinen, Mark Scheifele, and Bryan Little each had a goal and an assist as Winnipeg won 5-2, handing Calgary its record-setting seventh consecutive loss on home ice. Patrick Mahomes Super Bowl Jersey . In the response filed Wednesday to the complaint by 30-year-old Alexander Bradley, attorneys say the former University of Florida player is invoking his Fifth Amendment right that protects people from incriminating themselves. Damien Williams Super Bowl Jersey . Deulofeu injured a muscle in his right leg in Evertons 4-1 win over Fulham in the English Premier League on Saturday. Barcelona says that its team doctors will "co-ordinate" with Evertons medical staff as Deulofeu recovers. Freakish skill from all four wingersIm looking forward to the freakish things the wingers create in this game of football because it is very important to start their sets of six on a roll. I think its pretty important that these fours wingers play a major part in the outcome on Sunday. Whoever the best two are might also be from the team that wins the game.?Suliasi Vunivalu is the leading tryscorer and he jumped over?Sosaia Feki a few times the last time they met so I think well see a few kicks going to that edge close to the tryline. On the other Storm wing, Marika Koroibete runs extremely hard as does the Sharks Valentine Holmes and I think Feki is a very under-rated winger as well.We probably dont talk about wingers having a huge impact in games but I reckon wingers are more important than centres in the current climate and these four could go a long way to deciding who gets good field position, who scores a try and theyre often the guys that stop the tries.The Sharks in particular will have tough decisions to make because they wont want to kick the ball to Vunivalu or Koroibete on the full so they might be forced to kick it to Cameron Munster which means it goes down the middle of the field but if Im Cooper Cronk I want to kick it to Ben Barba so I can get hold of him and rough him up a bit.Front row battle will lay platform for victoryThe forward battle will be super important. Ill include Paul Gallen and Dale Finucane in that as well. Whoever wins the battle for the middle of the field will win the game. The Storm have got Jesse Bromwich, the best prop in the game, Finucane does a wonderful job and then Andrew Fifita and Gallen will match up against them.I just think it is so important in big games that the front row wins the play-the-balls, one out-muscles their opposing player and you just get a feeling that youre winning that battle of the middle and that leads to more momentum and thats where the tackle is won in the arm-wrestle.Sam Tagataese can play a huge role despite being out for several weeks. I think he just needs to play 20 minutes. If he can play 20 minutes then he is a big body thatll help enormously. I dont think Kurt Capewell will have great impact against the best wrestling side in the competition. The Sharks need big bodies and someone who can cause havoc for the last 15 minutes of the first half and 10 minutes of the second half and his job will be done.The Storm have the most athletic pack in the comppetition.dddddddddddd Jesse Bromwich has great late footwork, Tohu Harris has great footwork, Kevin Proctor is a ball-playing edge backrower, Finucane carries hard and I think Jordan McLean will be an Origin player if not next year then the year after.Nelson Asofa-Solomona is a huge loss for the Storm. Both packs look so close on paper so the benches will have to make a fair impact and when they had Asofa-Solomona on the bench they had more impact than they get now.Whoever handles occasion best will win NRL Grand FinalCooper Cronk is the best big-game player in the world at the moment - 300 games last week, cool as a cucumber, scores a couple of tries, kicking game was wonderful while Cameron Smith, controls a game better than anyone.For the Sharks, James Maloney was great in game three of Origin, Chad Townsend last week came back from the worst feeling in the world for a footballer after being hooked mid-game, Michael Ennis has played Origin but its really important for the lesser-known players that havent been around this time of year before to step up.I think its probably about handling the build-up and the hype during the week as well. The Sharks had a fan day on Tuesday and the Shires gone totally crazy; its disruption to your normal preparation so the players need to be able to avoid getting excited and playing the game before it even starts.Its about handling the occasion, singing the anthem, soaking up the atmosphere and basically, can you do your job to the best of your ability on Sunday night. You only have to play to your best and youre likely to win. Most of the time I find sides lose Grand Finals rather than the opposition winning the Grand Final because they dont handle the occasion.The Storm are advantaged in this area because they are tucked away in Melbourne and all the media hype down their is around the AFL and having a Melbourne-based side in their big day. Craig Bellamy said the other day that it has been extremely quiet down there - they had a fan day but its madness in the Shire for the Sharks.In saying that, Im hoping and tipping Cronulla to win. I think its their turn, I think theyre due and I think theyve got the best roster theyve probably ever had. Ennis will retire and Gallen and Lewis will probably go next year so this opportunity may not come around again for a while. ' ' '