USA hoops has dual Olympic missions

The Summer Olympics have long been a venue for making political statements. This year promises to be no exception, with at least one message apt to come from an unlikely American source.

Years before Adolph Hitler precipitated World War II, he used the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a benign showcase for his malevolent Third Reich. Taking quite another tack, American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos mounted the medal stand at the 1968 Games at Mexico City -- boycotted by many African-American athletes from the United States -- and raised a closed-fisted salute to Black Power as a form of protest.

More often, Olympic protest came in the form of boycotts, common since seven countries sat out the 1956 Games at Melbourne, Australia, for various reasons. The U.S. and 64 other nations boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. The Russians and their allies in Eastern Europe returned the favor by boycotting the Summer Games at Los Angeles in 1984.

And of course there was the murder of 11 Israeli athletes, coaches and a referee by members of Black September, an Arab terrorist group, at the 1972 Olympics at Munich, West Germany. (The deaths early in the Games did not prevent the show from continuing.) We can argue whether murder is ever a political statement, but clearly it was meant that way two decades before Islamic terrorists first bombed New York’s World Trade Center.

These days, the Olympics are tightly buttoned down and heavily commercialized regardless of venue. International Olympic Committee rules circumscribe protest by participants. There may be modest efforts next month in Beijing to call attention to China’s support of genocide in Darfur and repression in Burma (Myanmar), and its own campaign of cultural extermination in Tibet. But you can bet the host nation will do everything it can to assure the Games are largely sanitized of political content.

Largely, but not entirely.

Look for one political statement to be made wordlessly by, of all people, the young millionaires on the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team and their millionaire head coach, Mike Krzyzewski.

Since 2005 Krzyzewski, who also puts in time as head coach at Duke, has been working to change the culture of American basketball on the world stage. He calls his position directing the U.S. team the “biggest honor” and “biggest responsibility” of his coaching career.

Once the U.S. owned Olympic basketball. Literally. Starting in 1936, a year basketball was played outdoors in the rain and mud, American teams composed exclusively of collegians won their first 63 Olympic contests. They also captured nine gold medals through 1984.

When the U.S. shockingly managed only a bronze in 1988, the pros were summoned like Ghostbusters banishing an unwelcome apparition. The 1992 assemblage, the so-called Dream Team, reasserted American hegemony, awing opponents while winning games by an average margin of 44 points.

Krzyzewski, an assistant coach on that '92 team, was awed as well. But over the years he watched as all-NBA contingents began to falter. Amid sporadic demonstrations of teamwork and intensity, the Americans finished sixth in the 2002 world championships and dropped to bronze medal status at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.

The stumbles led to creation of a new format for the U.S. men. NBA players had to try out for the team, a procedure they had previously disdained. A large, set roster was established to play together over three summers. These and other actions stressed continuity and a sense of common identity.

Krzyzewski underlined the latter point when the squad posed for group photos in August 2006. Countermanding the photographer, he moved himself and managing director Jerry Colangelo from the center of the image to the edge. “Coaches will be on the sides," Krzyzewski said at the time. "I do that with all my teams. The players are the most important, and they are supported by us…The only way to accomplish what we want to accomplish is to do it together. It's not about me or any single individual."

Since then, Krzyzewski has repeatedly discussed the self-defeating “arrogance” with which Americans in recent years approached the international game, which varies slightly in rules and strategy from NBA basketball. Increasingly, NBA players came across as stereotypical boors, their ostentation, assumed superiority, and self-centered conduct embodying characteristics that spawned the term “ugly American” decades ago.

Meanwhile, players from other nations surpassed their U.S. counterparts in skills and, increasingly, matched American athleticism. The best international squads also developed within coherent systems, under the same coach and with the same core of teammates, for years on end. Players regarded capturing an Olympic championship not as an interruption of more important business, but as a high honor in service to their country.

Now the U.S. Men’s National Basketball Team, intent on winning a gold medal, has adapted its development system to foster similar stability, while embracing unique strengths -- playing tough, physical team defense; prosecuting a relentlessly uptempo attack; sharing the ball with athletic elan.

Equally important, if less subject to definition, Team USA is on a quest of “mind and spirit,” as Krzyzewski calls it, a restoration of proper respect for opponents and the game. “It’s a big responsibility for all of us who are involved with our U.S. national team to do this right and provide a winning effort,” Krzyzewski said the other day. “We want to win a gold medal, and we want to do it the right way.”

The 2008 collection of 13 NBA stars (among them ACC products Carlos Boozer of Duke, Chris Bosh of Georgia Tech, and Chris Paul of Wake Forest) could fail to win the gold, yet achieve the level of humility, pride, and appreciation to which Krzyzewski and staff aspire. That would be a victory in itself, particularly at a time when the U.S. stance abroad echoes the attitude of its recent Olympic squads.

The coach knows, however, that he and his team will not be measured by the tone they set. American media and fans aren't looking for subtlety, they're looking for gold.

“The sports world would never accept that,” he said. “But, you know what, we’re still going to do it and hopefully we’re going to win. On the surface, the winning will seem more by far, but it won’t be. I don’t think. It’s the impression that we will give along the way. And win. That’s what will last, I think. I think our guys get that.”