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

The 1996 US women’s Olympic team enter the Hall of Fame on Saturday after giving momentum to the WNBA and re-launching an era of American dominance

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.

“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.

“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.