The 1996 US women's Olympic basketball team, which won gold in Atlanta and helped launch the WNBA, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Saturday. The team's victory marked the start of an eight-gold-medal streak for USA Basketball.
A Pivotal Moment for Women's Basketball
The 1996 Olympics were not just about winning gold in front of a home crowd; they were about the future of women's basketball in America. After a stunning semi-final defeat to the Commonwealth of Independent States at the 1992 Olympics, turning around the program was a top priority for USA Basketball and the NBA, which was planning to start a women's league that would become the WNBA.
With NBA support, USA Basketball selected a national team for a year-long international tour, led by Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, who took a sabbatical to coach the team.
Team Unity and Pressure
Olympic guard Dawn Staley recalled the team's tight-knit nature and the pressure they faced. "Our group was a really tight-knit group, really tight," she 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."
Staley added: "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."
Gold Medal and League Launch
By the Olympics, the team—including 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. Their gold medal win helped boost the launch of not only the WNBA but also the ABL, a league that directly preceded and briefly overlapped with it. 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."
Hall of Fame Class
On Saturday, the 1996 team will be inducted 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.
Parker, who watched the Olympic team on her couch as a child, said, "[The 1996 team is] a catalyst for the reason why women's professional sports, not just basketball and sports, exists."
For Staley, the 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."
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%."
