By Phillip
Brents
WSPW Staff Writer
If “Dream Team” status had to be assigned
to any of the women's squads at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympic Games, it
was not the women’s basketball or even the soccer team.
While soccer’s heralded “Fab Five” were
playing general support roles as Team USA squeaked its way with one-goal
victories and overtime wins to the Olympic gold medal, the United States
softball team completed an explosive run through the Athens Games with a
5-1 victory against Australia on Aug. 23 to claim the gold medal. The Americans
put a bold exclamation mark on the tournament by outscoring their opponents
51-1 to claim their third consecutive Olympic championship title.
The Olympic gold medal was the U.S. soccer team’s
second in three tournaments after settling for the silver medal at the 2000
Sydney Games. Not bad, but the U.S. national softball team has been the
undisputed No. 1 team in the world for the past 18 years. Until it was snapped
in the 2000 Olympic Games, the Americans had compiled a blockbuster 112-game
winning streak.
Lisa Fernandez? Crystl Bustos? Stacey Nuveman? Cat Osterman?
Jennie Finch? Jenny Topping? Laura Berg? Leah O’Brien Amico? Lori
Harrigan?
Olympic headlines were reserved instead for America’s
aging soccer superstars, their generous closeups adorning instant news Web
sites and front page newspaper stories despite that only three of them were
actually retiring from active competition and that much of the team’s
gold medal success was due to an exciting, vibrant next generation of soccer
stars led by Abby Wambach, Heather O’Reilly and Lindsay Tarpley.
The story of the 2004 Summer Games appeared
predetermined.
The exposure was great for women’s sports. There
is no question about that. But the overkill was also a bit tiresome at the
same time.
For those who do care, America’s true Olympic dream
team got its start at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif.
When soccer moved its base of operations northward to the new Home Depot
Center in Carson (the Chula Vista venue received “overflow” visits
by national team programs), the U.S. softball team continued to extensively
utilize the sprawling complex overlooking the Otay Lake in preparation for
both the 2003 Pan American Games and 2004 Olympics. The national team roster
was named with a Chula Vista dateline.
For trivia fans, Osterman made her first national team
appearance on the team while still in high school.
Critics will argue the U.S. softball team suffers from
the same malaise that is perceived to permeate the U.S. women’s soccer
program — tenure and hero worship. Hamm is 32, Foudy is 33, Lilly is
33 and Fawcett is 36. Fernandez is 33, Harrigan is 34, O’Brien-Amico
is 30 and Berg is 29.
Eleven players returned to the 2000 Sydney Games U.S.
softball roster from the 1996 Atlanta Olympic gold medal team. Six players
from the 2000 gold medal team were picked for the 2000 team. Fernandez, Berg,
Harrigan and O’Brien-Amico each captured their third Olympic gold
medal.
The world’s all-time scoring leader with 157 goals
and 137 assists (as of Oct. 15), Hamm owns Women’s World Cup championship
medals from 1991 and 1999, bronze medals from 1995 and 2003, two Olympic
gold medals (1996 and 2004) and one Olympic silver medal (2000). She has
scored against 31 different national teams.
Lilly owns distinction as the world’s most capped
player with more than 280 U.S. national team appearances or nearly 90 percent
of all matches played in the history of the U.S. women’s national team.
She scored her history-making 100th career goal in Team USA’s 5-0 victory
against New Zealand Oct. 3 in Portland as part of the post-Olympic “Fan
Celebration Tour.”
At the time of their selections to the U.S. Olympic
softball team in September 2003, Berg had won three world championships besides
her two Olympic gold medals, Fernandez had pitched in the last two Olympic
and world championship gold medal games and O’Brien Amico had collected
two Olympic, two world championship and two Pan Am Games gold medals. Harrigan
owns the honor of throwing the first solo no-hitter in Olympic
competition.
Joining Berg, Fernandez, Harrigan and O’Brien-Amico
as gold medalists from the 2000 and 2004 Summer Games were Crystal Bustos
and Stacey Nuveman.
For the record, seven U.S. soccer players have competed
in three Olympic Games : Hamm, Foudy, Fawcett, Lilly, Chastain, forward Cindy
Parlow and goalkeeper Brianna Scurry.
What’s next for women’s soccer? Certain
immortality for Hamm and the rest of the legendary “Fab Five.”
It may seem ridiculous, but with the degree of conditioning and oversell
the U.S. women’s soccer team received in its buildup to the Athens Games,
one can almost imagine a fictitious scenario where starry-eyed six-year-olds
hawking autographs at future national team games will still be yelping
“Mia! Mia!” long after the venerable Hamm has permanently hung
up her cleats.
What’s next for women’s softball? That’s
a very interesting question, especially if asked at the next International
Olympic Committee meeting. Will immortality also be granted for the U.S.
Olympic softball team? Try obscurity.
Ironically, because of their runaway success on the
international stage (and the lack of a sizable international stage to begin
with for the sport), the American softballers are running risk of having
their beloved sport face the IOC axe before the 2008 Bejing Summer
Games.
Given the stature of softball in the world, members
of the three-time Olympic gold medal U.S. softball team will likely never
become household names. But for those insiders, the ground quakes before
them.
“We know the tradition of USA softball and we came
to Athens to win gold,” outfielder Jessica Mendoza said. “Anything
less would be a huge disappointment and unacceptable for the standards set
for us.”
Well, let us just say mission accomplished ... once
again. A little more recognition would not hurt, either. |
