Team USA tour opens with dual purpose
National team starts promoting, preparing for Tokyo Games with game at Stanford
STANFORD >> The nine-month dribble drive to Olympic history started Saturday at Stanford with the intent of promoting women’s basketball as much as preparing for the 2020 Tokyo Games.
A Team USA roster that included two of the game’s legends opened a weeklong college exhibition tour slowly at Maples Pavilion against No.3-ranked Stanford and its Next Gen standouts. Former Stanford Allamerican Nneka Ogwumike had 23 points and 12 rebounds to lead the U.S. national team to a 95-80 victory in front of about 4,500 fans.
The intersection of present and future stars provided an intriguing backdrop for women’s basketball, which sometimes struggles for legitimacy. The U.S. national team players hope to make real progress by the time the Tokyo Games arrive in July next summer.
“We’re at the crossroads now where women’s sports are at the forefront,” said Diana Taurasi, considered one of the greatest players in history. “Now it’s time to take it to the next level.”
Throughout much of the next year, the basketball players plan to use their platform the way the U.S. women’s soccer team did in the buildup to this year’s World Cup. The soccer team led by Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, outspoken advocates for gender equality, created a template for athletes in other sports to follow.
No one understands the calculus better than Rapinoe’s girlfriend, Sue Bird, an 11-time WNBA All-star, three-time WNBA champion and who, like Taurasi, is hoping to win a fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Japan.
“People are calling us this power couple,” Bird said of her and Rapinoe. “We’re still pretty boring. We go home and cook dinner and do laundry. Simultaneously, we understand there is a moment right now.”
The United States also is scheduled to play at top-ranked Oregon, No. 6 Texas A&M and No. 7 Oregon State in the next week. After that, the team travels to Argentina Nov. 10-18
for the Americas pre-olympic qualifying tournament.
The idea is to grow the fan base by playing games in front of spectators who do not have easy access to the 12-team WNBA, whose season runs from the end of May to mid-october.
The U.S. team provides a case study as to how women struggle to gain acceptance in the province of sports despite an unparalleled standard of excellence.
The United States already has qualified for the Tokyo Games after winning the International Basketball Federation’s World Cup last year. In Japan, the Americans hope to earn a share of the team record for the most consecutive gold medals in Olympic history. The U.S. men’s basketball squad owns the record after winning seven in a row from 1936 through 1968.
The women have won eight gold medals, one silver and one bronze with a 66-3 record since their sport became part of the Olympic program in 1976. They have dominated so much sometimes they are taken for granted.
“That’s a big issue with women’s sports,” said Ogwuimke, a former Stanford All-american and president of the WNBA players union. “The people that don’t follow us always have an excuse as to why they don’t. It’s either, ‘it’s not exciting’ or ‘you win too much.’ ”
Ogwumike, who had 17 points and six rebounds in the first half as Team USA overcame a nine-point deficit, said the women’s soccer team has become popular despite dominating its arena.
“This is a legacy people are just going to have to jump on the bandwagon eventually,” said Ogwumike, 29. “I don’t see it changing for women’s basketball. We have the best playing in the WNBA and they came from schools like Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State. We are feeding ourselves. We just need some other people to understand they need to invest in it as well.”
Team USA did a preolympic tour of college campuses in 1995-96 when Stanford’s Tara Vanderveer coached the national team. Vanderveer said it can leave a lasting impression on college players, including Cardinal freshmen Haley Jones and 6-foot-1 Fran Bilibi, who in 2017 became the first Colorado high school girls player to dunk in a game.
Bird recalled being a high school sophomore in 1996 when seeing the Americans play an exhibition game in Philadelphia. The U.S. team’s victory at the Atlanta Games helped usher in the WNBA, which just concluded its 23rd season.
“Now we have another opportunity to capitalize on a different moment,” said Bird, who missed the 2019 WNBA season after undergoing left knee surgery in May. “The WNBA is here and we’re kind of established and we can push it into that next level. Trying to win a gold, a lot is riding on this.”
At 39, Bird has sculpted a memorable career as one of history’s greatest point guards. But all the points, assists, medals and championships she has accumulated in the past two decades were not on Bird’s mind Friday after practice.
Bird said one of her best memories came two years ago when she helped lead the Seattle Storm to a WNBA title. Her sister Jen and her daughters, age 5 and 3, could not make the final game because of bad weather, Bird recalled.
Afterward, the family sent a photo of the daughters hugging the television screen with Bird’s face on it.
“It makes you understand that this is bigger than you,” Bird said. “For my nieces, it’s normal to see a professional basketball player they assume is a woman. Helping to change that narrative and everything underneath it is what will be one of my best memories.”
Bird also feels a sense of urgency as the WNBA players union negotiates for a new collective bargaining agreement over the next two months. The negotiations represent another example of how women athletes are working as hard as ever to gain a financial stake in sports. The U.S. women’s national team sued the U.S. Soccer Federation in federal court in Los Angeles just before the World Cup over gender discrimination.
Bird, like her soccerstar partner Rapinoe, is at the forefront of the fight. Bird said she is doing it for younger generations because she never will enjoy any financial gains they might win.