Team USA gives back to servicemembers,
Capt. Scott Smiley sat on the sideline wearing a pair of headphones, listening to U.S. forward Blake Griffin describe the action of a recent practice in Las Vegas.
“What was best about it is you can hear the communication between the players,” Smiley said. “The talking was awesome.”
Smiley can’t see. He lost his vision in Iraq when a nearby car driven by a suicide bomber exploded in 2005.
Before Smiley put on the headphones, he delivered a speech to the men’s basketball team.
“It was a message of selfless service and what it meant to me, and the importance of wearing the American flag,” said Smiley, who, like U.S. men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy. “It’s a humbling honor, not only to play for your country, but definitely to fight. I just pushed the importance of playing on a team.”
Before he withdrew from the Olympic team because of an injured left knee, Griffin said Smiley’s speech left an impression on him.
“Listening to him talk about selfless service puts everything in perspective,” he said. “This guy is really serving his country. We’re fortunate to go do this, and we have to take pride in it.”
Smiley’s presence at practice was part of the Hoops for Troops program, which was started in 2004 to bring troops and USA Basketball closer together.
“When we represent the USA and when the guys have those letters on their jerseys, that says a lot. That’s a major statement,” USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said.
“We want people not only to feel proud about doing that, we want them to have a feeling for what that really means. What better way than to bring the military into it, the people who have given lives and have lost limbs to protect what we all have?”
USA Basketball has been immersed since Tuesday in activities with military personnel and their families.
-The men’s team presented the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Sunday during the Changing of the Guard at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Krzyzewski said the interactions with the military gives the team “a chance to feel who and what you’re representing.”
“You can see and you can listen, but you have to have moments in which you feel. And if you feel this to a high level, then you’ll own it,” he said. “Not just representing our country; it’s got to be ours. I think these experiences help us get there.”
-The women’s team gave a basketball clinic to daughters of military personnel Saturday before the men’s team practiced in front of more than 3,000 military members and family in Washington.
-Bill Walton, Lenny Wilkens, Alonzo Mourning and Teresa Edwards hosted a clinic for military children Sunday in Washington.
They will also visit injured servicemen and servicewomen today before the men’s and women’s teams play exhibition games against Brazil.
“It’s not just a passing, ‘How do you do?’ ” Colangelo said. “We’ve wrapped ourselves around our military who are serving and protecting us, and we want to honor them.”
Colangelo, Krzyzewski and their staff had dinner Friday with Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
They came up with an idea: After Saturday’s practice, members of the military lined up across from U.S. players and gave them a patch of the U.S. flag that was on their right shoulder. Dempsey told players to take the patch with them to London.
“The exchange of flags from the people who are actually serving our country on a day-today basis, we thought that was the single biggest gesture that they could do in support of us, and accepting them would be an honor,” Krzyzewski said. “(Saturday) was a special day.”