THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 8, 1996 TAG: 9607080131
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: 70 lines
If not the actual players themselves, the concept of the Dream Team has grown staler than jokes about Kathie Lee Gifford and Honduran sweatshops.
Even the name itself has used up its shelf life. There was one Dream Team. It played in Barcelona and featured Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan.
That was a team of legends. The 1996 edition is a faded facsimile.
The team that beat a bunch of collegians and a team of Brazilians over the weekend lacks sufficient charisma to transcend its role as a marketing tool of the NBA.
What many perceive as the players' corporate, seemingly cavalier, approach to the Games is what turns off some Americans to the so-called Dream Team. People are left with the impression that the Olympics mean as much to some of these All-Stars as their next round of golf.
Then again, the NBA did not exactly invent the idea of the professional Olympian. The concept was firmly entrenched before the celebrities with jump shots and sneaker contracts got involved.
The Olympic Games are supposed to be different from the NBA, but they aren't. In many ways, the Olympics are another professional sport that features its own roster of veteran players.
Leroy Walker, U.S. Olympic Committee president and a self-described ``purist,'' is a critic of the concept of professional Olympians.
``You lose a lot of aspiring young people in many countries who will never get to the pro ranks and will never have the opportunity to represent their country in the Olympics,'' he says.
Walker knows he's fighting a losing battle. If he doubts it, all he has to do is look at our elderly track and field athletes. The golden-oldie crowd is back for another Summer Games, thus denying representatives of Generation X an opportunity to compete.
Though official records aren't available, this is thought to be the oldest track and field team ever to represent the United States at an Olympics.
Carl Lewis is 35, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, 34, Mary Slaney, 37, Mike Powell, 32, Gwen Torrance, 31.
Compared with them, Michael Johnson, 28, and Gail Devers, 29, are just kids.
But some of the real kids Walker talks about won't be in Atlanta. Their places are being taken by career Olympians, both foreign and domestic.
Dominating the landscape will be grizzled veterans like Russian pole vaulter Sergei Bubka, 32, and Linford Christie, 36, the British 100-meter gold medalist at the '92 Games.
On the basketball front, Brazil brings back hoary legend Oscar Schmidt, 38.
Then there is Merlene Ottey of Jamaica, a favorite in the women's 100. She is 36. Dan O'Brien, the U.S. hope in the decathlon, will be in Atlanta after failing to qualify for the '92 Games. He turns 30 the day before the Opening Ceremonies.
On David Letterman's TV show a few days ago, O'Brien said he hopes to capture gold, then ``talk about it the rest of my life for money.''
Compared with some of these Olympic mercenaries, the NBA reps are happy volunteers out to serve their country.
For what it's worth, the NBA didn't even introduce professionalism to the American Olympic basketball effort: The U.S. women's team beat them to it, putting together a barnstorming troupe prior to Barcelona that did not include a single collegian.
This year's team features Teresa Edwards. At 32, she is appearing in a record fourth Olympics.
For her and so many other thirtysomething athletes, the Olympics are more than an adventure. They're a living. ILLUSTRATION: Penny Hardaway goes to the hoop Sunday in the Dream
Team's rout of Brazil. For some, the Olympics are a gold mine in
more ways than one. by CNB