U.S. Women Gold-Diggers Basketball Team Wants More, Looks To 2000

Hungry for more after its dizzying success in ‘96, the United States is determined to keep winning the Olympic gold medal in women’s basketball. So determined that preparations for the Sydney Games, still 3-1/2 years off, have already begun.

Hiring Nell Fortner as the national team and 2000 Olympics coach April 1 signaled the start of the U.S. effort. She will lead U.S. teams in the major international events leading up to the Olympics, beginning with the world championship qualifying tournament June 6-14.

She’ll work with a core group of players who’ll get together at different times for practice and games against national and club teams from other countries.

Officials hope that having a coach and a working group of six or seven players will give the U.S. team the continuity it needs to prepare for the Olympics, which begin Sept. 15, 2000.

“It’s a next step and also a realization of where we are at this point in women’s basketball,” said Carol Callan, in charge of women’s programs for USA Basketball.

She said the two new professional women’s leagues in the U.S. may complicate preparations for the Olympics. “The period of time the players are available now is a much smaller window than before,” she said.

To get ready for the 1996 Olympics, USA Basketball picked a national team in May 1995 and it stayed together from October through the Olympics, which ended Aug. 4. That team, coached by Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, went 60-0 and dazzled fans with its hustle, heart and spectacular, unselfish play.

But the two new leagues will make it impossible to keep a national team together an entire year. The ABL began its first season last October and finished in March. The WNBA begins its inaugural season June 21 and finishes Aug. 28.

That leaves April, May and September as the only months when all of the top players will be available.

“What we hope to do is create the chemistry and preparation and knowledge of the opponents, all of those things we need to compete, in the period of time available,” Callan said.

Rather than disrupting her efforts, Fortner says the leagues should help.

“The coaching is very, very good, the players will continue to train at a high level,” she said.

Fortner was an assistant coach with the national team during the 1995-96 season, then became the head coach at Purdue. Taking over a team that had six players leave following the firing of previous coach Lin Dunn, Fortner guided the Boilermakers to a 17-11 record and a share of the Big Ten championship.

The players for the world championship qualifying team will be chosen after four days of tryouts in Colorado Springs, Colo., starting May 2. Fortner and Callan said they expect some members of the 1996 Olympic team to be there, although those playing in the WNBA won’t be available this year.

The WNBA signed some of the biggest names from the Olympic team: Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, Rebecca Lobo and Ruthie Bolton. However, many of the Olympians who played in the ABL are expected to try out. That group includes Jennifer Azzi, Dawn Staley, Carla McGhee, Nikki McCray and Katy Steding.

The three-year program gives USA Basketball the flexibility of adding players who reach the elite level the next couple of seasons, such as college stars Chamique Holdsclaw of Tennessee, Kate Starbird of Stanford and Kara Wolters of Connecticut.