Basketball player Dawn Staley felt uncomfortable relating her story to the U.S. team captains who would use the information in picking among 14 nominees to carry the American flag in Friday’s Olympic Opening Ceremonies.
“I’m not even a conversation starter,” Staley said. “I usually do all my talking on the court.”
She told the captains about being a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a WNBA starter and the coach at Temple University, near the tough Philadelphia neighborhood where she grew up. Then she told them about the Dawn Staley Foundation and the after-school project the foundation runs for kids from her old neighborhood.
Those kids, Staley thought, were the reason the captains chose her.
“It is bigger than me carrying the flag,” Staley said. “I will carry the hopes and dreams of a lot of little boys and girls who feel their situation is bleak.”
Philadelphia long has viewed Staley, 34, as a symbol of hope. It put a seven-story mural of her on the walls of a building in her neighborhood in 1996, when she won her first Olympic gold, and updated it in 1999. She got to reprise part of the movie “Rocky” by running the Olympic torch up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1996.
“I know I will have the strength to do it,” Staley said of carrying the flag, “but it might be an out-of-body experience for me. It’s something you don’t think about, a fairy tale that somehow ended up in my lap.”
Staley, herself one of the captains chosen by athletes in each U.S. sport that will have a team in Athens, was most impressed by the story of sailor Kevin Hall, a cancer survivor. She voted for him as flag bearer.
“I don’t think [they picked me] for anything I’ve done on a basketball court,” she said. “I think it was for helping others achieve their goals and dreams.”
Staley will be the 22nd person and first basketball player to carry the U.S. flag in the Opening Ceremonies.
That the honor would go to a U.S. woman player is fitting. Unlike the several NBA stars who chose not to play in the Olympics out of security concerns, all the leading WNBA players are on the Olympic team.
“As women, the Olympic experience is the pinnacle of our careers,” Staley said. “We never wavered. I made calls, and no one ever said to me, `I’m not going because I’m concerned about security.’ I’m proud of that.”
As flag bearer, Staley wants to set a similar tone for a U.S. Olympic team–dominant among the world’s nations in size and success–that has been told how to behave in the Opening Ceremonies to avoid drawing negative attention to itself. Since the 1988 Olympics, the U.S. has been criticized for its often unruly approach to the parade of athletes.
Anything untoward would undoubtedly lead to a torrent of condemnation in Greece, where many are angry at the United States over the war in Iraq.
“We have been briefed, which is something I have never heard before,” Staley said. “It’s an emotional situation. We’re usually one of the last to march, and we have waited two, three or four hours. Sometimes things get out of hand.
“I can’t control how other people see us. We are going to be more conscious of how we come in and how we are viewed on TV and in the stadium.”
Teams march in alphabetical order, with the host country coming in last. Since the letters for United States come earlier in the Greek than the Roman alphabet, the U.S. team will enter the stadium 56th among the record 202 participating nations. U.S. Olympic officials believe the changed position will make the U.S. team less antsy–and less noticeable.
“They will be free to show their exuberance,” said Jim Scherr, acting chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee.
If any hostility is expressed toward them during the Olympics, which would likely be voiced as whistles, U.S. athletes have been told to disregard it.
“You won’t see any reaction from our athletes,” said Herman Frazier, a two-time Olympic runner who is chief of the U.S. team delegation in Athens.
