SSDL BLOG: “The Cold War Set the Stage for Great Olympic Basketball”
“The Cold War Set the Stage for Great Olympic Basketball”
February 28, 2021
USA vs. CCCP at the LA84 Games was a Missed Opportunity
Los Angeles - Like many of my fellow citizens, I was always fired up when, particularly in the Olympics, Team USA would open a can of whoop ass on the USSR. The “Miracle on Ice” Hockey victory at Lake Placid in the 1980 Winter Olympics made me feel something for sports that I had not felt before, while the truly big Cold War win in the global political arena theatre was surprisingly anti-climatic. I must say as well, the FX award winning TV spy series “The Americans” was so compelling it made me think twice about what side I was on. I also must admit that the “CCCP” on the hockey sweaters was, for some simple reason, really cool.
Being that basketball was the Olympic team sport that was my favorite, it was the one I followed most closely. There was something so compelling about our best amateur and/or collegiate players taking on the best other countries, especially the Russians, had to offer.
The basketball debacle in 1972 at the Munich Olympic Games left a bitterly sour taste in my mouth, if that is even a thing. The USA men’s team had won all seven previous gold medals in hoops, dating back to the ’36 Games in Berlin, in the days when the Americans and the Russians were on the same side, which happens when you are soon to have a common enemy.
In ’72 in Munich, at a time when the Cold War was boiling, confusion and buffoonery with the officials led to the Soviets getting what seemed like a 100 chances to win the game and that’s what they did, allegedly. 21 year-old Doug Collins had made the two most pressure filled free throws in basketball history to give USA the lead, then the biggest steal in Olympic history happened. The 63-game American Olympic winning streak was snapped, and I could not believe what I had seen on the black and white TV I had inherited in my room after the family finally got a color set for the living room.
I have a few takeaways from that craziness: First, I think it is awesome that the USA men’s players from that ’72 team have never accepted their silver medals, some going so far as to have it put in their will that no member of their family could do so either. Second, might the host country Germans have been trying to divide the victors of WWII? Unlikely, but then again, one only has to remember how they manipulated the ’36 Games. Third, why was the game so close in the first place? Maybe because Coach Hank Iba was asleep on the bench? Put someone with their hands up in front of the inbound pass and we win. I know this, If UCLA’s Bill Walton had played, the game would never have been in doubt. The “big redhead” would’ve dominated the Reds.
The Montreal Olympic Games in 1976 at the was going to be time for some redemption for Team USA, this year coached by Dean Smith, who put four of his North Carolina players on the squad. The only problem, the defending Olympics champion Russian team lost to Yugoslavia in the knockout round. Sure, Yugoslavia was a country randomly thrown together after WWI, but those boys in the Balkans can ball! They were not good enough to beat the Americans, who reclaimed the gold with a 21 point victory.
The 1980 showdown was kicked like a political football when president Jimmy Carter played the “better than thou” card and led a Western nations boycott of the Moscow Games. The 1984 Games in Los Angeles would have to serve as the time and place for the great American Cold War basketball revenge.
The dystopian George Orwell novel “1984” was understandably dark, but that story was a walk in Gorky park compared to Indiana head coach Bob Knight, the USA coach that year. Just wait until those Russians see what is waiting for them in my hometown of Los Angeles, where the gangs and the LAPD were killing people and Coach Knight and the best amateur team since the 1960 USA Olympic team led by Oscar Robertson and Jerry West were waiting.
Ever heard of Bob Knight, Comrades? The “1984” book may have been modeled after Stalinist Russia, but this guy Knight was the true despotic ruler. He was such an ass of a control freak that he kicked the best player at the trials off the team for dunking too much. The powerful Charles Barkley of Auburn didn’t care much for the totalitarian head coach, and made his position known. The “Round Mound of Rebound” was making the best NCAA players at the trials the victims of his ferocious dunks and Knight laid down a no dunking role. Barkley dunked on the very next play and then found himself on the very next flight home to Alabama.
The USA team had nothing to worry about, however, because the rising superstar that was the one and only Michael Jordan was on the team. So were Patrick Ewing, Waymon Tisdale, Sam Perkins and Chris Mullin. Of course Knight’s own Hoosier star Steve Alford was gifted a spot on the roster so someone could demonstrate the dictator’s drills properly.
The player I was most interested in was Leon Wood from Cal State Fullerton. I knew Leon when he set the California state scoring record at St. Monica High School in Santa Monica. Leon was incredible, and I watched with keen interest as he took his unique skills and changed his role in college to lead the NCAA in assists. Somehow, Leon played enough defense to satisfy General Knight and earned a starting spot on the Olympic team.
Sadly, the “tit for tat” I had hoped wouldn’t happen came to be. The Soviet Union led a retaliatory 14 country Eastern Bloc boycott of the LA Games. Maybe they didn’t want any part of the Knightmare that waited for them.
All was not lost, because the 1980 Olympic gold medal winning Yugoslavian team was still coming, and so were the ’80 silver medal winning Italians. Spain was a player in the FIBA world competitions and they would make their mark at the LA84 Games. Your no-show was your loss. CCCP. LA was a big, fun Hollywood party and you should’ve taken the high ground, showed up and taken your beating like patriots.
My buddy Leon set an Olympic record with 8 assists per game, Jordan soared through the air and USA took the gold. It would be the last time an amateur basketball team representing the United States in the Olympics would win the gold.
The 1988 team, coached by the great John Thompson from Georgetown, was knocked out by, yep, you know who, the same team that won the ’72 fiasco. Damn those Russians, they got us again. The ’88 USSR team, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, had a wide geographic range of players to draw from, like Arvydas Sabonis and Sarunas Marciulionis of Lithuania. Those two were as tough to stop as Charles Bronson was in Death Wish.
By 1992 the Soviet Union had lost the Cold War and was broken apart. The Americans were intent on reclaiming the gold medal in basketball. USA would field the first “Dream Team” of NBA professionals and never look back. The American pro’s playing in the Games might’ve helped grow the game across the world, but it was sad to see a pro like Barkley finally get his shot at Olympic play and then elbow some poor Angolan as the USA routed a team with only three gyms in their entire country, 116-48.
I miss that period of Olympic basketball history before ’92 when the USA amateurs and Russia were the top two dogs, with Yugoslavia nipping at their heels. In that time from 1936 to 1988, USA went 5-2 against Russia and won nine gold medals, a silver and a bronze. The Russians won two gold, four silver and three bronze. Yugoslavia won a gold, three silver and a bronze. Brazil and Spain had game, and China was a rising giant.
I’m not so sure I miss the Cold War, but I sure do miss those days when the best amateurs represented America in basketball and took on the rest of the world in the greatest of all competitions, the Olympic Games.
Denny Lennon is the Host of YouTube Live shows and the Video Podcast, “Sports Stories with Denny Lennon”
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