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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > July > 06 > Entry
BLOG: Hammon no Benedict Arnold in sneakers and shorts
People who should know better — and by that I especially mean Anne Donovan, the coach of the U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team — are painting Becky Hammon as Benedict Arnold in sneakers and shorts.
Next thing you know some of these near-sighted jingoists will be trying to ship her off to that Guantanamo detention camp.
Hammon — raised in Rapid City S.D., schooled at Colorado State University — is the star point guard for the WNBA’s San Antonio Silver Stars. She’s also one of the most popular players in the league.
She made the Olympic team — the Russian Olympic team and will represent that country next month in Beijing.
And because of it, Donovan — and a bunch of sports bloggers around the country — are trying to T her up for treason.
What Hammon is doing “is unfathomable to me,” Donovan, one of the most decorated women ever to play U.S. basketball and herself a three-time Olympian, told ESPN. “If you play in this country, live in this country, and you grow up in the heartland and you put on a Russian uniform, you are not a patriotic person in my mind.”
In my book Donovan is being disingenuous. She knows first hand that the 2008 U.S. Olympic team will have several athletes and fellow coaches on it who grew up in other nations — some like table tennis star Gao Jun still living in their homeland — who will be trying to win medals for America in Beijing.
That happens every Olympics.
Same as every Games, American citizens become Olympians for other nations on the flimsiest of links. Look at the Winter Games and some of the people recently who become bobsledders and lugers and cross county skiers for Caribbean and Central American nations, although they are living right here in the U.S.
And how about the Greek women’s softball team at the 2004 Athens Games? More than half of those players were from the U.S.
But since Donovan lit this issue up like a Fourth of July firecracker, it’s gotten the interest of a lot of folks.
A Florida blogger goes on and on about how “unpatriotic” Hammon is. Another sports blog site is running a big picture of her with the word “TRAITOR?” in red above it. Another Web critic hopes she “blows her knee out with a career-ending injury” while in a Russian uniform.
A lot of these people are just nuts.
Hammon is no traitor. The WNBA’s runner-up for the 2007 MVP, she wanted to play for the U.S. in these Games. But when Team USA sent out its initial 23 invites to try out for the team last summer, her name wasn’t on the list.
And so — like a lot of WNBA players do because the money isn’t great in the American pro league — she decided to play overseas in the offseason. Last winter she signed a four-year deal worth $2 million to play for CSKA, a Russian pro team.
Under Russian league rules, even though Hammon has no ancestral ties to the country, she was eligible for a Russian passport and to become a naturalized citizen. And because she had not played for another nation internationally, she was invited to play for Russia.
Sure all this sounds a little convenient, but we here in the U.S. have rushed people through the process to become American citizens just in time to become Olympians for us. If you have a problem with all this, direct your criticism to the International Olympic Committee, because it allows it.
Former Bucknell standout J.R. Holden is doing the same thing Hammon is and is getting no grief. Although he has no blood link to Russia, he’s already represented the country in international competition.
Even so, Hammon said she debated the situation and was willing to risk the security of the $2 million deal — which would be voided if she played an international game for another country — if he she had a legitimate shot to make the U.S. team.
Although late in the game — long after Hammon had signed her Russian contract — Team USA did make her one of its seven additional invitees who would get a try-out, it appears it was just a face-saving move by the organization. Hammon and her agent talked to a lot of people in the know and found out she basically had no shot at making the team.
And so she tried out for the Russian team and the fire storm began. And as happens so often these days, people — many with an agenda of their own — start defining other people’s patriotism.
That can be a debatable topic even when it falls into the arena of national security. And this is just sports.
Donovan and some of those match-to-the-gas can bloggers might not see that, but Hammon does:
“I’m still an American girl,” she said recently. “I’m not over here selling secrets to the Russians. This is not espionage. This is a game of basketball. We are not at war with Russia. The Cold War is over.”
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Comments
By Tracy
July 19, 2008 12:06 AM | Link to this
Here is the kicker too…I am a HUGEEE Hammon fan and have been for years…with that said, I am a HUGGGGE Tennessee Vols fan as well. I LOVE Candice Parker. There is something REALLY wrong when a ROOKIE makes an Olympic team before a 9 year veteran who is as kickbutt as Hammon is! She is #1 in free-throws in the WNBA, has over 3,000 points and 800 assists, yet a ROOKIE made the team when she has played in what, about 15 pro games now in her life? NOT cool and Ann Donnovan should keep her mouth shut about being patriotic; what a pathetic person she turned out to be!By Rick
July 7, 2008 2:06 PM | Link to this
Who really cares?