Ramble On ...

The dogs days of summer and an overload of personal responsibilities requiring my time and attention will limit postings to The Blog at terrylyons.com for many of the weeks to come.

That said, here are a couple of random thoughts:

First, the men's Olympic Basketball team looked great in games against Greece and Spain this week. They will play Germany in the final preliminary game and then face the #4 finisher in the opposite pool in the quarterfinals. From where I'm watching from, that will be Australia. The Aussies face a tough Lithuanian team while Croatia will play Iran in their fifth and final prelim.

One thing you can bank on if they play Oz. The Aussies will not go down without a fight. Whether it was Shane Heal butting hard heads with Charles Barkley in '96 or Andrew Gaze taking down Vince Carter in 2000 to some scuffles in the 'friendly' leading up to these Games, the Aussies enjoy the tussle.

After that?

I refuse to even speculate or take anything for granted. I will say that the USA team is primed and ready to compete. Two good games (vs. Greece and Spain) were very important for the USA's confidence level and I'm sure the performances put the coaching staff in a better frame of mind. The USA is getting a little better each game and that is what it takes to win an Olympic tournament.

Some other general thoughts:

I was very glad to see that President Bush supported both the men's and women's USA basketball teams along with all the other athletes at the Games. USA Basketball President Val Ackerman had quite a treat sitting with the President ... Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are carrying the USA team while Deron Williams is playing at a very high level ... The coverage of the 2008 USA team is very different than that of 2004. The media (and that includes NBC) has been supportive and is praising the team's efforts for their actions on and off the court. The messages of respecting the opponent and the Olympics always comes through. It is a sincere viewpoint that was instilled in this team (from Coach K to Jerry Colangelo) right from the start ... Even Jim Lamply of NBC has had nice things to say about the USA basketball squad. Chris Collinsworth was all-out giddy when he took in the USA vs. China game ... Here is a typical posting of a fans' viewpoint on this edition of the USA men, taken from an ESPN.com post to Chris Sheridan's column:

"The team work attitude is what really sets this team apart. Plenty of superstars but no egos from any player or the coach (yes, I am looking at you, Larry Brown), everyone accepts his role on the team. All the losses in last few years have really help Team USA understand they need to approach international basketball differently and they have worked hard. Let's hope for a gold medal in a week."

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Mike Breen and Doug Collins have been doing a terrific job and the sideline reports by Craig Sagar have been pretty good. Terrific job by producer-director Howie Singer who is hired by NBC Sports for the Olympics.

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Look for Jason Kidd to play a more significant role now that it's crunch time, and I don't mean by scoring ... The USA has been playing very strong defense. Look for the number of pass deflections, steals and points of turnovers as the key stats for the USA to get to the gold medal stand.

And, a few non-basketball-related Rambles:

I have nothing to say about John Edwards. A few of the Blog readers, knowing that my Democratic Primary support was behind Edwards, were calling for a posting on the recent Edwards news. Like the Beatles once sang, I say, "let it be." What's the sense in piling on or getting on a soapbox. I will leave it alone.

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Funny, but I have no desire to head out to Shea Stadium or Yankee Stadium for a "last time in the park" run. Not sure why, just other, more important things to wory about.

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We're looking at a Toyota Rav4 as the vehicle of choice for the Lyons-Martin family. I will note that the 4 is the same keyboard key as the $.

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That is all. Not sure when the next posting will be, but thanks for tuning in now and then to check.

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Ramble On: Yao and some notes

I've enjoyed posting some "Olympic moment" stories that I've come across as we all prepare for the Beijing Summer Olympic Games. Without a doubt, the most interesting advance story for this Olympiad is the story of Yao Ming.

I had the pleasure of meeting Yao at the 2000 Olympic Games and then welcoming him to the NBA when he was drafted by the Houston Rockets with the first pick of the 2002 NBA Draft. Yao was training with the Chinese National team at the time of the draft, so we had to hook him up via satellite at the CNN studios in Beijing to the New York draft headquarters at Madison Square Garden.

Right from the start, from pre-draft workouts in Chicago to the 2002 World Championship, I found Yao to be a gracious, sharp and cooperative player who simply asked for honesty and integrity in return. He was a pleasure to work with at the 2003 NBA All-Star Game where there was an out-right media frenzy and we had to orchestrate a lot of extra planning time, effort and logistics to help service the all-out media horde covering his first NBA extravaganza. It was fun.

Now, like others who've come before him from other host countries (Andrew Gaze comes to mind from the 2000 Games in Australia), Yao has the weight of his homeland on his back as he prepares for the Olympic basketball tournament. Here is a great Washington Post look at Yao and his story:

The 7-foot-6 Vessel of China's Hopes
Yao Ming, 'Image Ambassador'

By Maureen Fan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 24, 2008; A01

HANGZHOU, China, July 23 -- In the affluent lakefront capital of Zhejiang province last week, Yao Ming, China's 7-foot-6 center, walked onto the basketball court at Yellow Dragon Stadium to thunderous applause. It was a small but significant step for the upcoming Beijing Olympics: Yao would play.

Since February, when Yao suffered a stress fracture in his left foot, ending his season with the Houston Rockets, the Chinese had held their breath over the specter of their most famous athlete riding the bench for the national team.

A six-year veteran of the NBA, Yao is a towering global commodity. But in the Olympics, his value is even greater: He is a reflection of the China that many people here hope the world will see during the Games -- a humble, hard-working superstar unchanged by his vast new wealth. In that way, he personifies for many Chinese the spirit of the nation, which has embraced capitalism even as it has clung to the mantle of communism.

"For ordinary Chinese, who have a very strong concept about their nation, Yao represents China in the U.S.," said Wang Songtao, 27, a Beijing-based lawyer. "He handles national interests and his individual interests well. He always remembers that he is from China."

Even China's president, Hu Jintao, has taken note of the Yao phenomenon. He chatted Wednesday with the basketball star as he visited Chinese athletes training in Beijing for the Games.

"The whole nation is very concerned about your foot. How is it going now?" Hu asked Yao, China's state-run People's Daily newspaper reported.

"It's okay," Yao replied.

Through the decades, China has worried about its image at the Olympics. It boycotted the Games for more than two decades beginning in the late 1950s, when organizers began to allow Taiwan to participate. Later, Chinese leaders fretted over the country's failure to win many medals in sports dominated by the West.

Since China was awarded the Games, Communist Party leaders have been preoccupied with how best to showcase Chinese culture and athletic prowess this summer. But the government has been pushed back on its heels -- forced to defend itself from criticism of its crackdown on political dissidents, its role in Tibet and Darfur, and its effectiveness in handling the Sichuan earthquake.

Yao, with a size-18 shoe planted both in this country and in the United States, is the type of export China is more interested in promoting.

The 27-year-old player was born to two basketball stars whose marriage was arranged by the government, which then measured him regularly even as an infant, predicted his growth and trained him for years. He is not the first Chinese basketball player to make it in the NBA -- that would be Wang Zhizhi, his teammate on the Chinese national team, who played for the Dallas Mavericks beginning in 2001. Yao, however, is the most successful. His earnings in 2007 were estimated by Forbes magazine at $56.6 million.

No matter what his physical condition during the Games, "once he shows up, his appearance will make a difference," said Jin Wenhui, 21, a student at Texas A&M University who is a regular at Beijing's Dongdan basketball courts when in town.

"People will feel differently as soon as he stands there," Jin said. "In our hearts, he is the image ambassador of China."

Yao's loyalty to China has helped win him admirers. In May, after the earthquake that devastated Sichuan province, Yao donated $71,000 for the relief effort. When his contribution prompted rare public complaints that, given his salary, he could afford to send more, he did so, upping the amount to $286,000 that same week. In June, he announced he would give $2 million to a foundation in his name to rebuild schools destroyed in the quake.

Basketball fans are quick to point out that Wang has not always been so loyal to his home country. He initially balked when asked to return to China to train for an Asian tournament -- and was not reinstated on the national team until he issued a written public apology.

"In China, the system is that the country cultivates you, so you need to pay it back when the country needs you," said Ma Jun, a 40-year-old clothing merchant. "Yao did well. When China asked him to play for the Chinese team, he returned. When the earthquake happened, he stood up quickly."

Together with 20-year-old Yi Jianlian, who was recently traded to the New Jersey Nets, Yao and Wang form the three pillars of a "Great Wall" of Chinese basketball. They are a point of pride here -- pictures of the trio were on display in Hangzhou last week -- and will be watched closely during China's highly anticipated first game on Aug. 10 against the United States.

"Basketball is the sport that has changed China the most in recent years, as important as the development of the Internet," said Di Zhu, 20, another regular on the Dongdan courts who holds a ticket to an Olympic basketball final.

A 1994 matchup between the Rockets and the New York Knicks was the first NBA Finals game televised live in China. By 2002, when Yao played his first game for the Rockets, an estimated 300 million people watched the Chinese telecast.

"Yao is very Chinese in style, very modest. He doesn't display a bad temper, and when he plays he never hurts the other athletes," said Di, a math and economics major at Edinburgh University in Scotland. "Every time he appears in public, he dresses formally and neatly. And he is quite patriotic."

Yao's sense of humor and duty are often among the first attributes Chinese praise.

Asked by a Chinese journalist four years ago what his favorite American music was, Yao replied: "I like the national anthem. I listen to it at least 82 times a year." When he quietly signed a five-year extension to his contract with the Rockets three years ago, sportswriters marveled at the lack of arrogance, drama and posturing that usually accompanies star negotiations in the NBA.

Like his parents in their youth, Yao initially hated basketball. A monotonous and strict state-sponsored training routine had him practicing six days a week. Not until his mother, a former Red Guard, scored tickets to see the Harlem Globetrotters did a 9-year-old Yao see players actually enjoying themselves, according to "Operation Yao Ming," a book by Brook Larmer.

By age 14, Yao was training 10 hours a day. His mother's revolutionary activities, while endearing her to Communist Party leaders in Chairman Mao's time, produced endless suffering when an official she persecuted was rehabilitated and placed in charge of Shanghai's sports system. Yao's parents could barely afford to feed their growing son.

Then, on the eve of entering the NBA draft in 2002, Yao's chances were almost snuffed out by Beijing's fears that his loyalties might also lie with the United States. Officials allowed him to enter the draft only after he pledged his loyalty to Beijing, which demanded that Yao give half his salary to the government.

China now plays down its chances for gold medals at the Games, and even fans say they would be happy if China finishes fifth or sixth among the 12 Olympic teams. But the country's hopes clearly rest with Yao's ability to strengthen the confidence of the Chinese people. If Yao can prove how good the Chinese are at basketball, the thinking goes, they will gain the respect of the United States.

At last week's game in Hangzhou, some of Yao's fans could barely contain their excitement.

"I can't even hold my digital video camera without trembling," said Hou Qi, a college student who paid nearly $230 for his VIP section ticket Thursday. "Yao helps the cultural exchange between the U.S. and China. He has all the traditional Chinese cultural elements and good points such as being steady, humble, a good communicator. Plus he has a kind heart."

Researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.

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A few quick notes on the upcoming men's Olympic Basketball tournament: First, all three medalists from the 2006 World Championship (Spain, Greece, USA) ended up in the same preliminary round group at Beijing. Angola, which just won the Stankovic Cup tournament in Asia, Germany, much stronger because of the recent addition of Chris Kamen, and host China round out the very tough Group B. Two teams will not advance past the preliminary round.

In Group A, only Croatia was added to the Group after the July 20th draw in Athens. Argentina, Lithuania, Russia and Australia together with Croatia should challenge for the medal round. Iran, training at the NBA's Rocky Mountain Revue, should struggle against the top competition.

In Beijing, on August 20th, the crossovers in the quarterfinals will bring four pretty interesting match-ups.

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Seems to me that many of the US media members are falling into the same routine of thinking the USA will breeze to the gold medal at Beijing. Everyone seems to be overlooking the strong teams, such as Spain and Argentina, never mind serious contenders like Lithuania, Greece, and Croatia. Teams like Australia, China and Germany can upset any of the others. Trust me, it is not an easy task to win the gold medal in basketball - men's or women's.

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NBC Sports made some announcements in regard to their NY-based coverage of many of the Olympic sports. They will no longer have commentators and NBC cres covering every venue at the Games and, instead, will rely upon the world feed and NY-based commentary booths. (much like coverage of the World Cup and other international sporting events).

Said NBC's David Neal to the Sports Business Daily, "As part of our negotiations with the IOC in 2003 for the rights to the 2010 and 2012 Olympics, we agreed to quickly move toward a 25% reduction in our on-site personnel and facilities for future games. That process began with the 2006 Torino Olympics. As our coverage plans for the ’08 Beijing Olympics expanded to more than 3,600 hours, covering all 34 summer Olympic sports, we decided to develop a significant broadcast and digital operation based in (N.Y.) to handle cable and online coverage of 13 of those 34 sports. In those cases, our firm plan is and always has been to have our on-camera hosts identify their location as being at NBC’s Olympic headquarters in (N.Y.), and to have our play-by-play commentators not only identify which Chinese city that each competition is taking place in, but also to say that they are broadcasting from our (N.Y.) Olympics headquarters."

Ramble On ...

As noted on the Fourth of July, I will not be making daily posts for about a month or so, say from July 4th to August 10th. I will post items and updates and any breaking news on life, family, moving, you name it. In the meantime, my Ramble On column will continue once a week through September.


Ramble On: Cuban's view on the Olympics "using" the NBA and its Players...

Mark Cuban is on record and is repeatedly posting on his blog that the Olympics "Use" the NBA and its players - free of charge - as the players and the Games are a giant TV show orchestrated by GE. (NBC Sports and NBC Universal).

He is half-right.

Here is another viewpoint, posted to Cuban on Blog Maverick:

Hey smart guy? Care to re-think your premise?

NBA Uses Olympics to Tap China's `Amazing' Potential

On BLOOMBERG.COM, Wing-Gar Cheng writes "the National Basketball Association, the most-watched sports league in China, is opening its first stores in Beijing and using the Olympics to boost popularity in its biggest overseas market. Two merchandise stores in downtown Beijing, smaller-scale versions of the league's flagship in New York, will open this month and are the first of 500 to 1,000 planned in China, NBA China Chief Executive Officer Tim Chen said. Sales of NBA goods at the 50,000 current licensed outlets may rise 40 percent this year, buoyed by the Aug. 8-24 Olympics, he said."

PS: The NBA also works with a lot of the international TV stations that air the Olympics. Cuban, with his very limited and domestic viewpoint, overlooks the fact that the NBA is also in the global TV business.

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Ramble On: Mocking the Mock Drafts...

A blog for sports media analysis took a look at the results of all the basketball pundits as they tried to predict the outcome of the NBA Draft in their various mock draft columns. here are the blogger's results with a "High 5" to Ian Thomsen and a big ? to Hollinger and Chad Ford:

WINNERS

Sports Illustrated’s Ian Thomsen claimed the overall top spot after ranking 4th in the correct pick portion of the analysis and topping the pick difference analysis. Closely trailing Mr. Thomsen were Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer, Sam Smith of Sporting News, Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle and Krista Jahnke of the Detroit Free Press. The Orlando Sentinel’s Tim Povtak, MyNBADraft.com’s Todd Robinson, InsideHoops.com, the Chicago Sun-Times’ John Jackson and the Boston Herald’s David Moore rounded out the top 10. Although he performed well overall, Mr. Feigen deserves some criticism here for completely forgetting (I assume) about Eric Gordon. Not only did he not have Gordon going in the Top 10, as almost every other mock draft did, he completely left him out of the first round.

Mr. Thomsen’s win was fueled by his dominance in the Second 10 picks of the draft. He was the only sportswriter to correctly guess more than two of the Second 10 picks – Robin Lopez to the Suns at #15, Marreese Speights to the 76ers at #16 and JJ Hickson to the Cavaliers – and his picks in the Second 10 averaged only 3.1 draft slots away from where they were actually drafted. No other prognosticator had an average less than 5.0 during the Second 10. Additionally, Mr. Thomsen’s overall average pick difference for the 1st round was 3.667, the only average under 4.0. Finally, Mr. Thomsen finished in the top seven of every single category, with only Mr. Bonnell joining him as a Top 10 finisher in every category. Dominant indeed.

LOSERS

On one hand, I hate to highlight the people who did not perform particularly well on the mock draft, but that is exactly why it is important that someone do this analysis. At some point, we as readers have to trust our sources of information, and it only makes sense that we analyze them to find out who among them is consistently full of it. Much to my own personal surprise, two of my favorite NBA writers – Chad Ford and John Hollinger – were woefully bad on their mock drafts.

It’s not a huge surprise that Mr. Hollinger was off but I had always presumed that Mr. Ford would be at or near the top in an objective analysis such as this considering the amount of coverage he gives the NBA Draft. Mr. Ford was especially dreadful in the Second 10, in which he did not pick a single player correctly and he averaged a second-worst 8.2 draft slots away per player. In addition to picking two players in the Second 10 who were not drafted until the 2nd Round – Mario Chalmers and DeAndre Jordan – he slotted both Kosta Koufos and Donte Greene towards the top of the Second 10.

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"Paging Mr. Sal Monella ... Please call your office, Mr. Sal Monella."

Can you believe this? The quote of the year: "Tomatoes aren't off the hook". You can't make this stuff up:

By Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer | July 1, 2008

WASHINGTON --Adding to tomato confusion, the government is about to start testing numerous other types of fresh produce in the hunt for the source of the nation's record salmonella outbreak -- even as it insists tomatoes remain the leading suspect.

Investigators are mum on exactly what other vegetables are getting tracked.

Items commonly served with fresh tomatoes is the only hint Food and Drug Administration food safety chief Dr. David Acheson would give, calling it "irresponsible" to point a finger until he has more evidence that some other food really deserves the extra scrutiny.

"Tomatoes aren't off the hook," he stressed. "It's just that there is clearly a need to think beyond tomatoes."

Still, Acheson widened FDA's probe on Tuesday, activating an emergency network of food laboratories around the country in anticipation of lots of additional samples to test.

The reason is that the outbreak continues, with 869 people now confirmed having taken ill. Most troublesome, at least 179 of them fell ill in June, the latest on June 20. That is more than two months after the first salmonella illnesses appeared, meaning the outbreak is continuing weeks longer than food-poisoning specialists had expected -- and suggesting the culprit is still on the market.

Over the weekend, disease detectives with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began interviewing people sickened in June to find out what they ate and to compare their diets with those of healthy relatives and neighbors. Officials wouldn't reveal early findings, except to say they supported the investigation's new move.

Among the possibilities FDA is exploring is whether tomatoes and other produce are sharing a common packing or shipping site where both might become contaminated, or whether multiple foods might be tainted while being grown on adjoining farms or with common water sources.

Pressure is increasing on the FDA to solve the case, with the tomato industry suffering millions of dollars in losses and pushing for Congress to investigate how the agency handled the outbreak.

But Acheson said Tuesday that there's a growing misconception in the public that if tomatoes really were to blame, the outbreak would only have lasted six weeks.

That's just not true, he said, pointing to farms that rotate harvests so as to keep producing tomatoes for months.

Tomatoes first became a suspect because of what are called "case-control" studies rapidly conducted in New Mexico and Texas, the outbreak's center, CDC food-poisoning specialist Dr. Robert Tauxe said.

Those kinds of studies compare the sick to people who are otherwise similar -- in income, lifestyle, where they live -- but healthy. In those initial studies, about 80 percent of the ill reported eating certain types of fresh tomatoes, far more than the healthy group did, Tauxe said. Statistically, the association was too strong to think it a coincidence.

Some food-poisoning experts say the CDC missed a key step in not taking those studies a step further and trying to trace why some of the healthy ate tomatoes without harm.

For now, the FDA continues to urge consumers nationwide to avoid raw red plum, red Roma or red round tomatoes unless they were grown in specific states or countries that the agency has cleared of suspicion. Check the FDA's Web site -- http://www.fda.gov -- for an updated list. Also safe are grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and tomatoes sold with the vine still attached.

That advice is coming under fire too because tomatoes are sent through multiple repacking and distribution sites around the country, even to Mexico and back, regardless of where they're grown. But Acheson said the advice would be fine-tuned only if new science emerges.

Even Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt expressed frustration Tuesday that the case isn't solved.

Blame it on the Jalapeno?

This on the news wires as of July 5th:

Jalapeno peppers are a new focus of the investigation into the salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds of people in at least 40 states, according to media reports.
Government health investigators had initially focused on some types of fresh tomatoes, which have been removed from menus across the country, but are turning toward jalapenos as sicknesses continue. Salsa ingredients cilantro and Serrano peppers are also under scrutiny, according to reports.

"Recently, many clusters of illnesses have been identified in Texas and other states among persons who ate at restaurants," according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statement. "These clusters have led us to broaden the investigation to be sure that it encompasses food items that are commonly consumed with tomatoes."

As of Friday evening, 943 persons infected with salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada, according to CDC. Illnesses are believed to have begun in early April.
CNN reported that the U.S. investigation is focusing on imports from Mexico, and that starting Monday inspectors will stop shipments of produce for common Mexican cuisine ingredients. So far Texas is by far the leader in reported illnesses, with 356 reports of ill people as of late Friday. New Mexico has 98 reported illnesses, while Illinois has 93.

Government investigators have been looking for the source of the salmonella outbreak for weeks -- a frustrating experience that highlights the need for more resources dedicated to improved food-safety science. Last month, the FDA's food-safety plan came under intense criticism from the Government Accountability Office, which voiced concerns about its direction and resources.

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A note from the Asbury Park Press - another sad day on E Street...

Boardwalk fortune teller Madam Marie dies

It was one line from a Bruce Springsteen song that made the boardwalk fortune teller world famous. And now, "Madam Marie" has passed away.

Marie Castello, who had told fortunes since the 1930s and became famous for her presence and predictions on the Asbury Park boardwalk, died Friday, her great-granddaughter, Sally Castello said.

The psychic reader and advisor was 93. She became known worldwide from Bruce Springsteen's homage to her in his music.

"Did you hear the cops finally busted Madam Marie,'' Springsteen sang in his 1973 song, "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)'' "for tellin' fortunes better than they do."

"That was just the Boss,'' said Asbury Park Deputy Mayor Jim Bruno. "She was never arrested. But Springsteen turned her into an icon.''

Madam Marie bragged that she had told the fortunes of everyone from Judy Garland to Springsteen himself. Legend has it that she told Springsteen he was going to be a success. Springsteen later joked that she told all the musicians that.

And Springsteen never forgot Madam Marie.

"He always comes by to say hello," she told Press columnist Bill Handleman in May. "He knows where he came from."

Word of Castello's death spread along the Asbury Park boardwalk over the weekend. The American flag flying over the Convention Hall-Paramount Theatre complex was lowered to half staff in her honor, and it remained that way today.

"Of course, Madam Marie is our longest running tenant here on the boardwalk. ... She's an Asbury Park tradition,'' said Gary Mottola, president of investments for developer Madison Marquette, the lead partner in a joint venture with Asbury Partners to restore or rebuild the boardwalk's entertainment buildings. "We felt that honoring her by lowering the Convention Hall flag to half staff is the right thing to do.''

Marie Castello closed down her regular operations on the boardwalk in the mid-1990s after a dropoff in business. She continued telling fortunes in Ocean Township.



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Did they Blink in July?


McCain Orders Shake-Up of His Campaign
By ADAM NAGOURNEY of the NYT

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign has gone through its second shake-up in a year as Mr. McCain, responding to Republican concerns that his candidacy was faltering, put Steve Schmidt in charge of day-to-day operations and abandoned an effort to have the campaign run by 11 regional managers, the senator’s aides said Wednesday.

Mr. Schmidt is a veteran of President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign and he worked closely with Karl Rove, who was Mr. Bush’s political adviser. His installation at Mr. McCain’s headquarters sharply diminished the responsibilities of Rick Davis, who has been Mr. McCain’s campaign manager since the last shake-up nearly a year ago.

Mr. McCain’s advisers said that Mr. Davis would continue to hold the position of campaign manager, but that Mr. Schmidt had taken over every major operation where Mr. McCain has shown signs of struggling: communications, scheduling and basic political strategy.

The shift was approved by Mr. McCain after several aides, including Mr. Schmidt, warned him about 10 days ago that he was in danger of losing the presidential election unless he revamped his campaign operation, according to two officials close to the campaign.


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Ramble On ...

In case you missed my Basketball 24/7 column this week, here it is in text form:

USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo and USA senior national team coach Mike Krzyzewski held a press conference Monday at the national Italian-American sports Hall of Fame in Chicago to name the 12-member team that will be nominated to the United States Olympic Committee for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

The site of the announcement was significant because in June 2005, Colangelo brought a group of USA Basketball's past and present together to help decide its future. They met in Colangelo's former hometown of Chicago where the newly appointed USA executive sought advice from past Olympians and Olympic team coaches. He realized that people like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, along with former coaches Chuck Daly of the 1992 gold medal team, Lenny Wilkens of the '96 gold medal team and John Thompson of the 1988 bronze medal team, could provide insight into the massive changes that took place in the world of basketball between 1988 and 2008.

Colangelo and Krzyzewski brought their Olympic agenda full-circle by reconvening at the little-known sports hall to announce the 12 players invited to USA's mid-July training. As long as the 12 players remain healthy, the same group will head to Beijing to attempt to win the Olympic gold medal in men's basketball, a tournament that is sure to be one of the toughest medals to be earned in the history of any sport.

The 2008 USA team is deeper and stronger than the 2006 World Championship squad that Colangelo first assembled. While the past week's sports headlines focused on USA mainstays Lebron James and Dwyane Wade anchoring the team, two other players will be the keys to success for the Americans. Jason Kidd and Kobe Bryant are the two players who set a special tone for the US during the summer of 2007 when they raised the level of intensity, competitiveness and overall performance of the team.

Kidd boasts a 44-0 record as a member of the United States' senior national team. He brought his years of international experience along to help set a standard for the 2007 team and literally changed the way the team prepared for games and executed during games. He was named the USA's athlete of the year for his contributions to the 2007 Olympic qualifying squad.

"Jason was a tremendous addition to the USA Men's Senior National Team program," said Krzyzewski. "His veteran leadership and focus were critical in our success, and his court vision is as good as I've ever seen. He is a joy to coach and when he is on the court it is literally like having a coach on the floor. With Jason directing our offense and distributing the ball, we were able to utilize all of our offensive talents and that made us as a team very successful."

In tandem with Kidd, Bryant, who will be playing in his first major international tournament this summer, also raised the bar for the Americans in terms of team competitiveness. Bryant significantly raised the level of team defense and intensity. He is, by far, the best player on the team and it showed in every USA Basketball game and practice session last summer. Trust me, I've seen every USA senior team game since 1992 and Bryant is "that" good.

Together, Kidd and Bryant formed a new core for the team and provided the US with added experience and the confidence of veteran leadership that James, Wade and fellow team captain Carmelo Anthony could not muster. Although the tri-captains played at very high levels in Sapporo and Tokyo in the summer of 2006, they lacked international experience and game tested skills. They each performed admirably, practiced hard and led by example at the 2006 World Championship. Wade had just completed his NBA Finals MVP performance and was surely championship ready. But, when faced with bigger, stronger opponents, especially at the guard position (against Chris Paul and Kirk Hinrich), the USA could not counter.

In 2007, Kidd and Bryant's presence allowed James and Anthony to 'just play basketball' and it took the weight of the world off their shoulders.

Not to be lost in the shuffle from 2006-to-2008 is the addition of Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz. Williams' game might be the most adaptable to the international style of play of any player added to the USA squad. His size and strength will allow the US to match-up better against older, stronger backcourts. The US found that to be their main concern when they lost to Greece in 2006. In addition, Tayshawn Prince of the Detroit Pistons will be another key addition to the USA team on the defensive end of the floor. Prince can defend any international player at any position, except center. He plays a type of team defense that correlates to the international game. Prince complements his teammates, hits shots when he is open and rarely turns the ball over.

Another key area of concern for the Americans during the 2006 World Championship and the 2004 Olympic Games was their lack of outside shooting. For 2008, the additional of Michael Redd should change that dramatically. Redd excelled during the 2007 Americas Olympic qualifying tournament and impressed Coach K and Colangelo with his shooting and team play.

The possible shortcoming of the 2008 team is the lack of frontcourt size and depth. While Dwight Howard, Carlos Boozer and Chris Bosh are all among the elite frontcourt players in the world, injury or foul trouble anywhere along the way and at the Olympics could become a detriment to the team in Beijing.

The Americans will rely on speed, full-court defensive pressure and intensity to wear down their opponents over the 40-minute game. Outside shooting by Anthony, Redd, Bryant and Prince will open up the middle for Wade, James and the frontcourt scorers. Paul should have a field day coming in off the bench to raise the tempo of each game along with Wade.

Still, the pressure will be on the Americans as they seek to reclaim the gold and an ounce of redemption from three major tournaments past, the disappointing third place finish in Japan in '06, the dose o reality bronze medal finish in Athens in '04 and the embarrassing sixth place finish at the World Championship at Indianapolis in the summer of 2002.

Their fellow Americans proudly recite the fact that the USA is 114-5 in Olympic play and 29-3 since 1992 when NBA players were allowed to participate alongside professionals from the rest of the world. But, for some reason, American sports fans still cling to the notion that the gold medal somehow 'belongs' to the USA before the games begin and that the game of basketball itself is played at higher levels in the US than in the rest of the world.

While that might have been true in 1956 and 1992 and others days of yesteryear, the rest of the world has been playing at a very high level since the early '90s and a half-dozen or more countries deserve serious respect as medal contenders. If you doubt that fact, you might note that the USA has struggled at every level of international play in recent years. If you still disagree, please see the Pan Am Game losses by a strong group of NCAA level stars to Panama and Uruguay in 2007 as exhibit 1-A.

***

The USA team will be conducting press conferences and unveiling new uniforms along with their apparel supplier, Nike, this Monday at Rockefeller Center. I wonder if NBC Sports will be smart enough to cover it? NBC has ignored the USA Basketball team during its training over the past two years.

***

Olympic Moments (of truth) ... visas and 63% occupancy

The New York Times ran a very interesting piece on access and visas to Beijing, China in the months leading up to the Olympic Games. If you didn't see it on Monday evening, be sure to read on:

China’s Visa Policy Threatens Olympics Tourism
By DAVID BARBOZA

BEIJING — The plush lobby of Beijing’s Kerry Center Hotel is usually crowded with foreign guests, many of them listening to jazz and sipping martinis in Centro, the hotel’s fashionable bar, or lining up for taxis after dinner at the Horizon restaurant.

But Thursday evening, Centro had only a sprinkling of guests in a hotel whose occupancy rate is typically close to 100 percent this time of year. That night, the duty manager, said it was 63 percent.

“Something strange has been going on,” said Sun Yin, the duty manager. “I really don’t know what happened.”

With the Beijing Olympics less than two months away, hotel operators, travel agencies, and foreign businessmen say new Chinese visa restrictions are proving bad for business, casting a pall over Beijing during what was supposed to be a busy and jubilant tourist season leading up to the Olympic Games.

Chinese authorities acknowledged putting new visa restrictions in place in May — after foreign embassies reported fewer visas being granted and tighter, sometimes seemingly arbitrary, restrictions. The government did not release guidelines detailing the changes in policy; it often does not. But a foreign ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said in May that they would be temporary.

On Monday, Hu Bin, a visa official at the foreign ministry, said the ministry had no statistics on the number of visa denials, but that the new policies were put in place for “security considerations.”

Travel business analysts had forecast that the Games would bring 500,000 foreign visitors and an extra $4.5 billion in revenue to Beijing this summer. But now, even though some five-star hotels are fully booked for the Olympics, many economists are beginning to doubt the city will get the kind of economic windfall it was hoping for.

Many hotels in Beijing are struggling to find guests; some large travel agencies have temporarily closed branches; and people scheduled to travel here for seminars and conferences are canceling. The number of foreign tourists visiting Beijing fell sharply in May, dropping by 14 percent, according to the city’s statistics bureau.

Beijing residents, meanwhile, are complaining that heightened security measures could spoil what was supposed to be Beijing’s long anticipated coming-out party. Despite years of careful preparation — including teaching taxi drivers English and instructing locals in how to wait in a line (not common here), and spending billions on mammoth building projects for these Games — Beijing is starting to appear less welcoming to foreigners.

“Business is so bleak,” said Di Jian, the sales manager at the Capital Hotel in Beijing. “Since May, very few foreigners have checked in. Our occupancy rate has dropped by 40 percent.”

Many other cities in China are also feeling the pain of fewer tourists, including Shanghai, where some hotels say occupancy rates are down 15 to 20 percent.

The government has publicized its determination to combat possible threats to the Games, including suicide bombings, bus hijackings and chemical attacks. In April, Interpol warned that a terrorist attack during the Beijing Olympics is a “real possibility.” And in a year plagued by riots in Tibet, protests of the Olympic torch relay, a terrorist plot to kidnap journalists covering the Olympics (according to Beijing officials) and the Sichuan earthquake, the government is stressing public safety above all else.

But Beijing appears to be less concerned about hosting a global party and more concerned with making sure no one spoils it. Officials announced Thursday that 100,000 commandos, police and army troops would be placed on high alert during the Games.

The heightened sense of alert over security threats in the capital has done something else too: it has spawned a huge number of rumors about other actions the government may or may not be taking.

Among them: a border region with North Korea has been closed to prevent security risks; foreign students and migrant workers are being asked to leave Beijing during the Olympics; all volunteers need to register with the police; bars will be forced to close early; and all outdoor parties planned for the three-week-long Olympic celebration have been banned, putting the hex on some of the entertaining events that had been planned for the Games.

The Beijing police and security officials denied some of the reports, but also, at times, insisted in telephone interviews last week that they could not disclose some security matters. Poor official communication about regulations and restrictions in Beijing may be contributing to public uncertainty and feeding the rumor mill.

Nothing is more of an obstacle than the new visa policy. Businessmen, particularly from the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan, have complained that new visa restrictions have prevented business meetings from taking place and crimped deal making.

Many Hong Kong-based businessmen, for example, say new visa rules require frequent and complicated applications, often including proof of a hotel booking, round-trip airline tickets, and in some cases, a letter of invitation.

“It’s kind of draconian,” said Richard Vuylsteke, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, which represents American companies doing business in the region. “But politics and security trump economics, especially during the Olympics. We just hope that after the Olympics things will change.”

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in Beijing has also complained to China’s foreign ministry.

Chinese hotel operators are also frustrated. A hotel construction boom in which the number of four- and five-star hotels in Beijing jumped from about 64 in 2001 to 161 as of the end of April, according to government figures, is beginning to look overly optimistic. Many hotels are still under construction in a city that now has over 5,000 hotels.

Hotel operators also say the earthquake and Olympic torch relay protests may be having an impact on tourism. “Usually May and June are the busy season for our hotel,” said Jiang Zhiqiang, a spokesman for the New Otani Changfugong Hotel in Beijing. “This year is quite unusual. I think several natural and man-made disasters happened subsequently, which hurt our business.”

With the opening ceremony of the Olympics just seven weeks away, only 44 percent of the rooms in four star hotels and 77 percent of five-star hotel rooms are booked, according to the Beijing Tourist Bureau.

If visitors cannot get visas to enter the country, many of those hotels may be forced to slash rates, which had jumped as high as $2,000 a night when prospects were brighter.

In some ways, the hotels are also on the front lines of the security crackdown. They typically share lists of their guests with the government, on a daily basis. But now they are being asked to supply photographs of all their employees too, as well as help the government in visa approvals, some hotel managers said.

Many large tourism agencies have already given up. “Now most of my colleagues for inbound tourism don’t come to work,” said Wang Ge, director of the inbound tourism department at the Beijing Tourism Group. “We have no clients this month.”

Indeed, when an American called the China Travel Guide Tourist Agency last week, a sales clerk even discouraged the person from visiting Beijing during the Olympics.

“You really don’t want to go there,” said Lorna Liu, the sales representative at China Travel Guide. “Why don’t you try Xi’an or Shanghai and visit Beijing a little later?”

Olympic Moments (of truth) ... Access

The AP's Steven Wade ran a story on Friday afternoon updating the situation between television executives and the Olympic organizing committee. The story has been reported over the past few months with AP execs, TV execs and other news gatherers citing concerns over access and proper authority to act on breaking news at the Olympic Games.

This is not new or specific to China, however. Over the past few years, the IOC and its TV rights holders have restricted access to non rights holders and other news organizations and reporters. By nature of the size of the Olympic Games, they are in a position where they have to limit the number of credentials issued and ultimately, limit media access to certain very high profile venues and events.

Here is the AP story:

BEIJING (AP)—A top European broadcast official says television coverage roadblocks in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics are a worrying sign for reporting freedom during the games.

Seven weeks before the Olympics open, television broadcasters are involved in a protracted battle with Chinese organizers over coverage away from the sports venues. This involves moving satellite trucks around the city, deploying equipment and clear rules about where TV cameras will be able to film.

The games are supposed to show China’s rising power, a celebration of the country’s new place on the world stage. However, China’s communist government seems to fear that roving TV cameras and 30,000 journalists might show protests by the spiritual sect Falun Gong, or athletes speaking out against China’s policies in Tibet or Darfur.

“What’s going on now might be an indication of what could happen during the games,” Fernando Pardo, head of sports for the European Broadcasting Union, said in a telephone interview Friday with The Associated Press. “If this happens during the games, the reaction of broadcasters could be unpredictable.”

Beijing Olympic organizing officials could not be reached for comment Friday, but repeatedly have promised that reporters will be free to do their jobs and cover the Olympics as they have at previous games.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said Thursday that Beijing organizers were close to resolving the issues.

“It will take a couple of days to finalize everything,” Rogge said in an interview. “Things are moving extremely well to resolve these issues.”

Pardo, who has covered the Olympics since the 1976 Montreal Games, said he has seen only limited progress since emergency meetings on May 29-30 in Beijing with top IOC, TV and Beijing organizing officials.

“I would love to agree with Mr. Rogge, but unfortunately I don’t see many signs to agree,” said Pardo, who said he was expressing the feelings of other TV executives involved in the games. “There are dark clouds on the horizon that keep me from agreeing.”

Pardo said the problems range from getting equipment through customs, being guaranteed access to venues such as Tiananmen Square, and being certain—once granted permission—that broadcasters will be free to report without being stopped by security officials requesting more documents.

“We saw big security problems in Moscow (1980), so this is not new for me,” Pardo said. “We have worked in communist regimes before. But here it is much more difficult than Moscow.

“We have been in very difficult situations on other occasions,” Pardo added. “Not everything has been rosy, but nothing like this occasion. We have only seven weeks before the games, and so many things are not settled.”

Pardo declined to use the word “crisis,” but said next week was critical as broadcasters begin moving operations to Beijing. He also said broadcasters could consider seeking financial compensation from the local organizing committee if promises were not met.

“If by any chance when we are there in the Olympics working and we cannot work freely and get services we need, this is the moment when we can ask for compensation,” Pardo said.

The EBU is one of the major rights-holding broadcasters and will employ a staff of 4,500 during the games. The EBU has 85 member broadcasters in TV and radio and covers Europe, North Africa and some countries formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Pardo said there were no clear answers about access to Tiananmen Square. After saying two months ago that live coverage would be allowed from the iconic venue, the Chinese have hedged their bets.

Pardo said Chinese officials are now offering a standup position for broadcasters in Tiananmen, but it’s unclear who will be able to use it.

“We don’t know who can access it,” he said. “Will guests for interviews have access to this area? Is this purely a broadcast area, or is it open? I want to have the possibility to bring whoever I consider necessary to this area to be interviewed. We don’t know who has the right to access.”

He said an EBU member told him that a film crew recently was given access to the Great Wall, but the crew was then asked to pay “an outrageous fee” to begin the filming. Pardo said it was not clear who asked for the money.

“Once you get the authorization you should be absolutely sure you can film freely and not have any problems. But this has not been the case,” he said.

Non rights-holders face many of the same restrictions over where they’ll be allowed to set up satellite trucks and high-tech equipment.

“I’m seeing promises of progress, but I’m not seeing the progress,” said Sandy MacIntrye, director of news for AP Television News. APTN is the television arm of The Associated Press and a non-rights holder.

“I know the IOC is pushing them (Chinese) to get this stuff done,” MacIntrye added. “They (Chinese) have promised progress and we wait to see if they live up to the promises.”

Murray Needham, the general manager of sports at Television New Zealand, voiced similar concerns. TVNZ is a rights holder.

“I think many of us knew in the back of our minds that a China-hosted Games could throw up some unique difficulties and so it has proved,” Needham wrote in an e-mail. “The broadcasting fraternity holds its breath in nervous anticipation.”

Shaken by protests on international legs of the Olympic torch relay following the outbreak of deadly rioting March 14 in Tibet, China’s authoritarian government seems to be backtracking on promises to let reporters work as they have at previous Olympics.

A law enacted 18 months ago gave reporters freedom to move around the country, although Tibet has been off limits. The law generally has worked, although reporting remains a problem in the provinces.

In recent months, the government has tightened visa rules, particularly targeting foreign students. The government fears many would side with activist groups if protests break out.

China is on the record promising unrestricted coverage.

In a 273-page guide to coverage for the foreign press, the introduction says: “The Chinese government will honor its commitments in the bid process … to provide quality and convenient services to the media in accordance with international practice and the successful experience from previous games, so as to satisfy the demands of the media covering the Olympic Games in China.”

Olympic Moments ... Diving.

Dave Scheiber of the St. Pete Times on a local Tampa diver's attempt to qualify for the Olympic Games in Beijing:

Colwill tries to make U.S. Olympic diving team
By Dave Scheiber, Times Staff Writer

Published Monday, June 16, 2008 12:44 PM

If Chris Colwill's parrot had had a say in it, the standout diver from Tampa Prep would have enrolled at the University of Florida five years ago.

Colwill was such a big UF fan growing up that he painted his bedroom orange and blue and, at age 11, even taught his pet its favorite phrase: "Go Gators."

But something clicked with the Brandon resident when he visited the University of Georgia in 2003. He developed an easy rapport with diving coach Dan Laak and liked the chemistry between the swimming and diving teams. It was enough to make Colwill move his Olympic dreams to the land of the Bulldogs — and leave his parrot behind.

"He couldn't take it with him to Georgia and have it say 'Go Gators' all the time," Colwill's mother, Debbie, said.

Today, Colwill's bye-bye-birdie decision is looking darn good as he prepares to go airborne in his specialty — the 3-meter — with a spot in the Beijing Games at stake.

If he takes first place at the Olympic trials, which begin Wednesday in Indianapolis, Colwill will secure one of two places outright. If he doesn't win, there's still hope. The top six finishers qualify for the Olympic team selection camp July 2-6 in Knoxville, Tenn., so he would still have a chance to earn the team's second position.

"I feel really good, but it comes down to who has the best day at the right time," said Colwill, 23.

Colwill also has a chance to make the team at the selection camp in 3-meter synchronized diving with his partner, Jevon Tarantino, a national team veteran from Boca Raton and the University of Tennessee.

At the trials, he'll get his primary competition from Troy Dumais of the University of Texas — who's looking for his third Olympic appearance after sixth-place finishes in Athens in 2004 and Sydney in 2000 — and Tarantino. But Colwill brings an impressive resume of his own to the trials.

In 2006, he was the NCAA champion in the 1-meter and 3-meter events, the runnerup in platform and named diver of the year. On the world stage, Colwill has flourished as well, winning the 2007 Italian Grand Prix in the 1-meter and taking third in the 3-meter. This year his top finish is second in the 3-meter at the USA Diving Grand Prix.

Colwill always had a penchant for jumping and diving.

"I actually put Chris in a preschool gymnastics program when he was 2 1/2 because he was very active," his mother said. "He was doing flips around the house, jumping off tables."

The active toddler did gymnastics for two years. But the facility had a pool. One day, Chris saw some divers using the 10-meter board and said that he wanted to do that, too. Debbie waited a year, until he was 5, and then enrolled him in lessons.

He was a natural.

She and husband Chuck began paying for dual lessons, dropping Chris off at the front door for gymnastics practice, followed by diving classes. Then one day she ran into the gymnastics coach.

"He said, 'Where's Chris been? He hasn't been showing up for gymnastics,' " Debbie Colwill said. "I said, 'Oh really?' Well, what he had been doing was going straight to diving."

And he's been at it ever since. He started to compete at 7, won the first of many junior national titles shortly after that and became a force on the international scene at 15 with a first place in platform and third in 1-meter at the 1999 World Junior Championships.

Then came growing pains. At the time, Colwill was about 5 feet and 100 pounds, but over the next two years, he grew to around 5 feet 9, 150. His new frame threw his timing off, and that soon took a toll on his confidence. He went through a slump in high school but began to come out of it as a junior.

He continued to grow — now standing 5 feet 10, 175 — and excel, and he made major strides once he arrived at Georgia.

"As a competitor, he's really tough," Laak said. "One of his assets is that he's very consistent. He's training hard and looks good heading into the trials."

Laak is equally impressed with Colwill as a person.

"Chris is probably one of the most humble divers you'll meet," he said. "He's a great kid and one of the best-liked athletes in USA Diving."

Colwill was born with a 60 percent hearing loss, and he has to wear hearing aids. He began school in a special program for children with hearing impairments but attended mainstream classes for most of elementary school. He hit his stride upon entering Tampa Prep in seventh grade. In May, he graduated from Georgia with a degree in speech communication.

The hearing problem was never a big issue growing up, nor is it today.

"Sometimes I have to read lips as a backup to make sure I understand what they're saying," Colwill said. "But it's not too bad."

He says the hearing loss is even a plus in competition. Without amplification, he doesn't pick up talking or cell phones ringing.

"It's not completely silent up there. I can hear certain things, but for the most part, it does block out some distractions and help me focus," he said.

There's one thing he does hear.

"Applause," Debbie Colwill said.

Whatever happens, that's something there should be plenty of this week for the Bulldogs diver with the Gator-loving parrot.

-30-

Olympic Moments ...

A Couple Grapple for Love, and Love of Achievement
By GREG BISHOP

LAS VEGAS — Friends say Patricia Miranda and Levi Weikel-Magden argue like an old married couple, but really, they argue more like what they are — married wrestlers with law degrees.

Most couples start out dating. They started with constant debating, with topics ranging from “Star Trek” to immigration policy, with Miranda occasionally throwing a head butt to make a point.

It took eight years before Weikel-Magden made the most persuasive argument yet — he persuaded Miranda, a women’s wrestling pioneer and bronze medalist in 2004, to come out of retirement for one final shot at an Olympic gold medal — with a twist that held potential for disaster and delight. He wanted to become her coach, and he did in September 2005.

“We’re going to look back at this chapter, this amazing chapter, as the point where we really learned to trust one another,” Weikel-Magden said.

They met at Stanford in 1997, two overachievers who were teammates and friends before all the dating and debating. From the first day, their teammate Warren McPherson said they were inseparable.

Weikel-Magden came from an eastern Oregon town so small the closest movie theater was two and a half hours away. He sent a recruiting tape to Stanford coaches filled with all his losses and somehow managed to secure a scholarship.

Miranda arrived from Silicon Valley, the only female on the team, the daughter of Brazilian immigrants, including a father who once threatened to sue the school district if she wrestled.

She had decided not to date teammates, out of respect for team chemistry, but something kept drawing Miranda and Weikel-Magden together. They started dating shortly after a Halloween party at which Weikel-Magden showed up at her dormitory room without a costume and ended up borrowing her clothes to dress in drag.

Miranda, who turned 29 on Tuesday, can pinpoint when she knew they would make a life together. The summer after their freshman year, after her future husband had cracked the varsity lineup “looking like a 12-year-old, still a year away from puberty,” she received a telephone call from his parents.

Levi is in the hospital ... Crohn’s Disease ... massive infection ... complications ... surgery.

Upon hearing the predicament, her father, incapable of anything other than brutal truth, said, “Oh, that one’s gone.”

Earlier that day, Weikel-Magden’s small intestine ruptured. He spent nearly three hours on the couch, pain. Family members rushed him to the hospital.

“I’m screaming bloody murder,” he said. “I wish I was tougher. But screaming at the top of my lungs was all I could do to make it manageable.”

Doctors diagnosed Crohn’s, an autoimmune disease that confuses the immune system and causes inflammation in the digestive track. By the time Miranda arrived the weekend after the operation, Weikel-Magden had lost 30 pounds.

They were lying together on the hospital bed when doctors explained that Weikel-Magden would live with the disease the rest of his life. Weikel-Magden flashed, of all things, a smile. He considered himself fortunate.

“That’s when I knew,” Miranda said. “I’d rather spend 10 years with him than 50 with anyone else I ever met.”

After graduating from Stanford, Weikel-Magden went to law school at Virginia, while Miranda deferred her enrollment at Yale to train for the 2004 Athens Games — the Olympic debut for women’s wrestling. He helped coach her to the bronze medal, the first Olympic medal for an American female wrestler.

Miranda then retired and went to Yale Law, adding to an undergraduate degree in economics and a master’s degree in international policy.

She missed wrestling, but not in the way that she expected. She did not miss the glory, the accolades or the applause, she said. Rather, she missed the serendipity that came with being a world-class athlete — being stranded in a Russian airport while the airline lost her luggage, bumming around Sweden for a week while waiting for teammates to arrive.

Mainly, she missed the moments shared. And Weikel-Magden, in the persuasive argument, wanted to share them with her.

The pitch: “You are so close to just dominating,” he said he told her.

“He’s a good salesman,” Miranda concedes now. But for the first six months of the experiment, she wished she had stayed retired.

Folding the worlds of husband and wife, coach and athlete proved difficult. She promised trust but felt betrayed when her husband scolded her at practice, only to later feel like a failure for not trusting more.

This spilled into their home life. One time, Weikel-Magden took home a new toothbrush and started teaching Miranda how to use it. “You can’t coach me on how to brush my teeth!” she said.

Early on at Stanford, the couple shared a wrestling weakness: too much thinking in a sport where instinct dominates. During matches, they would think about things like the color of the ceiling, what they would tell their parents if they lost, whether the sweat on their coaches’ hands indicated frayed nerves.

“It’s overthinking, and it’s intellectual,” Weikel-Magden said. “And wrestling is anything but intellectual. We can be our own worst enemies that way.”

He taught himself to compete instinctively, and something surprising happened. Weikel-Magden found he loved fighting, enduring pain and hurting people. Even after surgery, he did not miss a practice.

He needed to tap into Miranda’s violent vein, conjure emotions like anger and hatred. This did not come naturally for Miranda, who took a personality test at Yale expecting to score opposite her classmates because of wrestling. Instead, she scored similarly to them.

“It’s actually very counterintuitive, but it’s learning to be poised and angry and relaxed,” Weikel-Magden said. “It’s not being more focused. It’s not doing more work.”

Added Matt Huttner, a friend, “Even in the toughest times in their relationship, what made it work is Levi had a plan.”

To stop her from worrying and overthinking, Weikel-Magden took over the household chores, cooking and cleaning, and imploring Miranda to rest. Eventually, Miranda started to catch on. She breezed through the nationals and now needs to win only twice this weekend to qualify for the Olympics. Along the way, they learned a level of trust neither knew existed.

Weikel-Magden said that this made for a stronger marriage, that it would make them stronger parents. Miranda said her first thought every morning was, “Wow, I’m so lucky to have you.”

Three years after the persuasive argument, Weikel-Magden admits to dreaming about the end — his wife, on the podium, in part because of him.

“They’ve put together quite a trophy case,” their friend McPherson said. “That would be like the crown jewel. All the years they put in, all the sacrifices they’ve made. They put everything on hold for this one goal, this one dream. It’s right there.”

Both the principals agree. For once, there is no argument.

***

This piece was in the NYT on June 12th and a colleague and fellow blogger, Joe Fav, passed it along with a note to consider it for my Olympic previews. A good suggestion for a good piece:

Boycott = Ignorance

The sure sign of a dysfunctional organization or situation is when people stop communicating. A boycott is the ultimate in cutting off communication. It is truly a childish act to state, "if you don't do it my way, I'm staying home and I will no longer speak with you about the situation. Case closed."

Boycotting a sporting event, stating that "I won't go to the "opening ceremony" of the event because of politics, is damn near hilarious. It's a threat that is childish, at best, foolish, at worst. Imagine a law-maker threatening, "If you don't support my bill or vote for me, I'm not going to watch your favorite TV show, the first episode of "Dancing with the Stars" next September."

Pretty terrible, when you think about it.

For another take on it, please see this:

Olympic Boycotts Make Casualties of Sacrifice: Scott Soshnick

Commentary by Scott Soshnick

April 15 (Bloomberg) -- The next time some politician or activist suggests an Olympic boycott I want you to think of Craig Beardsley. And then tell me that countries suddenly outraged at China's record on human rights shouldn't send their athletes to Beijing.

You probably don't recognize the name Craig Beardsley. Unlike swimmers Mark Spitz or Michael Phelps, Beardsley never got his Olympic chance to win hearts and minds.

``I was really breaking through,'' Beardsley said during a recent hour-long telephone conversation. ``The timing was right in 1980.''

Physically, yes. Geopolitically, no.

The Russians were in Afghanistan, prompting the U.S. to pull out of competition. Beardsley remembers having pizza with friends when told of President Jimmy Carter's decision to boycott the Summer Games in Moscow.

``Even then, we were thinking, `what good does a boycott really do?'' he said.

Sports fans should know what the Beardsley family sacrificed for a chance to represent the U.S.

Beardsley at age 4 learned to swim at the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He attended the United Nations International School, where one of his classmates was an Afghani prince.

``It was like a mini U.N.,'' Beardsley said. ``At a very early age we recognized we're not just one little island on this planet.''

Last Out

Diplomacy runs in the Beardsley family. His grandfather was consul-general for the Republic of China to Peru in the 1950s. His mother fled Shanghai during the Communist takeover of 1949.

``One of the last boats out,'' he says.

Beardsley's grade-school days began with a 45-minute commute (90 minutes with traffic) from home in Harrington Park, New Jersey, to Manhattan, where his father worked. First learning. Then swimming. Then back to dad's office. Then home by 6 p.m. Maybe. Then more swimming. Friends were scarce.

``No time,'' Beardsley says.

Mom and dad forced Beardsley to join the local swim team. There, his first coach, a former U.S. Marine, affixed some sort of bands around Craig's ankles to keep his feet together. By age 11 Beardsley was being recruited by area swim clubs.

Serious training started at age 12. All-swimming, all-the- time. No basketball. Not anymore.

Beardsley remembers his father waking him up at 4:15 a.m. for morning workouts. At 14, Craig, an accomplished cellist (his mother was a concert pianist), was accepted to the Manhattan School of Music. A wasted application.

Pool Time

``I was spending all of my time in the pool,'' he says.

So much, in fact, that his classmates used to ask why he dyed his hair blonde. It was the chlorine.

Beardsley's father had taken him to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. They sat in the rafters, cheering for the American swimmers. He was mesmerized. He dreamed.

``Maybe it was a great big plan of my dad's,'' he said. ``But I always kept the Olympics in the back of my mind.''

College brought Beardsley to the University of Florida, where no-pain, no-gain is taken seriously.

``My life was going to class and swimming,'' he said.

Here's the schedule: Rise before sunrise for 2 1/2 hours of swimming. Then class. Then a 4 1/2-mile run -- in the afternoon heat, no less. Then another two hours of swimming before a 2 1/2-mile run home.

Passing Revelers

And that doesn't even take into account what Beardsley called ``incredibly insane training,'' which included swimming with sneakers. Or the dry land drill where the swimmers, kneeling on some contraption, pulled themselves up the ramps of the football stadium.

``We'd be all bloody, even though our hands were taped up,'' Beardsley said.

Oh, and then there was the against-the-current swims up the Ichetucknee River. As Beardsley made his way up, he'd try to ignore the fun being had by revelers in inner tubes laughing-it- up with their coolers of beer.

Beardsley eventually broke the world record in the 200- meter butterfly, qualifying for the Olympics that would go on without him. He kept training for another four years, hoping to, in Beardsley's words, repay his family for the sacrifices they made.

``The last person I felt like I owed was me,'' he said. ``It's about all the families. A big chunk of my parents' lives went into helping me do what I wanted to do.''

Beardsley missed the '84 team by a gut-wrenching 0.36 of a second. The dream was dead.

Make no mistake: Beardsley condemns China's position on human-rights issues. And he hopes for an end to the bloodshed in Darfur. But boycotts, he says, aren't the answer.

``You resolve conflict, and I know this from my divorce, by communication,'' Beardsley says. ``You don't resolve things with barriers.''

Think about Craig Beardsley the next time some politician or activist uses the word boycott. Think about the 4-year-old's commute. Think about bloody hands and up-river swims.

Think about 0.36 of a second.

(Scott Soshnick is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Scott Soshnick in New York at ssoshnick@bloomberg.net

120 Days Until the Olympic Basketball Tournament ...

Four months. 120 days. Start the countdown.

The special FIBA basketball site already set the countdown clock and a simple click on the headline above will bring you to the new site. The artwork shows Manu Ginobili, the reigning Olympic champion MVP with his gold medal. Yao Ming of China is in the background, along with the USA's Swin Cash and Australia's Lauren Jackson.

The women's Olympic site features a great banner photo of Dawn Staley of the USA with her gold medal proudly displayed.

Check out the site which just launched this week.

Dodgers vs. Padres in China ...

The good folks at MLB are experiencing the true globalization of the sport of baseball as they stage exhibition games in Beijing, China.

This is from the Los Angeles Times:

DODGERS IN CHINA
Dodgers encounter unfinished business in China
They arrive to find a stadium still under construction and many empty seats. But it's all about the experience.

By Dylan Hernandez
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 15, 2008

BEIJING -- Regardless of what happened on the field, applause emanated from the stands of Wukesong Baseball Stadium today.

Every action, from a called ball to a pickoff throw, resulted in the slapping together of noise sticks throughout the ballpark.

The fans watching the Dodgers and San Diego Padres play the first major league game in China might have been overly generous in demonstrating their approval, by American standards. But at least they were cheering.

The teams played to a 3-3 draw. Dodgers outfielder George Lombard opened the scoring with a home run in the third inning. L.A. built a 3-1 lead with the help of a run-scoring single by Lucas May, but San Diego tied the score with RBI doubles by Craig Stansberry and Adrian Gonzalez in the eighth inning.

"It has to start somewhere," Commissioner Bud Selig said.

Most of the 12,000-seat stadium was filled -- Major League Baseball said it sold or distributed more than 11,000 tickets for the first of two exhibition games -- but the start to the day was slow. With tightened security at the gates resulting in a line that went halfway down the lengthy street bordering the stadium, the Dodgers took batting practice in front of stands that were mostly empty.

The only names that drew any noticeable reaction from the still-sparse audience during the pregame introductions were those of Manager Joe Torre and the three Asian players on the Dodgers' 30-man split squad -- starting pitcher Chan Ho Park, shortstop Chin-lung Hu and left-hander Hong-Chih Kuo.

Right-hander Eric Hull sensed that something like this could happen when he and other members of the team visited the Great Wall the previous day. The players drew a group of curious onlookers when they assembled for a team photograph.

"It was kind of weird when the Chinese people came up to us," Hull said. "They could read the red patches on our jerseys, but they didn't know who we were. One person called it tennis. Another called it basketball. I guess that's why we're here."

Like the audience, the ballpark was hastily assembled, the aluminum bleachers down the foul lines and in the outfield not put in place until the previous week. The stadium will disappear as quickly as it appeared, as there are plans to demolish it upon completion of the Olympic baseball competition this summer.

To sell baseball in the world's most populated country -- Torre likened to selling soccer in the United States -- almost half of the players in the Dodgers' camp in Vero Beach traveled 7,500 miles and had to turn their watches ahead 12 hours.

The idea of such an undertaking hit Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti more than two years ago when he was being interviewed for his job by owner Frank McCourt.

McCourt asked him what new frontier would be explored by the club under his leadership. Colletti told him the team had to go to China.

McCourt smiled.

"Why are you smiling?" McCourt recalled being asked by Colletti.

McCourt replied: "We have to do this."

And it won't stop here.

McCourt said Friday that the Dodgers would continue their partnerships with Chinese baseball, started in 1980 by then-owner Peter O'Malley. MLB would also be back, Selig said.

"We'll certainly play more games here," the commissioner said, adding that his office was also looking at possibilities in Europe.

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com

***

This is from the Associated Press:

Saturday, March 15, 2008
Blue skies, hot dogs greet MLB for first game in China
Associated Press

BEIJING -- China's red flag with its yellow stars blew in a stiff breeze in deep left field alongside the U.S. Stars and Stripes. Except for this, the first Major League Baseball game in China mostly looked like any afternoon at the ballpark in America.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres played to a 3-3 tie on a near-perfect Saturday in Beijing, with clear blue skies replacing the city's usual smog, and 50-degree temperatures making it a glorious debut for baseball. The second game is set for Sunday. Both teams are using only a half dozen players who will be on the opening day 25-man roster.

The game at the new Olympic venue drew an announced crowd of 12,224 -- a near sellout -- and had many of the touches of home: vendors selling peanuts, hot dogs, beer, soft drinks or -- and this is China -- plastic bottles of tea. The concessions were cheaper than the U.S. -- about $1.50 for a soft drink or a beer, and $3 for a bag of peanuts.
However, vendors and concession stands kept running out of drinks, causing long lines to form before reinforcements arrived.

There was occasional staccato organ music to pump up the fans, and the music between inning ranged from Carmen to Latin rhythms to hip-hop.

Commissioner Bud Selig was on hand with an entourage of MLB officials.

"The thought that we are standing here today watching the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres in Beijing, China, sort of takes my breath away," Selig said. "We certainly want to play more games here, there's no doubt about it."

Let history record that the first hit in China went to the Dodgers' John Lindsey in the top of the second, a line shot to left field. Also of note -- Dodgers outfielder George Lombard swung at the first pitch of the game and grounded out. He also hit a home run to right field in the third inning with one out to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.

The Padres tied it in the fourth when Oscar Robles scored from third after Dodgers catcher Nick Hundley threw wildly back to the pitcher. The Dodgers went ahead in the sixth 2-1 when Lucas May singled to drive in Andruw Jones. The Dodgers added another run in the eighth. Starter Chan-ho Park went five innings and allowed one hit.
Craig Stansberry drove in a run with a double in the eighth to cut the lead to 3-2, and Adrian Gonzalez followed with a run-scoring double to make it for the Padres. After nine innings, the teams decided to call it quits, which is fairly common for spring training games.

In the seventh inning, of course, fans were led in a chorus of "Take me out to the ballgame." The only person singing, however, was the public address announcer. And there were cheerleaders dressed in red and silver with pom poms and bare stomachs.
Only at times was it clear this is China, where baseball is virtually unknown and MLB is trying to cash in on a growing middle class with money to spend.

In one inning, the scoreboard mysteriously gave the Dodgers an extra run. The error was fixed an inning later. And the park was blanketed with uniformed and plainclothes security officials, who did a sweep hours before the game and forced officials to reissue tickets and credentials for fans and reporters.

***

This from MLB.com:

Fans in Beijing show their passion
03/15/2008 6:37 AM ET
By Ken Gurnick / MLB.com

BEIJING -- An international incident nearly erupted as the Dodgers tried to leave Wukesong Stadium on Saturday, a clear illustration of why Major League Baseball came to this unlikely spot in the first place.
Chan Ho Park, working on a Minor League contract but a national hero in his native Korea, wanted to sign autographs for fans who traveled to see him allow only one hit and one unearned run in five innings, but stern Chinese security personnel wouldn't allow it. Dozens of uniformed security moved in to separate the crowd of fans from the team bus, voices were raised in anger and the scene was getting ugly.

Team officials quickly quelled the tension with a negotiated settlement for Park to sign at the stadium on Sunday. Park had to explain the decision to his fans in their native tongue.

Meanwhile, for the inadvertent benefit of a few reporters to witness, a bigger point was made. Asian countries do embrace baseball, sometimes fanatically, and there's no greater potential audience than China. That's why the Dodgers and Padres traveled here for the two-game goodwill series that started with Saturday's 3-3 tie and will conclude on Sunday.

Park, moving closer to winning a job in a remarkable comeback story, found himself torn between two emerging markets after his start. He was pleased to have participated in this showcase for China, but suggested that Major League Baseball remember from where he came.

"I'm really hoping Major League Baseball comes to Korea," said Park. "I know this is a big market, but there are a lot of fans in Korea too. I hope they open an academy, because since I came, teams in Korea have dropped a lot. Kids need to see Major League Baseball in Korea. I'm hoping they do it before I retire so I can pitch in Korea.

"Think about it -- if a Chinese Major League player came back here to play, that would be huge, fans would come to the stadium. If the Dodgers and Padres played in Korea, it would be unbelievable. That's my hope."

While Park was playing peacemaker with Korean fans in front of the team bus, Taiwanese fans near the back of the bus chanted the names of Hong-Chih Kuo, who pitched two scoreless innings in relief of Park, and shortstop Chin-lung Hu, described by manager Joe Torre as "a little jumpy in this environment" after he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and numerous defensive bobbles.


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Torre said he was "tickled" for Park, who was "great last time and even better this time." Park said he's been working on a changeup with a grip he learned from closer Trevor Hoffman when they were Padres teammates.

Torre also praised Kuo, who is out of options and bidding for a swingman job. Hu is making a bid at a utility infielder job with the injuries to Andy LaRoche and Tony Abreu.

Torre said the crowd of 12,224 "made more noise than I expected."

"I felt, and you could see, they tried to make it fun for the fans at the park," Torre said. "It felt more like a regular-season game than a Spring Training game."

The stadium was nearly empty 15 minutes before game time, but only pockets of empty seats remained once the game was underway.

"I was wondering what was going on, but it was like any other Dodgers game," said designated hitter Matt Kemp. "They didn't show up until the second inning. It's just like playing in Dodger Stadium. But I was a little worried."

Kemp said compared to fans back home, Chinese fans were neutral.

"They cheered for either team," he said. "They just wanted to watch the game."

George Lombard, who homered in the third inning, said the fans were respectful, while the players started the game "in slow motion," feeling the effects of jet lag and a hectic agenda since arriving.

Asian Hoops - It's Showtime

In TOKUSHIMA, Japan, the basketball action is heating up. And when Japan upsets Jordan to vault Kazakhstan into contention for a berth in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, you know it's a good thing, don't you?

And Kazakhstan's opponent in the semis? Iran.

The seeding system called for a 3-day quarterfinal round, rather than the more traditional 'one and done' quarter-finals of the Olympics or World Championship.
And what shakes me a bit, is that the system for qualification (or presentation, as it is known) is different in the varying FIBA zones.

But, as I can gather, - I stress gather, because it's been known to change during the course of a tournament - the one rep from the Asian zone will come from the winners of a 4-team semi-final:

Lebanon vs. Korea
Kazakhstan vs. Iran

The following teams were relegated to a classification tourney to decide 5-8th place:

Qatar vs. Jordan
Japan vs. Chinese Taipei

China fell to play for 9th place, but they had already gained a place in the Olympics as host team. So, really, at least two teams from Asia will play in Beijing in 2008.

Stay tuned for more or click above and watch the games on the internet.