Bird�s Olympics Dreams Become Reality

When Seattle Storm point guard Sue Bird was growing up in Syosset, New York, there was no WNBA for her to watch. There were great female basketball players, of course, but after they finished college ball, they virtually always went overseas to play (the longest running American women's basketball league, the WBL, having folded before Bird's first birthday), which was roughly equivalent to disappearing.

As a girl, Bird dreamed of putting on the USA Basketball uniform. Bill Baptist/Getty

Except every four years. That was when the top American women's basketball players gathered from wherever they were playing for the Olympics. Bird was seven in 1988, when a U.S. squad which included her future coach, Anne Donovan, and a handful of future opponents like Teresa Edwards and Teresa Weatherspoon beat the Soviet Union for the first time in Olympics competition and went 5-0 en route to a second straight gold medal. She was 11 when the U.S. failed to defend that gold in Barcelona, slipping to a bronze-medal finish. By the time the 1996 squad swept all eight games in Atlanta to reclaim the gold, Bird was in high school and already well on her way to becoming a star player herself. Only then did professional women's basketball flourish in the U.S.

As a result, when the young Bird dreamed of basketball greatness, it was the Olympics she dreamed of, not any professional league.

"Growing up, there wasn't a WNBA, I didn't really know of any other professional leagues, any other countries, so for me, the Olympics was it, that was it," Bird says. "If you wanted to be the best, you had to be an Olympian. I still put the two together. That's how I feel right now. So it's a huge honor."

In 2000, the same summer the USA Basketball Senior Women's National Team was claiming another gold in Sydney, Bird played for the red, white and blue for the first time, joining a team of college stars in the R. William Jones Cup. Bird led the team in assists as it went 4-0 to sweep the tournament, held in Taiwan.

After completing her Connecticut career with an undefeated season and earning All-WNBA First Team honors during her rookie season with the Storm, Bird was named to join the USA Basketball Senior Women's National Team for the 2002 FIBA World Championships. On a team loaded with WNBA stars and international veterans, Bird - one of just two players on the roster under the age of 25 - saw only limited playing time as the U.S. team went 9-0 to win gold.

Still, that international experience, as well as the 13 exhibitions Bird played in with the national team this spring in preparation for this summer, can't compare to the Olympics experience.

"The Olympics is the event that I think everyone looks forward to, and it's playing against the best in the world with the best, I think, in the world," Bird says. "It's definitely something I'm looking forward to. For whatever reason, it's the Olympics. It's different than the World Championships."

The U.S. squad has gotten a bit younger for Athens, with former UConn teammates Swin Cash and Diana Taurasi and Detroit's Ruth Riley joining Bird and Tamika Catchings to give the team five players 25 or younger. At point guard, however, the U.S. women have plenty of experience with Dawn Staley, a veteran of two Olympics, and nine-year professional veteran Shannon Johnson. Despite making a strong bid for playing time with her performance in "WNBA vs. USA Basketball: The Game at Radio City", Bird understands that her role will probably be limited, and accepts it.

"I'm not going to go in there thinking I'm going to play 40 (minutes) and I'm not going to go in there thinking I'm going to play two," Bird explains. "I'm going to go in there and, when practice starts, see where we're at. Shannon, I know she's banged up a little bit and I know she may not be playing that well right now in the WNBA, but there's something about when she puts that uniform, she really starts playing well. She really played well before we got here. Same thing with Dawn. Whatever the coach needs of me."

Bird can also learn from her veteran mentors, and Donovan, an assistant on the U.S. team, said after the first couple of days of practice in New York that she already saw that happening.

"She is just soaking up everything that Dawn and Pee Wee (Johnson) want to give her - the game, the leadership, all the intangible stuff," Donovan said. She's ready."

In whatever role, Bird said before the Storm's final game before the WNBA began its month-long break for the Olympics that she was getting excited for the experience.

"I couldn't be more thrilled," Bird said. "I'm looking forward to it so much. It seems so close and yet, sometimes, I think it's so far away, but now it's like a week and a half. But yeah, I'm very excited, I can't wait to get over there and the whole thing. I don't know what to expect. So I'm looking forward to it."

Bird's childhood visions do beg an important question - what, specifically, was she dreaming of? "On the podium with the gold medal and the national anthem," she says. "That's probably the one thing I envisioned most."

In a little more than two weeks, that dream could become reality.

Bird wrote about her dreams of playing in the Olympics and more about her experiences growing up in her recently published Positively for Kids book with Greg Brown, Be Yourself. You can order the book and find out more at the Sonics and Storm Team Shop Online.