Source
Posted on 08/16/2008 10:50:42 PM PDT by hole_n_one
I was watching the Olympics tonight and came across the game between Russia and Australia in women's basketball.
The announcer said a name that was vaguely familiar to me, Becky Hammon.
Hammon was born in Rapid City, South Dakota. Hammon's father is a member of the United States Coast Guard.
She played for Rapid City Stevens High School, Colorado State University, where she earned All-American honors and then for the WNBA's New York Liberty.
Then a funny thing happened.
Hammon was not selected to play for the US Olympic team, so, in order to have the opportunity to participate in an Olympics, she decided to obtain Russian citizenship and put on Russian red...........
Anne Donovan, U.S. women's Olympic Basketball coach: “If you play in this country and you grow up in the heartland and you put on a Russian uniform, you are not a patriotic person.”
Source
Becky Hammon: "The jersey that I wear has never made me who I was. It has nothing to do with what's written on my heart,"......."Will I be playing for Russia? Yes. But I'm absolutely 100 percent still an American. I love our country. I love what we stand for. This is an opportunity to fulfill my dream of playing in the Olympics."
Source
Our castoffs are better than their first string.
Lets see her parlay this into an endorsement contract.
They are athletes selling a commodity not their souls. I guess Putin didn’t care to put some of his oil billions
into their Olympic Federation.
As I said “It’s all about me.”
All Right! I love Ann Donovan! I’ve got to give her a high 5 on this......she’s taller than me so that’s a reach.
...and there's no end in sight. Our National Under 18 team has some incredible players; they went undefeated in the Americas Fiba competition this summer. Coach Carol Owens coached the team well...they won the gold medal game by over forty points. source
The talent is impressive. These girls have incredible ball handling capabilities (Samantha Prahalis & Nikki Speed), great rebound ability on both ends (Joselyn Tinkle & Sarah Booth & Kelsey Bone) and three point shooters (Kelly Faris & Ashley Corral). They're fun to watch.
In last year's youth trials the high-schoolers ran up 100 points in the game......high school girls!!
We have a long future in Women's basketball.
geez, lighten up, changing nationalities to play on an Olympics team is not exactly a new thing. happens often enoguh, including, gasp, people who grew up in other countries but became U.S. citizens in order to compete as a member of the U.S. team.
what a shame and a sham......ridiculous....
Fine, then Hammon should emigrate to Russia and become a full-fledged citizen. What she did was despicable.
If it's all personal, why do they play the national anthems at the medal ceremonies? You're way off.
So if Michael Phelps decided to swim for Russia or China in the next Olympics, that would be perfectly fine with you?
No driftless I’m spot on. As I said in an earlier post some people play in the Olympics for themselves and think little about their country or it’s glory. You can think that’s “wrong” if you want. It’s just a game.
Well then if it's just a game, there's no problem if Phelphs swims for another country in the next Olympics, right?
Yes, it'd be fine by me.
If members of the Chinese women's gymnastics team wants to become U.S. citizens and complete for the U.S. in the next Olympics, would that be OK with you?
A Russian (previous Olympics medal winner for the U.S.S.R) woman gymnast completed for the German team last night (and won another bronze, making her one of the oldest medal winner in that sport).
There were Jamaican sprinters on the Canadian team.
If the American swim team wouldn’t have him (doubtful) I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
That’s the thing she wasn’t good enough for our team, she wanted to play for the US but couldn’t. She took the option available for her to play. I’ll not castigate her for it.
I’d say lighten up but I get p*s*ed off when people tell me to lighten up, so I won’t.
She is just a “citizen of the world”; similar to one of our candidates for President.
You obviously have a much different understanding of what the Olympics means than I do. When I grew up, it meant playing for your country and not yourself. Remember every competitor is playing for a country and wears a national uniform. During the medal ceremonies they play the national anthem of the gold medal winner. If you can change allegiances for personal gain as easily as changing a suit, than the idea of the Olympic games is all wrong.
Yes if people want to emigrate to another country and become a citizen of that country, that's another matter. But for a citizen of one country to play for another country and then expect to go back and be treated the same as before is ridiculous. You actually said you'd have no problem with Phelps swimming for another country? I can't believe you said that. In other words you'd have no problem playing for the U.S. one Olympics and the next Olympics playing for another country?
To ME it means I hope I get to see my country kick a*s.
To people who devote their lives to their sport of choice and want to compete with the best in world but fall short of being team USA material, I can understand not wanting to just give up and resign themselves that they’ll never live out their Olympics dreams when they can if they play in another uniform.
I cannot separate the olympic dream from playing for your country. I was taught that is what the olympic dream is... playing for ones country. If I was not good enough to play for my country, I still wouldn't consider playing for another just to win a medal. Where I live I wouldn't be able to show my face if I played for another country.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.