him. It was just special.A few moments after Ortiz reached first, A

Jennifer Azzi couldnt eat. The 1996 Atlanta Games were about to open for the U.S. womens basketball team, and food was the last thing on her mind as she sat next to Lisa Leslie for breakfast in the Olympic Village.I just had this nervous excitement, and then I look over, and Lisa couldnt eat either, Azzi said. We were all just so over-the-top excited.U.S. national team director Carol Callans memory drifts to a different point that day, when the teams bus pulled into the parking lot of the Georgia Dome.It was a school-girl level of excitement, Callan recalled. People were screaming on the bus. Theyd been playing and training together for a year, and it was time to see the end result.As the U.S. womens team prepares to begin its quest for a sixth consecutive gold medal in womens basketball in Rio, the groundwork laid by the groundbreaking team of 1996 has never been more evident.That team readjusted the balance of power in the world, USA Basketball coach Geno Auriemma said. Starting 20 years ago to today, theres never been a more dominant team in the Olympics in any sport than the U.S. womens national team.The 1996 Olympic womens basketball team accomplished things that had never been done by preparing in a way that had never been done. For the first time in program history, the womens USA Basketball team trained and played together for nearly a year in preparation for the Olympics. In the end, that group made more than history, going 60-0 (52-0 in pre-Olympic competition and 8-0 in the Games) and capturing one of the most visible gold medals in an Olympics that was a marking point because of the overwhelming success of female athletes.The 1996 team created stars in players such as Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes, set a new bar for the level of play in womens basketball, and launched two professional leagues, including the WNBA, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this season.Callan calls the creation of the 1996 team, and in a way, all that came after, a perfect storm.The womens college game was growing in popularity, as Connecticut won its first national championship in 1995 and had a burgeoning rivalry with Tennessee. The NBA was exploring a business model for professional womens basketball in the United States and was willing to put some money behind the USA womens team as a marketing project.The U.S. team was coming off a pair of disappointing performances, finishing with bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Games and at the 1994 world championship.We knew we had to make some changes, Callan said. We created a program that allowed the team to train together over a sustained period, like the rest of the world does.USA Basketball convinced Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer to leave her program for a year to coach the team. It assembled a roster mixed with veteran players such as Teresa Edwards, who had been playing for years in anonymity overseas, and young guns such as Leslie and Dawn Staley, who were best known for their NCAA résumés and were about to break through on a different level.USA Basketball scheduled a years worth of exhibitions, a 22-game college tour that introduced the team to the country, and a full slate of international games to prepare the U.S. womens basketball team for international competition. A handful of those games were on national television.The college tour began in Atlanta, with VanDerveer taking the players to the Georgia Dome and asking them to visualize their place on the medal stand.In between games and trips, there were autograph sessions, photo shoots and media interviews. There was no social media. The players were tightly bonded and exceedingly focused.It was almost like we were still girls waiting to become grown women, Edwards said. We grew up really fast, and the grown-up part of us allowed us to be great basketball players.But the kid part of us really enjoyed each others company. We laughed so much. We messed up each others hair and fixed it back. We paid for each others dinners. Wed send room service to the wrong rooms. We had fun. But when it was time to play, we killed each other. We brought the best out of each other.Azzi remembers a day when the U.S. women practiced at Georgetown while legendary coach John Thompson stood on the sideline and watched. Thompson came into the huddle at the end of practice to address the team.You are making people respect you, he told them, and the compliment stuck with Azzi and her teammates.We showed people a different level of basketball, Azzi said. No one had seen professional womens basketball in the States. We would go into college arenas, and teams thought they were going to be able to beat us. We were beating national championship teams by a significant margin. It was the first time for people to see the game played by women at that level.Once-in-a-lifetime opportunityThe legacy of the 1996 team goes beyond the history that was written, the ripples of that seminal experience casting off in all directions. They established professional basketball in the United States, cementing a place for pro womens team sports in the landscape. To the players on that team who eventually would go on to coaching careers, such as Staley (South Carolina), Azzi (San Francisco), Swoopes (formerly of Loyola) and Katy Steding (Boston University). To the influence over the U.S. teams current batch of stalwarts such as Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird and Tamika Catchings. To the other side of the country to the coach who cemented her own Hall of Fame legacy without taking home a medal.Coaches dont receive medals in the Olympics, so while the players stood on the platform after beating Brazil in the final in front of nearly 33,000 fans that last day, VanDerveer stood just off to the side. She didnt need a medal to realize shed created a gold standard.VanDerveer was demanding, unrelenting. She had the most talented roster in the history of the game, and she wanted those players to give her everything, from the first game to the last. After all, she was giving significantly as well.VanDerveer had resigned from her head-coaching job at Stanford, taking the year away to not only lead the U.S. women back to the gold-medal stand, but to prime the country for professional womens basketball and to alter the culture of the womens national team program.It was a really difficult decision, said VanDerveer, who turned her program over to longtime assistant coach Amy Tucker and brought old friend Marianne Stanley in as co-head coach for one season. You put so much into your own program. The hardest part of it was having to resign for that year. But I recognized it as an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.People told VanDerveer she was never going to be able to go back to the college game after her experience coaching the best team in the world. Her name came up as a coaching candidate for the WNBA and the American Basketball League, which was going to have a team in San Jose and feature Azzi as its founding player. But VanDerveer never wavered about her commitment to return to Stanford.I was excited about going back, she said. I had learned things from the Olympic experience that I wanted to take back to my team.Twenty years later, VanDerveer is a member of the Naismith Hall of Fame and is on the cusp of reaching 1,000 career wins as a college coach. Many players on that 1996 team regard her as the best coach they ever played for.Ruthie Bolton knew that playing the Olympics on home soil had the potential to make or break womens basketball in the United States.There was so much at stake, Bolton said. We didnt want another feeling of sadness, agony and defeat. We made sure that didnt happen. Tara was preparing us to have a state of mind that was above and beyond. It was like going overboard a little, but we didnt want to leave any questions of whether we were ready.Azzi said that experience challenged everybody to the core.At one point, everybody had a meltdown, she said. But we were all in it together, in a very professional way. It was a sisterhood with a level of trust and respect that I had never experienced before.The legacy of the 1996 womens basketball team is one that changed the landscape of the sport, setting a tone for everything that came after.Players like Lisa and Dawn and Sheryl taught Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird what it mean to be on the national team, Callan said, and those players have taught the next generation.Seimone Augustus, who helped the United States win gold medals in 2008 and 12 and is in Rio for her third Olympics, had a poster in her room as a kid of the 1996 team.My dream, my goal, was to be like those strong women I saw in that poster, Augustus said. To be able to be a part of that legacy and tradition thats so rich in success and winning means a lot. Clearance Jerseys . Ferrer, trying to win his fourth title on Mexican soil, will next play South Africas Kevin Anderson, who eliminated American Sam Querrey,7-6 (2), 6-4. Also Wednesday, Gilles Simon (6) of France beat Donald Young of the United States 6-4, 6-3, Ukraines Alexandr Dolgopolov downed Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 6-4 and Croatias Ivo Karlovic defeated Dudi Sela of Israel 7-6 (4), 6-2. NFL Jerseys Outlet .R. Smith realized how easily basketball can be taken from him, and he wasnt going to take his place in the NBA for granted anymore. http://www.outletjerseyscheap.com/ . And when it opened, every player was at his stall. Thats a sure sign that a team is in a slump and is searching for answers. "Its embarrassing to be at home and play the way we did," said defenceman Josh Gorges. China Jerseys . Reassurance came from Paul Tesori, his caddie and close friend whose newborn son is in intensive care in a Florida hospital. "Paul sent me a text this morning, just told me he loved me and wanted to go out and fight as hard as I would any other day," Simpson said Sunday after doing just that. Jerseys NFL Wholesale . Francis told several hundred members of the European Olympic Committees that when sport "is considered only in economic terms and consequently for victory at every cost . SAN DIEGO -- David Ortiz ended his All-Star Game career with quite a walk off.The popular Big Papi was embraced outside the dugout by nearly every member of the American League roster Tuesday night when he was replaced by a pinch runner and strolled back to the bench.Miguel Cabrera playfully tousled Ortizs hair. As the Boston slugger made his way through the scrum of players, he wrapped his Red Sox teammate Jackie Bradley Jr. in a bear hug and lifted him off the ground.Ortiz called the embraces something Ill never forget. ... You see all your boys.Catcher Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants clapped his bare hand against his mitt as Ortiz left the field.The American League beat the National League 4-2.Ortiz helped the Red Sox end their 86-year World Series title drought in 2004, and then helped them win the Series in 2007 and 2013, when he was chosen as MVP.Ortiz announced on Nov. 18 -- his 40th birthday -- that 2016 would be his final season.Things are getting harder. ... As you get older, it gets a little difficult, he said after coming out of his 10th All-Star Game.The designated hitter leads the majors in slugging percentage, on-base average and extra-base hits this year. Hes batting .332 with 22 home runs and 72 RBI.The Red Sox are two games behind Baltimore in the AL East at the break.Ortiz drew a walk in the third inning from Miamis Jose Fernandez, who said a day earlier that hed groove a pitch for the slugger. Ortiz kidded with Fernandez on his way to first base after taking ball four.I was supposed to hit a home run in my second at-bat. My boy told me he was going to throw me a fastball and the first pitch was a changeup, Ortiz said. I was like, `I thought it was going to be a fastball?He told me yesterday all he was going to throw me was fastballs. He tolld me it was the catchers fault -- he called it.dddddddddddd Then 3-2 he threw me a slider and Im like, `Are you trying to break my back? But he said it was the catchers fault.Fernandez called it an amazing experience. At first I was just throwing fastball, fastball, fastball, so I thought I should mix it up with a breaking pitch and he took it. I was nervous. I couldnt believe that I was actually pitching to him. We both looked at each other and smiled. We knew what was going on. It was great. He signed the jersey I brought for him. It was just special.A few moments after Ortiz reached first, AL manager Ned Yost sent in Edwin Encarnacion to run and Ortiz left to a nice ovation.Yost said he told Ortiz before the game that he was going to get two at-bats, and if he reached on the second one, he would come out. If Ortiz hadnt reached, Yost planned to send him up for a third at-bat, wait for him to be announced and then send up a pinch-hitter.But what he didnt know is I wanted the team to go out and meet him. So that was a cool moment, I thought.Big Papi addressed his teammates earlier in the day.I told them that it takes a lot of work to get to the All-Star Game. You dont get here with a good name or a good family. You have to put up the numbers. I told them that they have to do that for their whole career.Asked about his career overall, he said: I have learned so much about this game, I would like to spread it out to the young kids in the game.Ortiz grounded out hard in his first at-bat in his finale.Its an unbelievable feeling to be around this guy, said Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez, who homered for the AL. Thats the guy we want to be. ' ' '