Why the 1972 USA Basketball Team Should Have Won Olympic Gold Why the 1972 USA Basketball Team Should Have Won Olympic Gold Why the 1972 USA Basketball Team Should Have Won Olympic Gold By Patrick Snow , 7/25/12, 5:55 AM EDT The infamous game was a horribly unfair Olympic moment. Before the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, Doug Collins was invited to speak to the U.S. men’s basketball team at a Las Vegas training camp. Collins talked about his experience at the 1972 Games in Munich. A tape was shown to the eventual 2008 gold medalists of the last part of the 1972 gold-medal game between the U.S. and Soviet Union. With three seconds left and his team down, 49-48, Collins was knocked hard to the floor on a drive. Collins had hit his head on a basket support and was slow getting up. Finally, while still woozy, he drilled two free throws for a 50-49 lead. “They didn’t show the rest of the finish," Collins said.

“They wanted to end it on my two free throws to make it look like we’d won." That’s the way the 12 players from that 1972 team believe it should have finished. Of course, it didn’t. In perhaps the most controversial sports ending in history, the Soviets got three more attempts to score. After two questionable clock re-settings, a length-of the floor pass found its way to Alexander Belov, who made a layup at the buzzer for what remains in the record books a 51-50 Soviet win. To this day, the American players don’t acknowledge the loss. They have refused to accept their silver medals, which sit in an International Olympic Committee vault in Switzerland. Team captain Kenny Davis has put in his will that no one in his family ever can accept his. “If anybody looks at that game rationally, they believe we should have won," Davis said. Davis has scheduled a team reunion for late August in his native Kentucky. It’s likely the first time all those Olympians have gotten together since 1972.

“It’s going to be a celebration of what a bunch of young guys went through as teammates in 1972, and how it forged our lives," said Collins, who will be an NBC basketball analyst this summer in London for a fourth straight Olympics and says “emotions still become a little raw’’ during medal ceremonies. Collins, now the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, went on to become a notable NBA player, coach and broadcaster. Tom Henderson (1978 Washington) and Bobby Jones (1983 76ers) won NBA title rings. Tom McMillen went on to serve three terms in Congress. “Really, it was a basketball highjacking," McMillen says now. “It’s one of those things that’s like groundhog day. It pops its head up generally on anniversaries." McMillen said the Americans were “political pawns" during the Cold War. Entering the 1972 Olympics, Team USA had won seven straight Olympic basketball gold medals, and the Soviets badly wanted to end that streak. The Munich Games are most notable for being interrupted by Palestinian terrorists, who captured and eventually killed 11 Israeli coaches and athletes.

That does put matters in perspective for the basketball players. “They came out of there in caskets and we were able to come back home and live full lives," Davis said. The Games were stopped for 24 hours after the Sept. 5 tragedy. On Sept. 9, the gold-medal game was played. The Americans fought back from a 10-point second-half deficit to take the lead on Collins' free throws, which McMillen calls “the two gustiest free throws in the history of basketball." The Soviets inbounded, but play was stopped with one second left when a Soviet coach ran out to protest that his team had called a timeout. Great Britain’s William Jones, the international basketball head who had no Olympics jurisdiction and had said before that America’s domination of the sport wasn’t good, then came out of the stands to rule the clock be reset to three seconds. A long Soviet pass went awry. The Americans ran onto the court to celebrate wildly. “I feel to this day that we actually won the gold medal twice," Bobby Jones said. But the Soviets got a third try when it was ruled the clock had been reset improperly.

Again given three seconds, the Soviets finally took advantage, as a long inbound pass went to Belov, who scored in between Jim Forbes and Kevin Joyce, who both went sprawling. “Now, I just leave the room," Forbes said of the replays. “You get tired of seeing yourself look up and watching the guy score the winning basket." Forbes, who said Belov bumped him, was very angry after it happened but said he’s “not bitter" anymore. Still, Forbes, a longtime high school basketball coach in El Paso, Texas, avoids talking to his players about the game. “If I complain, I don’t want my players to think that they can have an excuse if we lose," Forbes said. The Americans still don’t believe they lost, even though a protest was denied by a 3-2 vote, with the votes against them all from Communist bloc nations. McMillen 10 years ago unsuccessfully petitioned the IOC to award duplicate gold medals. “It was a really good team," Collins said. “But we are bonded together through pain, through the feeling that the game was sort of taken away from us." Years later, at least there is the option of turning off the game with three seconds left.

--- By Chris Tomasson U.S.A. vs U.S.S.R.: More Than Just a Game, 1972 Olympics | Bleacher Report U.S.A. vs U.S.S.R.: More Than Just a Game, 1972 Olympics Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse more stories 3.5K 0 Comments It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Well, I guess it was leaning more towards the latter than the former. Summer of 1972, and we were engaged in a Cold War with our rivals from the East. After some back and forth discussion with the Metta Chronicles team, we began understanding the magnitude of this game. The gold medal basketball game between the Soviets and the US at the 1972 Munich Olympics represented more than just a sport with a ball and a hoop, it was symbolic of everything going in the world, and neither side wanted to admit defeat. Munich, then in West Germany, won its bid to host the 1972 Summer Olympics, beating the likes of Detroit and Madrid. The decision was made in 1966, and the city had plenty of time to prepare for the big moment.

For example, German security was practically nonexistent: the Germans felt that a "pacifist" strategy was the most effective answer to rising terror at the time. The last time the Olympic Games had been held in Germany was in 1936, when Hitler's Nazi government reigned supreme. Coming into the 1972 Olympics, West Germany aimed to show the world they were now a much more democratic and promising group of people, not one being brought down by the possible drawbacks and pessimism of a Cold War. Such intentions never saw the light of day. Although I will be getting into the sports aspect of this piece shortly, namely, the disappointing finish to a basketball game, something more important happened some days earlier. Something we will never and should never forget. On September 5th, 1972, known now as the Munich Massacre, one of the most horrific moments of Olympic history took place. Eight Palestinian terrorists, a group belonging to the Black September organization, broke into the Olympic Village and took eleven Israeli athletes hostage. Almost immediately, two of them were killed.

The hostage standoff in the Olympic Village lasted 18+ hours, and when a German rescue attempt at Fürstenfeldbruck airport failed, the remaining Israeli hostages were killed by the Palestinians. At that point, all but three of the Palestinians were killed as well, and two of those three were later killed by the Israeli Mossad. Victims of Munich The Olympic Games were suspended for a brief moment in time, but the International Olympic Committee president, Avery Brundage, stated that the Games should continue in the spirit with which they began. After a 34-hour suspension, the Olympic Games resumed action. Let's now fast-forward to September 10, the day the gold medal game between the Soviets and the US was played. The events that had already taken place at the Olympics placed a dark cloud over this game, one filled with plenty of anger and disgust. The Soviets had on red jerseys, the US white. The stage was set, and at stake was not only a gold medal, but issues of international diplomacy. The American side was made up of college athletes, the youngest group ever assembled for an Olympic team. The Soviets had much more experience, a team comprised of players who could have been professional ball players anywhere in the world at the time.

They had played over 400 games together before the '72 games, while the American squad had only been together for a dozen exhibition games. But come on, it's basketball. This was and is our game. Being the best at hoops had become a rite of passage for anyone playing the game in this county. American teams had won seven consecutive Olympic gold medals before 1972, including 63 consecutive games before facing the Soviets. Sure, the Soviets were pretty damn good but there was no chance anyone was going to knock out the red, white, and blue! "These were the two strongest countries in the world fighting for supremacy and basketball was ours," remembers the US guard Doug Collins , now head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers. "We were the kings. And there was no doubt we wanted to make sure a message was sent." The U.S.S.R. started the game strong, pulling ahead for a 26-21 lead at halftime.

Halfway through the second half, with the Soviets up 38-34, both Dwight Jones (USA's leading scorer and rebounder) and Dvorni Edeshko (U.S.S.R.) were ejected from the game after a scuffle over a loose ball. Let 'em play ref! On the following jump ball, USA's Jim Brewer suffered a concussion after being knocked to the floor. Things weren't looking good for the US as they continued to stay a few points behind most of the second half. However, after Jim Forbes' jumper with 40 seconds remaining in the game, the Soviets were only up one point, 49-48. They dribbled out much of the remaining clock, but at the 10-second mark, Tom McMillen blocked Aleksander Belov's shot and Doug Collins got a hold of the ball when Belov tried to pass it back out. Collins drove to the basket, and was fouled hard on a shot with three seconds remaining. It took a moment for Collins to get up. A bit groggy from the hit, he stumbled to the free-throw line where he knocked them both down, giving the U.S. a 50-49 lead.

Here is where all the confusion started. Despite the horn going off in the middle of his second free-throw attempt, there were 3 seconds on the clock after his two makes. At this point in time, the comeback seemed perfect, and the Americans were a few seconds from celebration. Or so they thought. The Soviets had supposedly tried to take a timeout in between Collins' free throws – a strategy the Americans maintain to this day was not allowed. They were finally awarded a timeout with one second remaining. It appeared there wasn't much time for anything to happen, but the Soviets again had lady luck on their side. Dr. William Jones, the British secretary of FIBA, intervened and ordered the clock to be reset to 3 seconds, and the play restarted. Confused yet? Trust me, so were the Americans. Play resumed, the buzzer sounded as a Soviet pass was mishandled, and the Americans again were ready to celebrate. Somehow another three seconds were put back on the clock. "People say, 'Why didn't you leave?'" says Collins.

"We were told that if left we would forfeit so we were pushed out on the court." The game got going again, but this time, the Americans just didn't have their minds in it. Tough to blame them, right? They had no pressure on Ivan Edeshko on the inbound, and his long pass to Alexander Belov resulted in a lay up. The Russians celebrated the win, and this time, there was no re-do. The U.S. appealed the victory, but there was no chance in that either. Of the five people on the committee, three were from Communist countries. The representatives from Cuba, Poland and the U.S.S.R. all voted Soviet, and the US appeal was rejected 3-2. As Mark Heisler put it, "Their loss to the Soviet Union in the Olympic final was a blow to the national pride, no matter how unjust the circumstances. Twelve young men 23 and under came home feeling as if they had helped launch Sputnik I." "The American team was offended, and it wasn't right. It was the cold war. Americans, out of their own natural pride and love of country, didn't want to lose and admit loss.

They didn't want to lose in anything, especially basketball" – Ivan Edeshko "If we had gotten beat, I would be proud to display my silver medal. But, we didn't get beat, we got cheated" – Mike Bantom Even generations later, the mere mention of that game evokes highly emotional responses from both sides. How personal did the US take the defeat? To this day, the players have refused to take their silver medals. Team captain Kenny Davis went so far as to put in his will no member of his family can accept the silver. It was a mind-boggling experience for everyone involved. Somehow, politics had determined the outcome of a game. At the end of every Scooby-Doo episode , the villain says, "I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!" In this case, the American squad can say, "We would have won, if it hadn't been for politics meddling in sport ." The Olympics are meant to be the highest level of sports competition, an event where people from every corner of the world can co-exist and display their talents.

The games are met with joy, and friendship, a few months where people can come together for a common purpose. It is a couple of months where healthy competition creates an unbreakable bond, experiences that remind us to live with dignity and respect. The 1972 Olympics were supposed to represent peace. Unfortunately, the 1972 Olympics are remembered for all the wrong reasons. The events that transpired that summer show how backwards we, as humans, can be. The terrorist attacks that summer are often identified as the start of modern terrorism. Black September went on to instill fear in not only the hearts of athletes world-wide, but more importantly, every single person who heard about what had happened. What then happened on the basketball court was merely a continuation of all this. No, I'm not comparing a terrorist attack to an unjust ending of an basketball game. We tend to put athletes on a pedestal, thinking they live in some far superior world. The '72 Olympics act as a reminder that sports and athletes are not immune from the realities of life. What I'm attempting to communicate is that it is a reminder of a very dark moment, not just in sports, but in world history as well.

It represents a period where corruption was rampant, and a fair result was unheard of. Fear continued to govern many people around the world, and the U.S. Basketball team was a casualty of that war. To this day, those silver medals are in some Swiss vault. ESPN Classic - Classic 1972 USA vs. USSR Basketball game Classic 1972 USA vs. USSR Basketball game By Frank Saraceno Special to ESPN.com In a different era, the global perception of amateur American basketball was one of domination. As the 1972 Summer Olympics commenced, this notion was punctuated with the impressive fact that no American team had ever lost in men's basketball in Olympic play, winning seven gold medals dating back to 1936. All of this changed on the morning of September 10, 1972. The youngest squad to ever represent the United States in Olympic competition stepped onto the floor to face their athletic and political enemy, the Soviet Union, for the gold medal in men's basketball. By comparison, the bigger, more experienced Soviets were far from your typical underdog.

Led by the inside outside combination of guard Sergei Belov and forward Alexander Belov, the well seasoned and well coached Soviets proved to be the stiffest competitor the Americans had ever faced. "They had a great team," said U.S. assistant coach John Bach. "Their team, it was reported, played almost 400 games together. 400 games. We had played 12 exhibition games and the trials." The quasi-professional Soviet club stood in stark contrast to America's system of selecting a new amateur team every four years to conquer the world's best. In 1972, the politics involved with picking the right team and naming the right coach became thorny issues. Henry Iba, the legendary retired head coach of Oklahoma State, was chosen to coach the U.S. team for a third straight Olympics. Iba led the U.S. to gold in 1964 and 1968, but by 1972, his conservative, defensive style of play was viewed as out of touch with the modern game. "They knew what they were getting when they picked coach Iba," said USC guard and current Pepperdine head coach Paul Westphal.

"They weren't picking a guy who's going to go out there and press and run and play basketball the way American basketball was being played at that time." Bill Wall was a member of the committee that selected the U.S. squad. "Everybody felt that his defense, his knowledge of the game, and the fact that he was a proven winner on every level for 40 years was enough," he said. One player who was conspicuous by his absence from the 1972 U.S. team was the college player of the year, Bill Walton. The UCLA center declined an invitation to play in Munich, and the reasons varied. "The doctor had advised him between seasons to really not play," said legendary UCLA head coach John Wooden. "Before every practice he soaked his knees for a half-hour, and he packed them with ice a half-hour after practice." "Bill did not want to try out," said U.S. guard and current Washington Wizards head coach Doug Collins. "He would've played in the games but he didn't want to try out.

Hank Iba was adamant that if you were going to be on the team, you were going to go through the process like everybody else." Others attributed his decision to his intense opposition to the U.S.'s involvement in the Vietnam War, and Walton alluded to a disastrous experience playing for the United States during the 1970 World Championships in Yugoslavia. "For the first time in my life, I was exposed to negative coaching and the berating of players and the foul language and the threatening of people who didn't perform," said Walton. Against this backdrop, the young Americans took Munich by storm, winning their first seven games before the Games came to a tragic and sudden halt on September 5th. The massacre of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team by Arab terrorists put the Games on hold for nearly two days. When competition resumed, the U.S. defeated Italy by 30 to advance to the gold medal game and extended their Olympic winning streak to 63 games. From the outset in the game against the Soviets, the style of play became an issue of concern.

"You had guys who liked to run the ball up and down the floor, and we come back and run the offense, you pass the ball six, seven, eight times before you can get a shot off," said U.S. guard Ed Ratleff. "That's the thing that threw us off more than anything else." "We played their game, the slow down game," said U.S. guard Tom Henderson. "We should have ran, and we'd have ran them back to Russia." "There was no reason to suspect that that system wasn't going to work in this game," said Dennis Lewin, who produced the gold medal game for ABC Sports. "Unfortunately the Americans were surprised by a team that was better than they ever counted on it being." Trailing by five points at halftime, the U.S. deficit grew to 10 with under 10 minutes to play. A furious comeback aided by the play of guard Kevin Joyce shrunk the Soviet lead to one point with 38 seconds remaining. Trying to protect their lead, Alexander Belov's cross-court pass with less than 10 seconds to play was intercepted by Doug Collins. Collins was fouled hard driving to the basket with three seconds to play.

"I remember Coach Haskins and Coach Bach saying to Coach Iba, 'We gotta get somebody to shoot these free throws,'" said Collins. "Coach Iba said, 'If Doug can walk he's shooting them.'" Under enormous pressure, the Illinois State guard sank both free throws giving the Americans a 50-49 lead, their first of the game. After the Soviets in-bounded the ball, the referees halted the game with one second remaining. The decision was made to put three seconds back on the clock. At issue was the Soviets' contention that they had signaled for a time-out between Collins' two free throws. The game officials never acknowledged the time out. The validity of whether a time-out was legally signaled for has divided passions on this game for 30 years. After the Soviets in-bounded the ball a second time, the horn sounded signaling an apparent American victory. Moments later, the teams were ordered back on the floor because the clock had not been properly reset to show three seconds remaining. Because of this mistake by the scorer's table, the celebrating Americans stood in disbelief when they were told they had not won anything yet. "We couldn't believe that they were giving them all these chances," said U.S.

forward Mike Bantom. "It was like they were going to let them do it until they got it right." "They had to reset the clock, so they (the Soviets) got a third chance," said L.A Times writer Randy Harvey. "The Americans thought that at every turn they had been cheated when, in fact, they probably hadn't been. But they'll never acknowledge that." Alexander Belov, who moments earlier had been the goat, became the hero. Rising between Americans Jim Forbes and Kevin Joyce, Belov caught a full-court pass and scored the winning lay-up as time ran out, this time for good. The controversy did not end with the game. Convinced they had been wronged, the U.S. team filed a formal protest with the International Basketball Federation. Later that afternoon, a five-member panel ruled in favor of the Soviets. "Everything progressed according to strictly Cold War politics," said Sports Illustrated writer Gary Smith. "There were three Communist Bloc judges. It's a three to two vote. America loses. The Soviet Union wins the gold medal, and at that point the American players are facing a stark reality.

Do they accept the silver medal?" "We felt like they just did something to us that was illegal and we didn't know any other way to protest than to say that you're not about to get us to show up to take that silver medal," said team captain Kenny Davis expressing the team's ultimate response. Thirty years later, the silver medals sit unclaimed in a vault in Lusanne, Switzerland. The intervening years have done little to hide the emotions of that historic night in Munich. "The American team was offended, and it wasn't right," said Ivan Edeshko, the player who threw the game-winning pass for the Soviets. "It was the cold war. Americans, out of their own natural pride and love of country, didn't want to lose and admit loss. They didn't want to lose in anything, especially basketball." "If we had gotten beat, I would be proud to display my silver medal today," Bantom said. "But, we didn't get beat, we got cheated." "I have placed it in my will that my wife and my children can never, ever receive that medal from the '72 Olympic games," said Davis.

"It was sort of like being on top of the Sears tower in Chicago celebrating and then being thrown off and falling 100 floors to the ground," said Collins. "That's the kind of emptiness and sick feeling I felt." NOTE: This documentary includes testimony from all 12 members of the 1972 U.S. Olympic team along with assistant coaches John Bach and Don Haskins, Soviet assistant coach Sergei Bashkin and Soviet player Ivan Edeshko. Bill Walton, John Wooden and Bobby Knight also were interviewed. It will explore in detail the problems that led to this shocking result and the lingering effects this game holds 30 years later. We will also go inside and look at how the team was selected, trained and, ultimately, forged ahead through the tragic events in Munich. Remembering 1972 U.S. Olympic squad, 40 years later comment LONDON -- There were no Olympic warm-up games played in Munich to commemorate the milestone, no throwback uniforms printed up for the 2012 squad to pay homage and no new documentaries commissioned by NBA TV to re-tell the story amid great publicity and pride. The 40th anniversary of the U.S.

men's Olympic basketball team and its infamous Cold War gold-medal game again the Soviet Union, up until the last week or so, had been passing rather quietly. In stark contrast to what's seemingly been a yearlong tribute to the Dream Team, as it celebrates the two decades that have passed since it changed the face of international basketball at the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, members of the 1972 team who to this day remain convinced they were cheated and refuse to collect their silver medals get only occasional notice. That naturally would have changed in a major way had the current squad of NBA All-Stars representing the United States ended up playing Russia in Sunday's gold-medal game, but the Russians' semifinal defeat Friday to Spain means that '72 hoopla is bound to stay on the scarce side in 2012. "I do think it's been pushed to the rear," says Johnny Bach, now 88, who served as an assistant coach to the legendary Henry Iba on the '72 U.S. squad.

"I don't think the [International] Olympic Committee ever wanted to deal with it." It was just last month that the 2012ers went to Spain, played two exhibition games in Catalunya to honor the original Dreamers' groundbreaking trip there and even sported the same jerseys Michael, Magic and Larry wore in '92, adorned with a special gold "CD" square above the heart to the honor the memory of late coach Chuck Daly. All that's currently planned for the Boys of '72, for certain, is the first get-together of its kind later this month in Kentucky that's scheduled to be attended by all 12 players on the roster. Otherwise? An Illinois lawyer's one-man crusade to try to convince the IOC and/or basketball's world governing body (FIBA) to sanction a new hearing that could theoretically still lead to duplicate gold medals for the Americans is pretty much the extent of the movement ... although neither the IOC nor FIBA has yet to show any interest in considering the request. There's also a new book, "Stolen Glory," that the lawyer in question, Donald "Taps" Gallagher, has co-written with Mike Brewster to chronicle what happened on Sept.

10, 1972, and highlight their cause. "Forty years later," Gallagher says, "it's still the biggest [Olympic] farce of all time." Forty years later, 12 silver medals sit locked up and unclaimed, either in a storage room in the Olympic museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, or a basement in Munich, depending on which fable you believe. Forty years later, instead of being remembered for what might have been the two most clutch free throws in the annals of basketball, Doug Collins is spending his summer away from the Philadelphia 76ers' bench calling Team USA's games for NBC Sports. This keeps him close to his son, Chris -- one of Mike Krzyzewski's trusted Team USA assistants -- but also puts him in position to have to relive a good bit of the torment that followed the free throws that gave the young American amateurs a 50-49 lead with three fateful seconds to go against a team of seasoned Soviet pros. "It becomes real every Olympics," Collins said. "It becomes real every time I see a medal ceremony and hear the national anthem and see an athlete represent his country.

It's the moment that I feel was stolen from us, being up on that podium together, wearing that gold around our necks." Said Mike Bantom, Collins' teammate on the '72 team and now an NBA senior vice president of player development who's also traveling with Team USA at the 2012 Summer Games: "It doesn't impact my day-to-day life. I'm not sitting around brooding about it. As far as where we are today, I think most of us have moved on, and I think we all feel justified in not taking that silver medal. But I don't think you ever get over it." Not fully. And maybe never unless Gallagher's long-shot quest is successful. Members of the '72 squad are nonetheless unanimous in saying that the Munich Games should be remembered, above all, for the slayings of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian kidnappers. "The first act of terrorism as we know it today," Collins calls it. Yet their own unhappy anniversary, ready or not, was briefly poised to be shoved to the forefront when the new Russia came within one win of forcing an unlikely rematch of sorts with the Americans in Sunday's gold-medal game.

"Imagine the story with that," Team USA star Kobe Bryant said this week before the possibility was extinguished. The following ESPN.com examination spans five chapters, one for each Olympic ring, as Collins and several teammates continue to wrestle with the aftermath from what is universally regarded as the most controversial finish in basketball's international history. An Olympic Détente for the 1972 Men’s Basketball Team - The Daily Beast Flashback An Olympic Détente for the 1972 Men’s Basketball Team In the chill of the Cold War, the 1972 U.S. basketball team went up against the U.S.S.R.—and was cheated out of a gold medal. Former representative Tom McMillen, who was on the team, offers a peace plan. Tom McMillen 08.05.12 8:45 AM ET Nearly 40 years ago, shortly after midnight on Sept. 10, 1972, the U.S. men’s basketball team, of which I was a member, took the floor in a sports hall in Munich to play the Soviet Union for the gold medal in the Olympics, a game that would be broadcast worldwide.

Everyone in the Olympic Village had witnessed the horrifying events that had played out just five days earlier—the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists in which two Israelis were killed. Later, we watched as three helicopters lifted off from the Olympic Village, carrying the hostages and their captors toward the airport. I hoped, as everyone did, that the crisis would end with the Israelis safe and freed unharmed; instead, all nine were killed in a rescue attempt. Like most of the world, I was deeply shocked at the deadly intrusion of politics into sports. In the aftermath of the attack, the mood at the Games was sad and somber. The tragedy was never far from our minds, but none of us could have imagined that, in the years since, the kind of brutal attack we witnessed would become all too familiar—that terrorism would spread and scar our lives. But in 1972, it was the Cold War that was on people’s minds. It was at its height—the U.S. and the Soviet Union threatened each other with thousands of intercontinental missiles. Although President Richard Nixon and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union had signed Salt I, the historic arms-limitation agreement, in May, the rivalry between the U.S.

and the Soviet Union was at its peak. I knew the Olympic Games were not free from politics, that the antagonism between the two superpowers played out in sports such as skating and wrestling. But I thought of basketball as a safe zone, with the outcome of the game depending on what I thought were clear-cut rules, and I was happy to put politics aside and suit up for the game. Little did I realize I was about to find myself in the middle of a Cold War skirmish. Although we were the youngest U.S. Olympic team ever, competing against a very mature, professional Soviet team, we were favored to win. The U.S. had dominated men’s basketball since its inception as an Olympic sport in 1936, had won every gold medal up to the 1972 games, and we all felt tremendous pressure to maintain the winning streak. We desperately wanted that eighth-straight gold medal. When the game began, the Soviets, with their deliberate style of play, dominated. They led by five points at the half, and, with 10 minutes to play, were ahead by 10 points.

With six minutes remaining, our team began to press and hustle, and with only three seconds on the clock, we were down by just one point. Doug Collins, now coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, had been fouled and was ready to take perhaps the two most important free throws in the history of the game. Doug made both shots. That put the U.S. up 50-49. Three seconds left. The Soviets put the ball in play, made a wild shot at the basket, and the buzzer went off. Then everything got crazy. We thought we had won, but then the referees let the Soviets make another inbounds play with one second on the clock. The buzzer rang again; we’d won again! American fans crowded the floor in celebration. I saw R. William Jones, then the secretary-general of the International Basketball Association, come out of the stands. He was holding up three fingers. I had no idea what he was doing but learned later he was telling the officials to put three seconds back on the clock. As Jones himself would later admit, he had no authority to make such a decision.

Once the court was cleared and some order restored, the Soviet player Ivan Edeshko was ready to put the ball in play. A referee waved me back as I guarded Edeshko. No rule said I had to move, but my coach, Hank Iba, had said earlier that the world was out to get us. Don’t expect a fair shake. So I stepped back, worried I’d get a technical foul if I didn’t. Edeshko was then clear to make a pass down the court to Aleksandr Belov, who made a layup. U.S.S.R. 51, U.S.A. 50. In the ensuing chaos, we returned to the locker room, still not understanding what had happened, and when told to appear for the awards ceremony to accept the silver medal, we refused. Afterward, the U.S. Olympic Committee protested the Soviet victory, but a group composed largely of judges from Soviet bloc nations rejected the appeal. The U.S. team did not accept the silver medals. We still haven’t accepted them. I believed then—and believe now—the U.S. team had victory taken away from us, that our basketball game ended up as proxy war between two superpowers.

Forty years later, the Berlin Wall is down, the Cold War has ended, the borders in the former Soviet bloc countries are open. Relations between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union are not always smooth, but our political détente holds. Perhaps it’s time for easing of tensions about that controversial game as well. Ten years ago, I asked the IOC to award the 1972 U.S. team dual gold medals to rectify the errors of that game. The precedent for my request was the figure-skating scandal at the 2002 Winter Olympics, which led the IOC to award duplicate gold medals to the silver-medal winners, Jamie Salé and David Pelletier from Canada. The IOC decided that the pair came in second not because of their performance but because a judge had been unduly pressured by one of the sport’s governing bodies. I argued that Jones’s unauthorized intervention in our game brought similar pressure upon the officials. I never received a response to my request. But when I brought up the issue with my former teammates, all were willing to accept dual medals. We members of the U.S. team have a 40th reunion scheduled for August. I intend to propose a “grand compromise” then.

If the members of the Soviet team agree to the awarding of dual gold medals to our team and the IOC approves, the U.S. team will donate our medals, worth a great deal as sports memorabilia, to a Russian charity for orphaned children. With the help of other donors, we could raise millions of dollars to help build a bridge between our nations. This gesture could bring us closer together—and could show that, even in a world increasingly marked by partisan strife, sportsmanship and good will can sometimes trump geopolitics. READ THIS LIST 1972 Summer Olympics - 30 For 30 Shorts - Silver Reunion - Real Bad Ass Marketing Real Bad Ass Marketing Home » Marketing » Affiliate Marketing » 1972 Summer Olympics – 30 For 30 Shorts – Silver Reunion 1972 Summer Olympics – 30 For 30 Shorts – Silver Reunion 3 Comments. The recent ESPN 30-for-30 digital short Silver Reunion includes all 12 members of the 1972 USA Olympic Basketball team. This episode focuses on the continuing refusal by the players to accept silver medals after the controversial conclusion to the gold medal game.

The 1972 Olympic games The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Munich , West Germany , from August 26 to September 11, 1972, the sporting nature of which was largely overshadowed by the Munich massacre in which eleven Israeli athletes and coaches, a West German police officer, and five Black September terrorists were killed. The 1972 Summer Olympics were the second Summer Olympics to be held in Germany, after the 1936 Games in Berlin , which had taken place under the Nazi regime . Mindful of the connection, the West German Government was eager to take the opportunity of the Munich Olympics to present a new, democratic and optimistic Germany to the world. The Games were largely overshadowed by what has come to be known as the “Munich massacre”. On September 5 a group of eight Palestinians belonging to the Black September organization broke into the Olympic Village and took nine Israeli athletes, coaches and officials hostage in their apartments. Two of the hostages who resisted were killed in the first moments of the break-in; the subsequent standoff in the Olympic Village lasted for almost 18 hours.

In the final of the men’s basketball , the United States lost to the Soviet Union , in what USA Basketball calls “the most controversial game in international basketball history”. [6] In a close-fought match, the U.S. team had initially won with a score of 50–49. However, due to confusing signals from the scorer’s table, the final 3 seconds of the game were replayed twice and the Soviet team was able to regain the lead and claim a 51-50 victory. The American team refused its silver medals and did not attend the awards ceremony. American officials appealed twice and lost. It was Team USA’s first basketball loss since the sport became part of the Olympics in 1936 .Ultimately the U.S team refused to accept their silver medals, which remain held in a vault in Lausanne, Switzerland . 40 years after the USA men’s Olympic basketball team declined their Silver medals after controversially losing the gold to the Russians, the 12 players gatherd together to accept, or refuse the medals for a game the players believe they never lost. – ESPN This meeting during the summer of 2012, the 12 members of the 1972 U.S.

men’s Olympic basketball team had a decision to make. Reuniting more than four decades after the controversial gold-medal game in which they lost to the Soviet Union and then declined to accept the silver medal, the team members met in Lexington, Kentucky, to make a final decision: to accept, or forever refuse, the medals for a game many of them believe they never lost. And, like with the jury in 12 Angry Men, the verdict needed to be unanimous. – Grantland.com If you would like to take a look t the “10 years later” video where Deborah Roberts finds yet another inconsistency click here If you enjoyed taking a trip back to this moment in Olympic history please leave you comments below and share. ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ This was a really fun blog to make.

This is a great way to make make money. Yes, writing blogs like this one. You can do this also and write about anything you are passionate about…find out how below or just send me a message >>> Terri Bradford Come and market with our “ W00t Marketing Team ”. We teach techniques just like this one and a lot more. This works no matter what program you are in. All are welcome to learn the methods we use to generate a full time income. On our “Team” we are focused and dedicated to help you succeed! Each active member is seeing their sign ups increase as their Email Marketing is consistently producing. Here Are Just A Few Of Our Team Benefits that help people stick with us! WordPress blog and hosting for 1 year Book of w00t training Active team room where you will get support almost 24/7 (a team member is almost always on line) Facebook Group Team Syndication group Learn how to get your blog on the first page of google Training Site (All Recordings & Tutorial Training)… Training Email Marketing Approx 1,000 leads per month And Most Importantly A Partnership Top Internet Marketers, Offline Marketers!

If enjoyed today’s post please ‘like & share’ this page so someone else can benefit from it! Terri Bradford Olympic Games - 1972 Munich, Germany - About Sports Olympic Games – 1972 Munich, Germany 1972 Munich, Germany The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, was held in Munich, West Germany, from August 26 to September 5, 1972, the sporting nature of which was largely overshadowed by a terrorist attack in which 11 Israeli athletes and coaches, a West German police officer, and five terrorists were killed. The 1972 Summer Olympics were the second Summer Olympics to be held in Germany, after the 1936 Games in Berlin, which had taken place under the Nazi regime. Mindful of the connection, the West German Government was anxious to take the opportunity of the Munich Olympics to present a new, democratic and optimistic Germany to the world, as shown by the Games’ official motto, “the Happy Games.” The emblem of the Games was a blue solar logo (the “Bright Sun”) by Hungarian artist Viktor Vasarely.

The Olympic mascot, the dachshund”Waldi”, was the first officially named Olympic mascot. The Games also saw the introduction of the now-universal sports pictograms designed by Otl Aicher. The Olympic Park (Olympiapark) is based on Frei Otto’s plans and after the Games became a Munich landmark. The competition sites, designed by architect Günther Behnisch, included the Olympic swimming hall, the Olympics Hall (Olympiahalle, a multipurpose facility) and the Olympic Stadium (Olympiastadion), and an Olympic village very close to the park. The design of the stadium was considered revolutionary, with sweeping canopies of acrylic glass stabilized by metal ropes, used on such a large scale for the first time. The Munich Massacre The Games were largely overshadowed by what has come to be known as the Munich massacre. On September 5 a group of eight Palestinian guerrillas belonging to the Black September organization broke into the Olympic Village and took nine Israeli athletes, coaches and officials hostage in their apartments. Two of the hostages who resisted were killed in the first moments of the break-in; the subsequent standoff in the Olympic Village lasted for almost 18 hours.

Late in the evening of September 5, the terrorists and their hostages were transferred by helicopter to the military airport of Fürstenfeldbruck, ostensibly to board a plane bound for an undetermined Arab country. The German authorities planned to ambush them there, but under-estimated the number of terrorists and were thus undermanned. During a botched rescue attempt, all of the Israeli hostages were killed. Four of them were shot, then incinerated when a Palestinian detonated a grenade inside the helicopter in which the hostages were sitting. The five remaining hostages were then machine-gunned by another terrorist. All but three of the Palestinians were killed as well. Although arrested and imprisoned pending trial, the three PLO survivors were released by the West German government on October 29, 1972 in exchange for a hijacked Lufthansa jet. Two of those three were supposedly hunted down and assassinated later by the Mossad. Jamal Al-Gashey, who is believed to be the sole survivor, and is still living today in hiding in an unspecified African country with his wife and two children.

The Olympic events were suspended several hours after the initial attack, but once the incident was concluded Avery Brundage, the International Olympic Committee president, declared that “the Games must go on”. A memorial ceremony was then held in the Olympic stadium, and the competitions resumed after a stoppage of 24 hours. The attack prompted heightened security at subsequent Olympics beginning with the 1976 Winter Olympics. The massacre led the German federal government to re-examine its anti-terrorism policies, which at the time were dominated by a pacifist approach adopted post-World War II. This led to the creation of the elite counter-terrorist unitGSG 9, similar to the British SAS. It also led Israel to launch an aggressive counterterrorism campaign known as Operation Wrath of God, in which those suspected of involvement were systematically tracked down and assassinated. The events of the Munich massacre were chronicled in the Oscar-winning documentary, One Day in September. An account of the aftermath is dramatized in Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film Munich.

Highlights of the Munich Olympics ñMark Spitz, a swimmer from the United States, set a world record when he won seven gold medals (while on the way to setting a new world record for each of his seven gold medals) in a single Olympics, bringing his lifetime total to nine (he had won two golds in Mexico City’s Games four years earlier). Being Jewish, Spitz was forced to leave Munich before the closing ceremonies for his own protection, after fears arose that he would be an additional target of those responsible for the Munich massacre. Spitz’s record stood until 2008, when it was beaten by Michael Phelps who won 8 gold medals in the pool. ñOlga Korbut, a Soviet gymnast, became a media star after winning a gold medal in the team competition event, failing to win in the individual all-around after a fall (she was beaten by Lyudmilla Turischeva), and finally winning two gold medals in the Balance Beam and the floor exercise events. ñIn the final of the men’s basketball, the United States lost to the USSR, in what USA Basketball calls “the most controversial game in international basketball history”. In a close-fought match the U.S.

team initially believed it had won with a score of 50–49, but confusion over a late time-out gave the Soviet team a few seconds to score two more points and claim victory. Ultimately the U.S team refused to accept their silver medals, which remain held in a vault in Lausanne, Switzerland. ñLasse Virén of Finland won the 5,000 and 10,000 m (the latter after a fall), a feat he repeated in the 1976 Summer Olympics. ñValeriy Borzov of the USSR won both the 100 m and 200 m in track and field. The top two US sprinters and medal favorites in the 100 m, Rey Robinson and Eddie Hart, missed their quarter final heats after being given the wrong starting time. ñTwo black American 400 m runners, Vincent Matthews and Wayne Collett, acted casually on the medal stand, twirled their medals (gold and silver, respectively), joked with one another and did not face the American flag as “The Star-Spangled Banner” was being played during the award ceremony.

They were banned from the Olympics for life, as Tommie Smith and John Carlos had been in the 1968 Summer Olympics. Since John Smith had pulled a hamstring in the final and had been ruled unfit to run, the United States were forced to scratch from the 4x400m relay. ñDave Wottle won the men’s 800 m, after being last for the first 600 m, at which point he started to pass runner after runner up the final straightaway, finally grabbing the lead in the final 18 metres to win by 0.03 seconds ahead of the favorite, the Soviet Yevgeny Arzhanov. At the victory ceremony, Wottle forgot to remove his golf cap. This was interpreted by some as a form of protest against the Vietnam War, but Wottle later apologized. ñAustralian swimmer Shane Gould won three gold medals, a silver, and a bronze medal at the age of 15. ñHandball (last held in 1936) and Archery (last held in 1920) returned as Olympic sports after a long absence. ñSlalom canoeing was held for the first time at the Olympics.

ñDan Gable won the gold medal in wrestling without having a single point scored against him. ñWim Ruska became the first judoka to win two gold medals. ñFor the first time, the Olympic Oath was taken by a representative of the referees. ñAmerican Frank Shorter, who was born in Munich, became the first from his country in 64 years to win the Olympic marathon. As Shorter was nearing the stadium, German student Norbert Sudhaus entered the stadium wearing a track uniform, joined the race and ran the last kilometre; thinking he was the winner, the crowd began cheering him before officials realized the hoax and security escorted Sudhaus off the track. Arriving seconds later, Shorter was understandably perplexed to see someone ahead of him and to hear the boos and catcalls meant for Sudhaus. This was the third time in Olympic history that an American had won the marathon (after Thomas Hicks 1904 and Johnny Hayes 1908) — and in none of those three instances did the winner enter the stadium first. ñBadminton and water skiing were demonstration sports.

Eleven nations made their first Olympic appearance in Munich: Albania, Burkina Faso (as Upper Volta), Benin (as Dahomey), Gabon, North Korea, Lesotho, Malawi, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Swaziland, Togo. Rhodesia’s invitation to take part in the 1972 Summer Games was withdrawn by the International Olympic Committee four days before the opening ceremony, in response to African countries’ protests against the Rhodesian regime. (Rhodesia did, however, compete in the 1972 Summer Paralympics, held a little earlier in Heidelberg.)

Question: USA athletes refused their silver medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in which men's sport?
Answer: Basketball