Indiana University Olympians. David Woods
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Alford said. “Not every person was able to voice their opinion publicly like they do now.”
Players returned for a minicamp in May and full practices June 15. The NBA draft, held June 19, was not the spectacle that it is now. Instead of traveling to New York for the draft at Madison Square Garden, those still in contention for the Olympics watched from Bloomington. Once drafted, players were led to a WTTV studio for a live feed to the USA Network.
Eight of the first eighteen selections were would-be Olympians: Jordan (drafted third); Sam Perkins (fourth); Alvin Robertson (seventh); Lancaster Gordon (eighth); Leon Wood (tenth); Tim McCormick (twelfth); Jeff Turner (seventeenth), and Vern Fleming (eighteenth). That did not include two players—Barkley (fifth) and Stockton (sixteenth)—who did not survive the cut to sixteen.
In 1985, five of the top seven picks in the NBA draft were from the Olympic team: Ewing (first), Wayman Tisdale (second), Jon Koncak (fifth), Joe Kleine (sixth), and Mullin (seventh).
The Olympians had multimillion-dollar contracts waiting, but there was a gold medal out there waiting too. Knight “didn’t deny” the draft happened, according to Tim Garl, the IU basketball trainer who served in that same role for Team USA. “But he said, ‘Hey, you need to do the Olympic thing first. We have a job to do.’”
When it came down to the final cut, Alford did not have to sit in a chair and wait for names to be called. Knight told him, and told him he earned it. Predictably, there was an outcry that an Indiana player had been picked by the Indiana coach. Knight responded just as predictably.
“We had twenty coaches who voted unanimously to keep him on the team,” Knight said. “What am I supposed to do, keep him off because he played at Indiana?”
Alford felt no resentment from teammates. Knight yelled at him too often for that to happen. Alford and Tisdale were the most frequent targets of Knight’s invectives.
Before heading to Los Angeles, the Olympic team went 7–0 on an exhibition tour against NBA players. The Olympians averaged 103.6 points a game and weren’t challenged against out-of-shape, out-of-season pros.
One exhibition, on June 20, was played against a team of former Indiana greats: Ted Kitchel, Isiah Thomas, Kent Benson, Tom and Dick Van Arsdale, Randy Wittman, Mike Woodson, and 1976 gold medalists Quinn Buckner and Scott May. Team USA won 124–89.
Patriotic and Indiana fervor were underscored in a July 9 game against NBA stars, which drew 67,596 fans—then the most ever to witness a basketball game— to the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis. The NBA team included Thomas, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Kevin McHale. Team USA won that one 97–82.
The Olympic team practiced in San Diego for two weeks before heading to Los Angeles. There were team-building activities such as trips to the San Diego Zoo and a Padres baseball game, and Alford said some players slipped away for some “cheap thrills” in Tijuana, Mexico. Players took a bus trip to a JCPenney warehouse, where they were issued credentials, outfitted for uniforms, and allowed to stuff as much Olympics swag into a shopping cart as they could: T-shirts, jackets, caps, bags, sweats, shoes, pins, mugs, posters, and so forth.
It would be no exaggeration to assert the Americans won the gold medal not by what they did in Los Angeles but by what they did in Bloomington, San Diego, and elsewhere. Alford said they had the best player on the planet, Michael Jordan, and the best coach on the planet, Bob Knight. Give Knight time to prepare for an opponent, Alford said, and “he was almost unbeatable.” And Knight had all summer.
“We had a phenomenal leader in Jordan,” Alford said. “He’s as good as it got. . . .
It was a phenomenal team that couldn’t help but get better. Those guys really did get better and better during that time.”
In Los Angeles, players stayed in the Olympic Village on the University of Southern California campus. The team rode on the same bus with athletes such as gymnast Mary Lou Retton and boxer Pernell Whitaker. Alford met sprinter Carl Lewis and diver Greg Louganis. Alford said the experience gave him a lifelong appreciation of athletes from other sports.
“We were a part of the Olympics,” he said. “We weren’t the Olympics.”
Team USA swept through group play with a 5–0 record, beating China 97–49, Canada 89–68, Uruguay 104–68, France 120–62, and Spain 101–68. Alford came off the bench to score thirteen points against Canada on six-of-eight shooting. Against Uruguay, the Americans once made fifteen consecutive shots.
Alford was taking antibiotics for a staph infection before the game against France, but it was not evident. In twenty-three minutes, he shot eight of eight from the field and two of two on free throws for eighteen points. For years, he has teased his basketball-playing children about it.
“Anytime France comes up, whether it is in french fries or anything to do with France, I tell them, ‘That country can’t get over me. I shot that country out. I was eight for eight.’”
His shooting in the quarterfinal was more consequential, considering he led the Americans with seventeen points in a 78–67 victory over West Germany. It was their closest game of the Olympics.
Knight was so vexed that he did not allow players to address the media afterward. He surprisingly pulled Alford aside to ask what was wrong with the team. Alford said he “took a deep breath” and responded that players were not paying attention to their notebooks during pregame. At Indiana, Alford said, players studied information Knight asked them to write down.
“You know, Steve, if you’re not with us tonight, we probably don’t win,” Knight said, according to Alford’s autobiography.
Alford could not respond. His coach had never paid him such a compliment.
At practice the next day, Knight said players would study those notebooks or would not play. No exceptions.
Mullin scored twenty points in a 78–59 victory over Canada, setting up what Knight and the twelve American players had focused on since mid-April: the goldmedal game. They would face Spain, a team they had already beaten by thirty-three points, at the Forum in Inglewood.
The Americans needed no more preparation, explanation, or motivation. After Knight stepped out into the hall for final consultation with assistant coaches, Jordan went to the whiteboard, picked up a marker, wrote a message, and signed it “The Players.” He wrote: “COACH: DON’T WORRY. WE’VE PUT UP WITH TOO MUCH SHIT TO LOSE NOW.”
Knight returned, started to speak, and saw Jordan’s message. He smiled, looked at each player individually, and said, “Let’s go play.”
Knight told the other coaches the game against Spain would be over in ten minutes. It was. Alford started for Team USA.
By halftime, amid chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” the score was 52–29. In a 96–65 victory, Jordan scored twenty points, Tisdale fourteen, and Perkins twelve. Alford added ten points and seven assists.
Spectators stormed the court. Alford was hoisted up and handed a pair of scissors to cut the net; he then handed them to a teammate. Players were going to lift Knight on their shoulders, but he pointed to eighty-year-old Henry Iba, who had been a consultant. Knight wanted to honor Iba, who was coach for the US team that controversially lost the gold-medal game to the Soviet Union at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Witnesses said Knight might have shed a tear for the coach he respected above all others. After players put Iba down, they carried Knight off the floor to chants of “Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!”
Of all the days, weeks, and months of his journey, the Olympic moment Alford remembers best is of standing on top of the podium and hearing the national anthem. He said he gained a better appreciation of the entire experience as the years passed.
“The thing I watch the most in each Olympics since is the playing of the national anthem when you’re on the gold-medal stand,” he said.
He did not see any other sports while at the Olympics, and that wasn’t really the point anyway. That was reiterated regularly by Knight.
“He