In fact, the players, led by Tom McMillen, who after his basketball career went on to serve in Congress, have lent their support to a grass-roots movement to try to convince the IOC to retroactively award the American team duplicate gold medals. A precedent for such a move was set for the Canadian pairs figure skaters at the Winter Games in Salt Lake City after a scandal committed by an Olympic judge was determined to have deprived them of their rightful gold.
For the Soviets, their basketball victory in quickly took on a mystical and spiritual air. A woman who was the Soviets' "house mother," helping to cook and clean for the team, began to share her Christian beliefs with the Soviet players. Mostly they nodded and were polite; the Soviet government was infamous for persecuting Christians as well as Jews.
On the night before the gold medal game, however, the Soviets' house mother preached the Gospel to the players, beseeching them to believe. One player thanked her and said, "I will believe in your God if you will pray for us to win the gold medal. After the Soviets won the gold medal game, this same player returned to the house and said that now that the Games were over and his team had triumphed, he believed in God and accepted Jesus as his savior.
His name? Aleksandr Belov. Belov died just six years later. In death, Belov is still an Olympic gold medal winner. In life, 40 years later, the Americans still believe they won the game, and they still want their own gold medals. Four decades later, they are still three seconds from gold. Check out the video below for footage of the controversial call in the basketball final. The interviews are in English and the narration is in German.
Main Menu U. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Taps Gallagher, Contributor. Suggest a correction. What's Hot. As the 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 All of this changed on the morning of September 10, 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. 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 , 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. Iba led the U. Bill Wall was a member of the committee that selected the U. One player who was conspicuous by his absence from the U. 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. 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. Klay Thompson had a very Klay-like reaction to not getting the ball on an open-look in transition. Should the Broncos interview any of these coaches? Djokovic faces deportation three days before the start of the Australian Open.
The 49ers are underdogs against the Dallas Cowboys, but former S. Read full article. July 10, , AM. Recommended Stories. The Independent.
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