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Everybody knows that Kobe Bryant and LeBron James are on the U.S. Men's Senior National Team about to compete in the Beijing Olympics, but did anybody expect that Marvin Gaye would be a surprise member of USA Basketball this summer?
Before Saturday's practice began at the Thomas & Mack Center's Cox Pavilion, head coach Mike Krzyzewski gathered his team around a TV showing Gaye singing The Star-Spangled Banner at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game.
Lon Rosen, the Los Angeles Lakers' director of promotions when L.A. hosted the '83 All-Star Game, told National Public Radio in 2003 that he thought Gaye "took the anthem to a new level" that night.
Now, 25 years after Gaye wowed the crowd with his rendition of Francis Scott Key's masterpiece and eight years after U.S.A. Basketball last won an Olympic Gold Medal in Sydney, Krzyzewski is using the song as a motivational tool, hoping the U.S. can return to the level it once occupied of being known for having the best hoops players in the world.
"What we try to do is have people visualize moments that they may be in," Krzyzewski said. "One of the great moments of playing for the United States is when you're across the court before a ballgame and you're in this Olympiad and the national anthem is being played and instead of having a fight song or whatever, that's our song.
"Today I wanted them to envision the gold medal game. It's August 24 and they're out on the court, and I get chills thinking about it right now, our anthem will be played and if we do what we're supposed to do, they'll get that vision of being on that gold medal stand and again our national anthem will be played, and one of the greatest renditions of it was Marvin Gaye's."
