Basketball Hall of Fame Part 7

 This installment on my series about the my visit to the Basketball Hall of Fame covers the Olympics. As you may know from previous posts, I'm a HUGE Olympic fan, and at the Hall of Fame I saw genuine Olympic gold medals for the first time in my life! This is a smaller post, but I feel the Olympic medals were special enough that they deserved a spotlight of their own.

here are gold medals from the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, won by Yolanda Griffith, and also her 2005 WNBA Championship ring behind them

A better shot of the medals but not as good with the ring

A Gold medal from the Dream Team! Probably the most important basketball team of all time, it's not hyperbole to say that the Dream Team led to way to basketball becoming the second most popular sport in the world. Former NBA Rookie of the Year and Champion Pau Gasol specifically said watching the dream team (he was in the audience) led him to pursue the NBA, and it's the turning point where Europe really stepped up it's game. 

Cheryl Miller's jersey from the 1984 Olympics...I didn't see any of those Olympics, they happened 2 months before I was born. 

But seeing the medal is still pretty darn amazing! Since the photos uploaded in reverse order for some reason, this is actually the first Olympic medal I ever saw in person. 

I'm not sure who this jersey belongs to. 

This design...this is the best USA Basketball design ever in my opinion! It's from 1996, which is both the year I got into basketball and also the year I became an Olympic superfan. While I had watched some in 1988 and 1992, it wasn't until 1996 where it became a stop-everything-to-watch event as it has been ever since. This jersey belongs to Teresa Edwards. 
here's a card showing her wearing it from 1996 Upper Deck USA. 

This is Pat Summitt's jersey from 1976, the first year that the Olympics had women's basketball as a sport.

This jersey was worn by Bob Kurland in the 1948 Olympics! 

This jersey was worn by Francis Johnson at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. While basketball may not have been the big story at the 1936 Olympics, it is the first Games to be filmed in full. Even more important- it was the first Olympic basektball ever! Jaimes Naismith himself presented the gold medals to the US team. Wow. 

This sweatshirt was one of few artifacts that was not labeled.

A basketball signed by all the players from the US Olympic trials at Madison Square Garden in 1936...this is not the current MSG, the one I visited. The trials were held at the third Madison Square Garden, which was in use from 1925-1967. 

While this wasn't a particularly large post, the historical significance and personal significance (of seeing an Olympic medal for the first time in my life) is very high.