By Clay Kallam
Publisher
Slim, cool and elegantly talented, Teresa Edwards is prepared for her record-setting fourth Olympic Games. But she 's not going to offer her tammates any pointers.
`I don't want to spoil the experience for the younger players,' she says calmly. `Let them find out for themselves.'
And she's not salivating over the introduction of an American professional league -- though she's certainly glad it's finally happened.
`I just want to play a couple of years and then maybe help the league in other ways,' the 31-year-old Edwards says. `Basketball has fed me -- it's my life.'
In the meantime, though, the gold medal beckons, and Edwards will have as much to say about who wins it as anyone. She's made the difficult adjustment from scorer to point guard without missing a beat, leading the team in assists and ranking second in minutes played. She's still shooting over 50 percent from the field, and when she and Sheryl Swoopes get it going in the open court, beautiful things are going to happen.
But even though Edwards makes it look easy now, it took some doing to settle in to her new role. `I'm in a different role playing point guard. I've had to turn my mind around. I've had to mature on the court -- I don't even think about scoring.'
Still she's enjoying the change. `I love it that we have such a fast pace,' says Edwards. `Every other country has to follow us.'
But Edwards has been around too long to think that the American romp through preliminary games counts for much. `Those other teams don't have anything to lose,' she points out with the poise of a nine-year veteran of the international wars. `They have everything to gain.'
`We have to take care of little things,' she says, but this is not a call to arms. It's a quiet summary of the situation, delivered with understated emotion.
Is this the best of the four Olympic teams she's played on? Again, Edwards is cool and reserved. `I don't think you're going to be able to tell until we get to the Olympics.'
And though it's obvious that Edwards would love to win the gold, she has other things on her mind besides August in Atlanta. `We're changing ideas and attitudes,' says Edwards of the American team. `The biggest difference has been traveling around the U.S. and showing people a different level from college basketball.'
That theme is echoed by Edwards' teammates, who uniformly agree that they are much better players than they were in college, and that the game they play is as different from the college one as the NBA is from the NCAA men.
But Edwards is no fiery crusader, who will pound the pulpit and make dramatic speeches. She's a smooth operator, on and off the court -- but if the Americans win the gold, don't look for Miss Cool to be standing on the sidelines. She'll be right there in the middle of the pile.
