THE SEOUL GAMES / DAY 13 : Donovan Gives Team a Lift When It Counts

It’s rare that the Olympics offer such an opportunity for redemption. But the women’s basketball championship served it up for the U.S. team in general and Anne Donovan in particular. Sometimes you do get back into the game; sometimes you wear the gold after all.

Donovan, 26, a kind of centerpiece in women’s basketball history, seemed not to have aged well during these Olympics. She was an article of nostalgia, a remembrance of the game’s beginnings. A three-time Olympian, a holdover from the time when a tall player was a good player, she had lately suffered, admiring the transition from size to quickness from a courtside seat. It appeared that her time had come and gone.

And then, when she “had my hands on the bench and my warm-ups off,” she finally got the call. And 6-foot 8-inch Anne Donovan, whose slump had begun “the day I stepped foot in Seoul,” entered a game Thursday that the U.S. team was losing, 32-30, to Yugoslavia, whose two centers had combined for 13 points. Why not Anne Donovan, except that her game had fallen apart and she hadn’t started since the second game of the tournament.

In between the time she hit her first jumper and the first half ended, the Americans had outscored the Yugoslavs, 12-4, and the U.S. team had a 42-36 lead that would never be threatened.

“Now, that, was a lift,” said Suzie McConnell.

The U.S. team went on to a 77-70 victory and the team gold medal, avenging the men’s gold-medal loss of the night before. But neither Donovan’s teammates nor her coach had forgotten her personal struggle during these Games.

“We’re talking about talent but here’s someone who lost her starting position, but not her character,” Coach Kay Yow said. “She didn’t start, she didn’t play, and she came off that bench as ready as any starter. That’s a role model. Talent alone won’t give you success.”

For Donovan, this game was important because she is not likely to play for a medal again. In 9 days, she is off to Italy to play professional ball.

“You know, this is it for me,” said Donovan, who finished with 6 points, 3 rebounds and 3 steals after going 1 for 10 and scoring 3 points in the previous 4 games. “To finally see it come to an end, with the gold around my neck. . . . “

She couldn’t finish that thought as well as she had Yugoslavia’s hopes.

A member of the Old Dominion powerhouse that won the 1980 title, a three-time All-American and the 1983 Naismith player of the year, she had been accustomed to playing time and success. Suddenly she was having neither.

“Every game, I was desperate,” she said. “I wanted to be a big part of this club, to play the best I could play.”

There was no reason to think she’d ever get a chance. But Yugoslavia’s twin towers, Razija Mujanovic and Polona Dornik, were having their way inside early--13 quick points.

Donovan got her chance, hit her first jump shot and said: “Way to go, Annie, just keep it going.” Later, saying she knew right then that her down time was over, she said, “I can’t describe the feeling when an athlete comes out of a slump. There are no words.”

Donovan has been playing amateur basketball since 1977 and has seen the game change dramatically--”better and quicker,” she said-- and has seen her own role diminish year by year. But she got to leave it all behind with a view from the top step of the awards podium.

The U.S. women won, after the men had lost. The U.S. women had beaten the women’s best, after the 1984 Games, when success was comparatively hollow. And Anne Donovan, who had been about to disappear into retirement, bloomed for one last moment, to be remembered with a glint of gold around her neck.