Edwards Shooting for Fourth Olympic Gold

Teresa Edwards once said she took up basketball because it was the only sport in which she could go against the boys and beat them.

So here she is now, a month before her 36th birthday, and guess what? She’s still running with the guys.

Edwards’ daily pickup games in an Atlanta gym are the only competition she’s getting these days as she prepares to join an elite group. Later this summer, she’ll become a five-time Olympian, a distinction held by just 16 U.S. athletes.

Even fewer Americans competed in five Olympics. Six of those who have been on at least five Olympic teams were members of the 1980 squad, which never made it to Moscow. Another was an alternate one year and did not compete.

To those guys in the gym, the three-time gold medalist is just another player. When you have to win to stay on the court, you don’t all of a sudden start thinking about how many times someone has gone to the Olympics.

That suits Edwards just fine. Unless prodded, she doesn’t think about it, either.

“To think like that, about a fifth Olympics, is to be comfortable about being there. I’ve never been that type of athlete,” Edwards said.

“I don’t gloat in the fact it’s my fifth. I’m proud that I’ve been able to do something of this magnitude, but it hasn’t been done yet. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I love to win. I’m staying focused on that and don’t have time for anything else.”

Edwards is the only member of the U.S. women’s basketball team not playing in the WNBA this summer. She had discussions with the league this spring but could not agree to terms.

That left Edwards to work out in pickup games until the team gets back together in August. There’s nobody to push her but herself. With Edwards, that’s enough.

“The bottom line is this,” said Georgia’s Andy Landers, who was Edwards’ college coach. “Teresa Edwards is the greatest competitor that’s ever laced on a pair of high tops. That was something she brought to the table as a young player. We didn’t teach Teresa how to compete. I don’t care what it is, she wants to win.”

Edwards works out daily under a personal trainer -- running, lifting weights and exercising. Then she heads to the gym.

“We run full court,” she said. “At the end of the day, I’m exhausted. It’s probably harder on me than if I was just playing games” in the WNBA.

While the other national team members play in fancy arenas filled with cheering crowds, Edwards tries to keep sharp with far less glitz. Like any pickup games, there are spats over the score, some trash talking and a little hot-dogging.

But the competition is keen and the talent level high. Some of the regulars played in the NBA. Others played professionally overseas.

“I’ve got a pretty good gym,” Edwards said. “These guys like to win. They learn the magic is to share the ball. We play on two courts, first team to 10 wins. It just keeps rolling until I feel satisfied or exhausted.”

So which comes first?

“Exhausted,” Edwards said with a laugh.

Edwards, lean yet strong at 5-feet-11, endures her daily regimen because basketball is still her life and she hasn’t yet thought of anything she wants to do more.

“She learned early on her body was her office, her place of business,” U.S. coach Nell Fortner said. “She knew she had to take care of it. She understands she has to stay in shape year-round and she knew that at a very early point

“Teresa is doing things right now that 18- to 20-year-old kids do. She knows what it takes and understands what kind of shape she has to be in to succeed.”

And oh, does she love to succeed.

Landers remembers how Edwards would get upset when she’d lose at the card game “Old Maid” on road trips. “She’d lose a couple of hands and she was finished. And not happy about it,” he said.

Edwards spent many of her best basketball years overseas, out of sight from U.S. fans, then was a dominant player in the short-lived American Basketball League. In a 1997 game, Edwards scored 46 points, a figure that has never been topped in a women’s U.S. pro game.

She was just 20 when an Olympic gold medal was first draped around her neck in 1984. Edwards also helped the United States win the gold in 1988 and 1996 and the bronze in 1992.

“It seems like she’s older than she is because she’s been playing so long,” said U.S. teammate Ruthie Bolton-Holifield, a guard for the WNBA’s Sacramento Monarchs. “But she’s only three years older than me. Thirty-six is not crazy. To me, she’s got some more years left in her.”

Edwards plays with a stone-faced determination that makes no allowances for excuses or loafing. Or smiling. Basketball is all business for Edwards.

“When I first played with her, I didn’t know her and I thought she was mean,” Bolton-Holifield said. “I had a lot of people say she’s so serious, but she is a sweetheart. Off the court she’ll just laugh and giggle. She has this really unique laugh. You can hear it out of a group of a hundred people.”

But enough on the frivolity. Edwards has some games to play. The guys, after all, are waiting.