Ready for their closeup: From left, 1960 Olympians Darrall Imhoff, Allen Kelley, Jerry Lucas, Jay Arnette, Walt Bellamy, Adrian Smith, Burdette Haldorson, Bob Boozer, assistant coach Warren Womble, Terry Dischinger, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson after being fitted for their Hall of Fame blazers prior to enshrinement. (Photo courtesy of NBA Entertainment / Getty Images.)

The 1960 US Olympic Men's Basketball Team: An Agent for Change

By JIM O'CONNELL, Associated Press

(From the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame 2010 Enshrinement Program)

The 1960 Summer Olympics were held as the world was changing in so many ways.

The United States was in the midst of a Civil Rights movement that saw the fun decade of the 1950s turn to the socially aware years of the 1960s.

The world was suddenly tense again after years of being able to enjoy a more peaceful time. This time there was a Cold War brewing between the United States and the Soviet Union, a standoff brought to near disastrous results with the downing of a U2 flown by American Francis Gary Powers.

The superpowers were involved in a space race, and one of their leaders took the rivalry to another level when he banged his shoe on the desk at the United Nations.

Africa was a continent in flux as 19 countries declared their independence from colonial rule.

Pop culture was about to change in ways still felt today, five decades later. A four-man musical group called the Beatles was starting to draw notice in Liverpool, England; Hollywood was starting to perfect the art of special effects with the debut of the epic "Ben Hur;" the world of literature welcomed one its classics that year, "To Kill a Mockingbird."

The world was about to change in a way nobody could have ever thought as computers -- some the size of family car -- started to work their way into our daily lives.

Then there was the sports world. The New York Yankees were the kings of baseball, the NFL and NBA were trying to secure their footholds with the American public, and people were still in shock over the United States' gold medal victory over the USSR in hockey, a miracle on ice 20 years before the "Miracle on Ice" between the same countries.

The Rome Olympics were the first to be commercially televised with CBS -- and first-time anchor Jim McKay -- winning the rights for $394,000, a sum now spent on outfits for those covering the Games for a network.

The United States was represented by athletes who would go on to change the world of sports and society in general: Cassius Clay, who would become the world's most recognizable athlete as Muhammad Ali, Wilma Rudolph, Rafer Johnson.

Then there was the U.S. basketball team. At that time it was a collection of players culled from colleges, AAU teams and the Armed Forces. Real basketball fans knew their names then. Even the most casual of basketball fans still know the names of Jerry West and Oscar Robertson now.

Over the years those 12 players went on to become known as the greatest amateur basketball team ever assembled. Until the United States sent the "Dream Team" -- one composed almost entirely of NBA players -- to compete in the 1992 Olympics, the 1960 U.S. team didn't need any qualifiers: It was the greatest array of basketball talent ever assembled.

The process for selecting an Olympic basketball in 1960 was an all-encompassing one for the sport at the time. Seven players from NCAA colleges were chosen (West of West Virginia; Robertson of Cincinnati; Walt Bellamy of Indiana; Darrall Imoff of California; Jerry Lucas of Ohio State; Jay Arnette of Texas; Terry Dischinger of Purdue) and they were joined by four players representing AAU teams (Bob Boozer and Allen Kelley of the Peoria Caterpillars; Burdette Haldorson of the Phillips 66ers; Lester Lane of the Wichita Vickers); and one member of the Armed Forces (Adrian Smith).

"I was surprised to make the team," Arnette said. "Those ballplayers were fantastic. Jerry and Oscar are two of the best guards ever to play in the NBA. They were all-around players. They weren't just scorers and they both could defend as well anybody I ever saw. They were good shooters, passers. They were just all-around ballplayers. I never saw anybody on that team showboat or do any of that stuff. They were always under control."

It was in practice that the team saw its toughest opposition.

"It was a great learning experience for me," Dischinger said. "I tried hard to guard Oscar Robertson every chance I got. We practiced hard and played hard. We had great skills and a great work ethic. We were a team, not an all-star team, a team. We played extremely well and were a well-rounded team. No one person dominated the ball. Everybody was a part of it."

The man charged with making this group a team was Pete Newell, who led California to the national championship in 1959 over West and West Virginia with Robertson and Cincinnati also in that Final Four.

"He was a great person, someone that I admired greatly," West said of Newell. "He had a great way about him. His firmness was probably good for the younger players and the older players respected him. It was so great to get to know him."

Arnette said Newell was "a really good coach for us as far as fundamentals. He was not one of those screaming, hollering coaches, He was a good man. I thought he was a very good coach."

Dischinger credited Newell with defining the group on the court.

"The coach always sets the tone and Coach Newell was known as a great defensive coach and we learned his system and defensively we played really hard," he said. "It is a team game and he told us we were in this together. It was the most enjoyable way to play and we really enjoyed playing with one another."

The team spent time training at West Point and played against some established teams to prepare.

"After a few exhibition games we headed off to Europe for our adventure," West said. "Every day there was the competition to try and find out if you belonged with these guys and then there was the bigger picture of what we were trying to accomplish. There were a lot of things going on and I was a young, awestruck kid. I didn't know what was going on in world issues, some of which have never been resolved. It was an absolutely incredible time in my life to get to play against some of these people and with these teammates to get to know each other. It was more than you could imagine for an unsuspecting kid like most of us were."

Dischinger was the youngest player on the team at 19 years old. Lane, who played at Oklahoma, was the oldest at 28.

"It didn't bother me that I was the youngest," Dischinger said. "I was just enjoying the moment."

West agreed.

"I just think we were really representing our country," he said. "We may have been naive and wet behind the ears and I didn't understand the political process of what was going on in the world. I was wide-eyed. It was my first time out of the country. It was an incredible experience.

"We stopped in Switzerland to play an exhibition game. We came out in our red, white and blue, not like today but we looked pretty good. Then the other team came out in green uniforms that looked like they were issued by the military. Then we took the train through the mountains to Rome and then went to the Olympic Village. It was quite a trip."

The first opponent for the U.S. team had the homecourt advantage and things didn't start out perfectly for the Americans.

"We played Italy in the first game and they scored the first two baskets and we were like 'Oh God,' but they didn't score again for a while," West said with a laugh.

The U.S. team went 8-0 in winning the gold medal. They averaged 101.9 points per game and allowed just 59.5 with an average margin of victory of 42.4 points. The closest anybody came was an 81-57 win over the Soviet Union, a game the U.S. led just 35-28 at halftime but it scored 20 points in the first five minutes of the second half to turn the game into another rout.

Six players scored in double figures in a 112-81 win over Italy in the first game of the final round, and Lucas had 25 points to lead the U.S. team in the 90-63 win over Brazil that sealed the gold medal.

"When they played the national anthem and we were up on that podium and got our gold medals, to represent your country in a foreign country, it brought tears to your eyes," Arnette said. "It was a special moment and it meant a lot in my life after that."

Robertson and Lucas led the team in scoring by averaging 17 points per game. West added 13.8 points per game and Dischinger (11.8) and Smith (10.9) were also in double figures.

This team was more than statistics, no matter how impressive they were.

Nine of the 12 players on the team went on to play in the NBA. Four of them -- Robertson, Lucas, Bellamy and Dischinger -- were NBA Rookies of the Year from 1961 to 1964. West and Robertson went on to become the image of the NBA with West made even more a legend as the league's logo.

"To be candid, it was probably the greatest experience I ever had as an athlete," West said. "To be with a bunch of your peers, whether you were a young guy or one of the older players, made it special and it was a very, very unique experience for me coming from a fairly sheltered life in terms of not being exposed to much except for university life."

Dischinger said the players developed confidence in their time together.

"We knew we were good but we didn't tell everybody," he said. "I think if you ask everybody, when we got to Rome it was a foregone conclusion, in our minds, we were going to win. The rest of the world didn't have the all-around basketball skills they have now but we went out and performed. The thing about us is we were a team. We had those all-around skills, we weren't just a bunch of scoring stars on the court and that's what it is all about. There's no 'I' in team. You hear that all the time but it's true."

There is one stat about this team that has people shaking their head. Brace yourself to be straightened out as we get to the teeth of matter.

After a nine-year NBA career that saw him selected to three All-Star teams, Dischinger, a graduate of Purdue, went to dental school and became an orthodontist in Lake Oswego, Ore., not far from Portland where he ended his playing days.

After two seasons with the Cincinnati Royals, Arnette, a graduate of Texas, went to dental school at his alma mater and became an orthodontist in Austin.

One-sixth of the team considered the best amateur Olympic basketball team ever went on to become orthodontists.

"It is pretty amazing, two orthodontists on the same team," Dischinger said. "Jay and I still communicate about orthodontistry and about our patients. Just something else that made this team special."

Thanks to Jim O'Connell and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame for permission to reprint.

Last update: 9/22/2011