Columnist Steve Carp: Here’s a team that’s worth rooting for

Steve Carp

Tuesday, July 28, 1998 | 11:26 a.m.

YOU MAY FIND this hard to believe, but there's a group of basketball players in the United States that actually puts money second to representing their country.

Show us, you say?

Don't need to. You can see for yourself Wednesday when, oh, wait a minute, NBC decided not to show the Basketball World Championships. I forgot. When the spoiled-brat NBA players were locked out by the poverty-crying owners, the superstars decided they'd teach everyone a lesson by boycotting the Worlds. And NBC, the NBA's butt-boy, opted not to show a team of CBA chumps and collegians.

But just because NBC is ignoring our team doesn't mean you should. In fact, you should get behind these guys. Because they're willing to represent you and me on the basketball court. They're not driven by greed, only by honor to wear the red, white and blue.

When USA Basketball put out the call a few weeks ago, guys like former Nevada-Reno star David Wood responded. So did Jimmy King, who you may remember as one of Michigan's Fab Five. Ditto Kiwane Garris who played at Illinois, Wendell Alexis, who once played at Syracuse and Trajan Langdon of Duke.

Granted, they're not household names. There's not a sneaker or soft drink commercial among them. But they've committed themselves to giving their best for their country and that's good enough.

Can they win? Who knows? Nobody thought the college kids Clem Haskins brought to the Goodwill Games last week would medal, and they only took home the gold. Maybe this hodgepodge unit put together by Rudy Tomjanovich will find a way to defy the odds and get the job done in Greece over the next 12 days.

Win or lose, it's a group of guys worth pulling for. Maybe the Basketball World Championships aren't as big a deal as the Olympics. But when you're on the international stage, you want to put your best foot forward.

In our case, we've switched shoes, going from Air Jordans to P.F. Flyers. But the beauty of it is this is the way it used to be, back in the days when P.F. Flyers were popular. We didn't always send our NBA stars to these international tournaments. We'd send our best amateurs and they would get the job done.

Then came the 1988 Olympics and we found that our college kids were no longer good enough. There was no gold medal and that ticked everyone off. So to teach the world a lesson, we sent Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson over to Spain to kick the living bejeezus out of everyone, and remind everyone just who was boss.

Now, because the NBA owners want to balance the ledger back in their favor, the players decided to teach them a lesson by snubbing their country.

Fine. Go ahead and play your petty games. Who needs you? If it means rooting for Ashraf Amaya, Jason Sasser and Brad Miller, so be it.

May the gold be yours. And when you get back home, put it in the faces of those spoiled-brat NBAers. While you're at it, go by Rockefeller Plaza and put it in the smug mugs of those moronic NBC executives who didn't think you were worth showing on prime time.