2008 "Redeem Team"

This year while Americans watched in almost disbelief as Michael Phelps swam past anything that dared entering the water and single-handedly putting the U.S. gold medal count higher than most of the world, some other American athletes were causally and gracefully charming the shorts of the rest of the world. Kobe Bryant with his roots deep in China and other foreign countries led the U.S. Olympic Basketball Team to another gold medal all the while acting professionally and showing the rest of the world that Americans do care about the rest of the world, about how we are viewed and indentified by other cultures. LeBron James, along with Dwayne Wade became visible leaders of this team. Each player embrased their leaders and followed them in terms of symmetry on the court to acting as American embassadors to the rest of the nations present in Bejing. I was proud to watch our superstars act the way they did because it helps change the attitudes we face or had faced with previous teams like the 1992 Dream Team. Charles Barkley's elbowing incident put a scar on our reputation as smug, and possibly thinking we were better than other countries. Kobe, LeBron, and the others are helping to show what I think is a better, more honest vision of what we as Americans really are like, at least those of us who want to be in partnership with other nations across the world. Within the changing global market, in order to be successful Americans must adopt a welcoming environment for sports around the world.