LILLE, France — For the last seven Summer Olympics, Carol Callan has woken up on the morning of the opening ceremonies with a checklist and a hypothetical fire extinguisher. The checklist contained everything that could conceivably go awry: missing shoelaces, practice schedules in need of tweaks, backup transit solutions, alternate uniforms being packed in the off-chance that Team USA’s opponents showed up in the wrong gear. Every metaphorical pothole that could exist between that moment and a gold medal was already foreseen (and pre-fixed) by Callan, who from 1996 through the Tokyo Games in 2021 was the director of the women’s program for USA Basketball.
But Friday, the day of the opening ceremonies, Callan awoke in Paris following a red-eye flight from the States. There was no checklist or fire extinguisher. No shoelaces stored away. No file of phone numbers for backup transit solutions available in Paris. After helping Team USA to its seventh consecutive gold medal in Tokyo, she stepped away to join FIBA full-time.
Though her role is adjacent and continues the growth of basketball worldwide and, specifically, for women in the game, it is much different now. And as the Games kick off and Team USA goes for its eighth gold medal in the streak — its first without Callan…
