Sunday’s OTL to Examine American WNBA Star Playing on
Russian Olympic Team

Sunday’s Outside the Lines (9:30 a.m. ET ESPN; noon ESPNEWS) will examine how 2007 WNBA MVP runner-up Becky Hammon will achieve her goal of playing in the Olympics, but in a way she never expected.

While the Rapid City, S.D. native says her lifelong dream was to play for her country in the Olympic Games, she says her name was added to USA Basketball’s list of potential Olympic players only as an obligatory gesture when that list was expanded. When she signed a multi-million dollar, four-year contract to play for a Russian club team in the WNBA off-season, she also agreed to take her skills to Beijing on the Russian National team, a decision that has prompted the head coach of Team USA, Anne Donovan, to question her patriotism.

Mark Schwarz reports from Moscow on why an all-American girl from Colorado State University, now a guard with the WNBA’s San Antonio Silver Stars, decided to play for Russia in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

To preview video from Sunday’s Outside the Lines, click the link below:

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3427241

Excerpts from Sunday’s Outside the Lines:

"If you bleed red, white and blue, and you play in this country, live in this country, and you grow up in the heartland and you put on a Russian uniform, you are not a patriotic person in my mind.” -- Donovan, on Hammon playing for the Russian National team

"I’m sure it might be awkward a little bit, at first, but once the ball goes up we’re just playing basketball. I'm going to do what I can do to get my team organized. It’ll be a competition, just what the Olympics are about, it’ll be about competition. And if it comes down to us and the U.S., I’ll be playing to win. And I wouldn’t have made that decision if I couldn’t say that honestly." -- Hammon

”Everyone in the pool has a legitimate shot (to make the Olympic team)…it's up to each person who's invited to decide whether they want to do that or not, and so again, Becky's decision was basically up to her." -- Carol Callan, USA Basketball Assistant Executive Director, on Hammon declining the invitation to Team USA training camp

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