00:00Candice Parker, one of the best women's basketball players in the history of
00:04basketball, in her prime in 2016, was left off the 2016 Olympic team. Why?
00:11Oh, hi Gina or Emma. What are you doing here? This episode of Beef History is
00:17presented by Sam Adams American Light, the most premium light beer. Candice Parker
00:24was supposed to be on Team USA in 2016. Look at her trophy case. I don't think
00:30they do a trophy for league assist leader, but let's just imagine they do.
00:33And what's that over there? Just the medals she's racked up with USA
00:38basketball. And six months before she was rejected by Team USA, she played really
00:44well for Team USA during a four-game Euro tour. Okay, okay, small asterisk. This was
00:49during the 2015 finals, so nobody from the finals teams was on this tour, but
00:53still. Parker was 30 going into the 2016 Olympics, and she did miss the first half
00:59of the 2015 WNBA season with an injury, but she was fine when she returned. And
01:05fine in Candice Parker terms is 19 points and 10 rebounds a game. She was
01:10the finals MVP months after the Olympics, which is after, yes, but I bring it up to
01:15emphasize that she was still quite good at age 30. According to her own account,
01:20Parker did well at the Olympic team camp. I got a triple-double at the camp,
01:24was I think first or second in scoring. And when I say she was supposed to be on
01:30the team, it's not really a matter of opinion or numbers. She was literally
01:34supposed to be on the team. She was one of four players at the Team USA media
01:39summit in March. She had portraits taken in the uniform, and she shot commercials
01:44promoting the Olympics and USA basketball. So when she was left off the
01:49roster, it was a shock, nearly impossible to make sense of. Though people tried.
01:54Maybe it was because Nike is a huge Team USA sponsor and she's with Adidas. Maybe
02:00it was because she was planning on getting pregnant and worried about the
02:04Zika virus in Rio, Brazil. Or maybe it was because of the coach. Gino Auriemma, of
02:11UConn Husky fame and success and complete dominance, did these numbers
02:16even convey it properly? Like, in 2016, Connecticut beat opponents by an average
02:22of 40 points. I know, that's more numbers. All right, how about this? UConn is so
02:27good, people think it might actually be bad for the sport. I don't totally get
02:32that myself, but it speaks to the extreme, unprecedented power of this powerhouse.
02:37In other words, Gino is a really good coach. He has faults. He can be a bit...
02:43We'll go with outspoken. There are always a lot of UConn alums on Team USA. Take a
02:50look at the 2012 roster. So the team can look a little bit like a Connecticut
02:55clique, and maybe that's on Auriemma, but it also kind of makes sense that the
03:00school with these stats churns out world-class players. Oh, one thing we
03:05should mention about the college coach extraordinaire, he was not Candace
03:08Parker's college coach. Parker was the top-rated recruit in 2004, predicted to
03:13change the game. She had a column for the Chicago Tribune detailing her senior
03:18high school season. She won the McDonald's All-American Dunk Contest. She
03:22could have played for any school she wanted. She considered UConn, but that's
03:27as far as it got. Live on ESPN, young Parker announced her pick, the University
03:32of Tennessee, UConn, and Gino Auriemma's greatest rival. Because while UConn is
03:38so great, Tennessee is not that far behind them. The schools have competed
03:42for a national title four times, met in the Final Four twice, and the Elite Eight
03:47once. The majority of the time, UConn came out on top. But while Candace Parker was
03:52in college, UConn won no titles. Tennessee won two. Guess who was the most
03:58outstanding player both times? And while Tennessee versus Connecticut started out
04:03as a rivalry, simply the best teams playing each other for a good-spirited
04:07challenge, it got personal and nasty and turned to beef between Gino and
04:12Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, which my esteemed colleague has covered in depth.
04:16And the beef just so happened to be at its beefiest while Parker was starring
04:21in Knoxville. In fact, Parker's sophomore year, Pat Summitt ended the school's
04:25regular season series that had been going on for more than a decade. In the
04:29last game they played against each other until 2020, Parker humiliated UConn on
04:35their home court. She beat them, yeah, snapping their perfect 12-0 start. And
04:39she also twisted the knife a little. And postgame she was like, twisting the knife
04:44is kind of fun. Whee! So perhaps Gino has a preference for UConn players and a
04:50distaste for the human representation of Tennessee's success. Could that
04:55preference-distaste combo be so strong that he kept Parker off the Olympic team?
05:00That's essentially what Candice Parker said in an interview in 2021.
05:05Why do you think he did not want Candice Parker on the team? I mean, we, he doesn't
05:09like me, I don't like, I mean, we don't like each other. She wasn't the only one,
05:12nor the first, to state this theory. As soon as the news broke that Candice
05:16would not be going to Rio, people were convinced Gino kept her off the team.
05:21Especially Tennessee fans, who showed just a hint of bias. USA Basketball
05:27didn't help curb speculation when they refused to say why the superstar was cut.
05:31Though they tried to take the heat off Gino. It's a committee decision, the
05:35coach is not part of the committee. But even the Connecticut press had to admit
05:39a guy like Ariema is gonna have a lot of influence, whether he's on a committee or
05:44not. How much influence is the debate? The Connecticut press wouldn't cede that
05:48Gino had total say, but some in the national press believed he did. And when
05:55the most recent bell of the UConn ball, Breonna Stewart, was added to the Olympic
05:59team in Parker's place, speculation intensified. Gino said Stewart was added
06:05because she was the future of women's basketball. She definitely was, and it
06:09makes sense to have some younger players on the team to get experience and learn
06:13from the vets and prepare for the future. But is that only true of Candice Parker's
06:19position? For Rio, Team USA's point guards were both in their mid-30s. Why not
06:24build a foundation for the future in that position? And I don't want to take
06:28anything away from Sue Bird, because she's obviously great and Olympic gold
06:33caliber at 35 and at 39, and also she's cool and I want her to like me. But the
06:40fact that she's a UConn alum, well, those who believe there was a bias saw one
06:45there. From within women's basketball, not a lot of people spoke out, which ESPN
06:50attributed to the power of USA basketball. Yet leaving Parker off the
06:55roster was so egregious, there were some comments. Kelsey Bone of the Connecticut
06:59Sun kept it vague, but we know what she was saying. The recently retired Notre
07:04Dame coach Muffet McGraw backed up Parker's claims completely. She actually
07:08went further, saying even within Team USA, Gino treats UConn players better. But it
07:14should be noted she had a bit of beef with Oriyama herself, as evidenced by his
07:19response. Now, there are plenty of people who do not think Gino pushed Parker out.
07:23They point to the fact that Oriyama was the Olympic coach in 2012, and he didn't
07:28cut Parker from the team then. And at first blush, yeah, that's a good point. But
07:33let's look a little deeper. As early as 2009, eight players were simply appointed
07:39to the 2012 Olympic team by USA basketball. The eight were basically
07:43everyone who'd won a gold medal the year before in the Beijing Olympics and was
07:48still in their prime, or under 35. That group included Candice Parker. Also, Gino
07:53was new. He was announced as coach just a few months before those eight players
07:57were appointed to the team. He might have had less influence as a new hire. Whereas
08:02in 2016, he was a gold medal winning coach, and he could, in theory, have more
08:07influence over the committee. On the Husky message board, someone claims Gino
08:11said as much, but I don't think message boards are admissible in court. And
08:14having more influence doesn't mean he got Parker cut. Let's look at something
08:19more tangible. Had Candice and Gino get along in those 2012 London Olympics? They
08:24won gold, so I assume everything was... Oh, Gino took away her starting spot early,
08:31before the end of the group stage, when they were crushing everyone, sometimes by
08:35as much as 40 points. In her place, Oriyama started former Connecticut
08:40player Maya Moore, who is really good. No disrespect to Maya Moore. But she was
08:45young in 2012, just in the middle of her second WNBA season. And it's not like
08:50Parker was doing badly. Even coming off the bench, she led the team in rebounds
08:55and blocks and was third in scoring. In the gold medal game against France, she
08:59was the difference maker. France was down just three points in the second quarter,
09:04and Parker came off the bench to put an end to that. Postgame, Gino was full of
09:09praise for her. He was a little mean about her less good semifinals
09:14performance. But that's Gino. He's outspoken. And hey, given the coach's
09:19penchant for being kind of mean in the press, he probably had a lot to say about
09:24Parker being left off the 2016 roster, right? No, actually. When asked if he was
09:29surprised at a Rio press conference, he replied yes and no, and kind of dodged
09:35the question. It was a very diplomatic answer from a guy who has maybe never
09:40been described as diplomatic in his life. But surely he had something to say in
09:45response to Parker directly blaming him for her exclusion in that 2021 interview.
09:50Like, I knew as soon as he was named the coach again, I was like, oh well, this is gonna be interesting.
09:56Nope. No comment. How uncharacteristic. Maybe if what Parker is alleging is true,
10:04he doesn't need to say anything. And in fact, it would just make USA Basketball
10:08look really, really bad if he does. And USA Basketball is a powerful force who
10:14he probably doesn't want to piss off for the sake of all his UConn players who
10:18want to go to the Olympics in the future. Am I veering into speculation land?
10:22While we're here, might be worth considering that Ariema didn't make a comment because
10:26Pat Summitt, who he'd long ago made up with, passed away about a month before
10:30the Olympics. Not really the time to be snarky. But whatever the reason, his
10:35silence can't point to guilt. That's the Fifth Amendment for you. We don't know if
10:39Gino actually pushed Parker off the team. We don't know if he has beef with her.
10:44He could like her even. He hasn't said one way or another. But what we do know is
10:48that Candice Parker absolutely has beef with Gino Ariema. It wasn't just that she
10:54didn't get to go to the Rio Olympics, it's also that her exclusion was done in
10:58such a shitty way. Traveling to camps, to media summits, taking promo pics, shooting
11:03commercials, that was all a waste of time. Parker's a mom. She had to be away from
11:07her daughter to do all that stuff. And she resents that. Who wouldn't? In 2017,
11:13USA Basketball invited her to training camp for a chance to make the team again.
11:17She declined. Gino wasn't the coach anymore, but that didn't matter. The
11:22relationship had been severed permanently. Didn't matter who did the
11:25severing. This isn't the kind of beef with a lot of petty back-and-forth. This
11:29might not even be a beef with two sides. But because it's defined by something so
11:35big, you get a pretty substantial meal anyway.
11:46Thanks for watching everybody. We've got more videos I think you'd like. Check us
11:51out on Patreon. And for Secret Base, I'm Clara Morris. Good night and good game.
