Charitable Gift Giving

For the last few weeks, we’ve been highlighting great Olympics souvenirs where proceeds go to support the athletes of the US Olympic Team.

Today is the second-to-last day of the Olympics, and of course, it’s showtime for our USA Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams. This morning, the Men’s team advanced to the Gold Medal final with a win over Argentina, and tonight (tomorrow morning in Beijing), the women play for the gold medal against Australia.

For all the ups and downs they face in the press here in the US, LeBron and Kobe and the rest of Team USA really did their country proud. They were not just participants but also fans, going to the different venues and cheering on fellow USA athletes. Kobe in particular had a public relations coup, being shown mobbed by thousands of adoring Chinese fans and taking it all in stride, being seen speaking fluent Italian to Italian athletes and media (he grew up in Italy when his dad played professional ball there), and even being filmed in the Olympic village eating French Fries with the other athletes.

And their play showed the same kind of level-headedness and selflessness. When they were flagrantly fouled, they didn’t lash back at the other players (despite attempts to incite them by some of the players). They didn’t hog the ball. They didn’t showboat. They showed real sportsmanship and teamwork.

Regardless of the medal count, the real victory of the Olympics is when the athletes show class and unselfish teamwork in their accomplishments.

Celebrate Team USA by wearing their official jerseys–it’s your last chance to get these official basketball jerseys. The US Olympic Shop is quickly selling out of them, but you can still get a LeBron James home and away jersey and a Kobe Bryant home and away jersey as they’re wearing in the 2008 Olympics.

Here’s an interesting bit of trivia. Do you notice that the letters of the backs of the jerseys are hard to read? The white jersey has white lettering, and the blue jersey has blue lettering.

This was actually done on purpose. Team USA Basketball designed these jerseys this way to drive home the point to the players that their focus should be on the team, and not on any of their individual fame or accomplishments. This is why the “USA” is in bright, clear lettering, and their names are harder to read. It looks like Team USA got the message.

Cheer on Team USA and check back here each day to track their progress on this official medal count widget.