Ron Judd / Times staff columnist
Women hoopsters painting Greece red, white and blue

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ATHENS — At some of the Olympic venues, they warm up the crowd with a bit of Euro-pop music.

Down at Helliniko, they ought to just go straight to some old-time American rock 'n roll:

American woman, stay away from me...

It's the tune the rest of the world is singing this week by the Athens seashore, where American women basketball and softball players have been flawless in Olympic competition.

They play, literally, across the street from one another at Helliniko, where combined, they are 8-0 in the Olympics, undefeated on their own block. The softball team has scored 31 runs and given up none. The basketball team has yet to be tested.

This seaside cluster of sport venues is hosting national teams from dozens of nations. But for the first week of the Games, it has been the personal playground for women of the red, white and blue.

One of them, listed in official Olympic programs as "Bird, Suzanne," is standing in the tunnel beneath the basketball hall yesterday, tossing three assorted Skittles in her hand, rehashing her team's latest win.

"We're still getting used to each other," Sue Bird says, explaining why it took the U.S. women's basketball team an hour or so to get up the inevitable momentum to put away South Korea, 80-57, for the team's third Olympic win.

"We're probably the most talented team out there," she continues. "But that doesn't mean we're going to blow everybody out in the first half. That's only 20 minutes of basketball. Anything can happen."

As Bird's counterparts on the U.S. male squad can well attest.
 
No such choke here for the women, who went into the locker room up by only seven to a talented Korean team, only to get the usual talking-to by coach Van Chancellor.

"I wrote on the board: One for 11 on the three ball, 12 for 19 inside!" Chancellor shouts in his postgame Southern drawl. He asked the team: "Whaddya'll think we oughta do?"

They went inside to Lisa Leslie, the veteran force in the paint, the ace-in-the-hole for the Americans. They put on a full-court press. They hit the floor for loose balls. They filled the half-empty Athens gym with the beautiful sound of soles squeaking on hardwood as they worked, worked, worked for defensive position.

The Koreans, just the latest victims, puckered, withered and died.

"Today, we showed what kind of character we had by coming out in the third quarter and just taking it to them," Bird says. "You know — the first five minutes, that was it. The game was over."

Just about when it ended — figuratively, not literally, the U.S. men's squad made an appearance in one end zone.

A nice gesture, says Leslie.

"It was great they came over," she said. "Maybe they can learn a little from us — you know, moving the ball around. And we learn a lot from them, too — a lot of things that we shouldn't do."

She was kidding — sort of. But her quip said a lot about the different way the men's and women's teams have handled Olympic pressure and international competition.

"If you look at our core — Lisa, Sheryl (Swoopes) and Dawn (Staley), they've played in like three or four Olympics," notes 24-year-old Ruth Riley, the 6-foot-5 Detroit Shock center who serves as Leslie's understudy.

"That's irreplaceable. Nothing against the guys, and not to say they're not talented players. But we've had people who've made commitments for 10 to 12 years to be part of USA Basketball. When you do that, you put a lot of sacrifices out there."

Sacrifice. The best male players in America weren't willing to make one, at least for the Olympics. These women have, and so has their fledgling league, the WNBA, which takes a big fan-base gamble cutting a full month out of its season for Olympic play.

Most members of the men's team haven't been committed to USA Basketball, the organization that fields American entries for international play, for 10 or 12 weeks, let alone years.

For America's Olympic hoops fans, that's what makes the women's game so much more rewarding to watch. There's no cringe factor here: The players want to win. For them, it is the ultimate honor.

Nobody expects a cakewalk to gold. For the hoops squad, the early-round, get-to-know-each-other games are just about over.

It's still early in the tournament, but next up tomorrow is Spain, with high-scoring Amaya Valdemoro, formerly of the Houston Comets.

They try not to look past anyone, Bird says. "It's tough out there."

Tough is what they like. Tough is fun. You can read it on players' faces and in their body language: They're loving every second of the 28th Summer Games.

The bench is a cheer section. Players pick each other up, laugh at their mistakes, and, more often than not, enter and leave a game smiling.

They have veteran leadership, youthful exuberance, untapped resolve. They have depth. Bird was 0 for 7 from the field last night and the team never hiccuped.

They have one more, beautiful, gold-medal ingredient — perspective.

Are they really enjoying these Games as much as they seem to be?

"Yeah," Bird says. "Basketball is fun. When you're playing it with the best people in the world, how can it not be?"

A lot of men say they're just happy to be here. The American women at Helliniko really are.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at rjudd@seattletimes.com.