Dream's Meadors named as assistant on USA women's basketball team

By Pierce W. Huff

For the AJC

There are some coaching opportunities that a person just doesn’t turn down.

Atlanta Dream general manager/coach Marynell Meadors found herself in that position a few weeks ago when she was contacted by USA Basketball women’s senior national team ad hoc committee members Renee Brown and Carol Callan to gauge her interest in being an assistant coach on the team.

The opportunity finally came to pass Monday, when Meadors was named as an assistant coach on the 2010 USA Basketball world team.

“This is a huge honor and I’m just kind of stunned that it happened,” she said.

Meadors will be an assistant to Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma. The other assistants are DePaul coach Doug Bruno and Los Angeles Sparks coach Jennifer Gillom.

Meadors said she is looking forward to the chance to work under Auriemma, who has led UConn to seven NCAA titles, including the last two in a row, and a current 78-game winning streak.

“I’m not sure what my responsibilities will be right now, but I suspect that I will be mostly scouting,” she said.

Meadors has a history with USA basketball. She was the head coach of the 1989 gold medal U.S. Olympic Festival East team. She was an assistant coach on the 1992 gold medal USA Jones Cup team and the head coach of the 1993 bronze medal USA Jones cup team.

“I told [the people with USA basketball] that this was a decision I would never pass up unless I had to,” Meadors said.

Meadors has signed up for what could the busiest six months of her life. The national team began a week-long training camp on Sunday at Connecticut. The team will play the WNBA All-Stars in an exhibition before it heading to the 2010 FIBA World championships in the Czech Republic from Sept. 23 to Oct. 3.

The U.S. team won gold medals in 1998 and 2002, but took a bronze medal in 2006.

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