Approximately 44 years ago, Rolando Blackman was living his best life.
In 1980 while playing for Kansas State, Blackman won Big Eight Player of the Year honors and also was named third-team All-American. He capped that year off by going through the U.S. Olympic Trials and winning a coveted spot as the starting shooting guard on the 1980 Olympic team following his junior season at K-State.
At the time, Blackman was just 21 years old. And life was good. Really, really good.
However, before Blackman could lace up his sneakers and continue celebrating all the good tidings that 1980 brought his way, President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would boycott the ’80 Olympic summer games in order to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979.
So, instead of Blackman having an opportunity to win an Olympic gold medal, he and his teammates got tangled in a web of politics that still doesn’t sit well with him.
“I’m still highly disappointed in the decisions that were made to use us to do something to fight a political battle,” Blackman told Mavs.com. “Of course I’m disappointed in that, because you get up there and you liked to have been inside of the competition, because we had a great team.
“The biggest thing for me is what you learned is that being part of the country, when it’s time to negotiate and put things together, they’ll use anything that they have at their disposal to make a point, and at that time we were the biggest thing to make a point with. And to utilize us and what that meant – the Olympics — it was going to be in Moscow, and the Russians went into Afghanistan, and of course our country didn’t like that. So going back and forth, when men and people get into political rooms, anything is at stake. So, they got the utilization of the Olympics to make a point and that ruined a lot of things.”
For Blackman, who is currently the vice-president of corporate relations for the Dallas Mavericks and was the No. 9 overall pick by the Mavs in the 1981 NBA Draft, the boycott ruined a dream. A dream he worked hard to fulfill, and a dream that was on the verge of coming to fruition.
Besides Blackman, the starters for the 1980 USA Olympic team were point guard Isiah Thomas, center Sam Bowie, small forward Mark Aguirre and power forward Michael Brooks. The reserves were Bill Hanzlik, Alton Lister, Rodney McCray, Darnell Valentine, Danny Vranes, Buck Willams and Al Wood.
But all 12 of those players were denied the chance to don the red, white and blue uniforms, the opportunity to walk around the stadium during the glitzy opening night ceremonies with billions watching around the world, and denied the chance to compete on the global stage.
Nevertheless, USA Basketball – the governing body for basketball in the USA – is celebrating its 50th anniversary Tuesday and 
Wednesday in Las Vegas. They are having a Gold Standard Event in Vegas on Tuesday, and the men’s national team will play a showcase game against Canada on Wednesday at T-Mobile Arena.
Blackman and his contemporaries were invited and will be introduced at halftime. For Blackman, who played for the Mavs from 1981-92 and was a four-time NBA All-Star, he knows his emotions will run deep during the halftime ceremonies.
“I’m going to be proud like I am every day any way,” he said of the upcoming ceremonies. “Every day I walk the streets, every day I see an Olympic circle, any time I see it in a book, any time I see it on a TV show, any time I see it, I’m proud to have been part of that whole thing and to have busted my tail and proven to myself to have made the team.”
Nowadays, the USA Olympic basketball squad consists of NBA players hand-picked to be on the team. When Blackman was selected to the 1980 Olympic squad, he had to battle his way through a list of about 80 players via rigorous workouts in order to win a greatly desired spot on the Olympic team.
“You had 80 bad boys in there trying to take each other out,” Blackman said. “It was a straight up competition for two weeks of getting out there and playing.”
In the end, Blackman said: “I was the starting shooting guard for the 1980 Olympic basketball team. Rolando Blackman. A kid that grew up and came through all the way from Panama City, Panama.
“An immigrant is star
ting shooting guard of the 1980 Olympic basketball team. I’m very proud of that, because it took a lot of work to get there. I’m so proud of all the people that helped me be a part of that kind of a thing, and help me grow in this sport and to be part of the fabric of what’s going on.”
Blackman – his retired No. 22 Mavs’ jersey hangs in the American Airlines Center rafters — did receive one of 461 Congressional Gold Medals created especially for the 1980 USA Olympic athletes who were spurred for political purposes. Still, he said “it was a huge, huge disappointment, as it still is today” that he didn’t get a chance to compete for what he rightfully earned.
Each year the Summer Olympics roll around – it starts on July 26 — that gut punch of hearing that solemn announcement that the USA was boycotting the 1980 Olympics is like a kick in the teeth for Blackman.
“Every time the Olympics are coming you go through the opening ceremonies and all that kind of stuff, when you talk about the word ‘bittersweet,’ it’s true to the form,” Blackman said. “It was the other way around. It was sweet, but then it was bitter at the end.”
Some 44 years later, as he reminiscences about what could have been, the nagging pain still exists.
“It’s just a great, great time and I’m going to look at it in a proud, proud way of being a part of something so very special and in the fabric of USA Basketball and having a chance to be on that team, and you just get removed by a political scene,” Blackman said. “I would have loved to have gone out there with them and to have tried to go get that gold medal. That’s what life is.”
And as the sun came up the next day, it came up with Blackman flashing a wry smile – and an expression of disapproval – all at the same time. Bittersweet moments, indeed, about the Olympics that got away.
“This is one of the highest honors that I’ve earned,” Blackman said. “I went out there with 80 people and made the Olympic team, and two weeks later I worked my tail off to be one of the starters on the 1980 Olympic basketball team.
“Political situations can do what it did, but we’re still Olympians because we made that team. And I’m very, very proud to be a part of USA Basketball.”
X: @DwainPrice
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