Gregg Popovich is undeniably one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game. The San Antonio Spurs shot-caller has pretty much seen everything in basketball throughout what has been a decorated career — and he's won quite a lot, too. As it turns out, however, there are still a few things that scare the life out of coach Pop. One of them happens to be his experience with Team USA in the recent Olympics.
Popovich is a true and tested vet and he's not the type that gets the nerves. I don't suspect that he was sitting on the edge of his seat throughout Team USA's gold medal quest last summer but by his own admission, there was something about this particular journey that terrified him. According to Pop the prospect of not being to send off USA Basketball Director Jerry Colangelo with a gold medal was something that weighed heavily on the Spurs coach:
“In all honesty, that part scared me to death,” Popovich said, via Jeff McDonald of San Antonio News-Express. “I don’t know if I could have gone on living with that. He’d had so much success. To not win that final one would have been just horrendous.”
Colangelo recently ended his 16-year reign as the top boss of the country's basketball program. His last Olympic cycle was that of the 2020 Games in Tokyo, which as expected, still resulted in a gold medal for the squad. In Pop's mind, there was no way he was going to let Colangelo's highly successful tenure end on a sour note. The Spurs coach delivered on his promise and he sent Colangelo off in the best way possible.
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