NANTERRE, France — Draped in an American flag while ‘Party in the USA’ and ‘Empire State of Mind’ blasted through Paris La Défense Arena, goalkeeper Adrian Weinberg and the U.S. men’s water polo team celebrated. 

With a thrilling 11-8 bronze-medal match victory over historical powerhouse Hungary on Sunday, the Americans won their first Olympic water polo medal since 2008. 

It was the same color medal Team USA won 100 years ago at the 1924 Paris Games, and winning it boiled down to a shootout where Weinberg stood on his head to deny the Hungarians a single goal after regulation. It was, he said, because he can read his opponents so well.

‘There was a couple of times, those guys, for example, came up, waited for a second to see where I would go, and I was like, ‘OK, I know exactly what you’re trying to do,’’ said Weinberg, the 22-year-old who made 16 saves on 24 shots in his final 2024 Paris Olympics match. 

‘If I’m present in a moment, thinking about what’s going on, then I can read that. But if I’m thinking about something else − thinking about, I don’t know, the score, whatever the case may be − I’m not going to be able to read that. So yeah, that tell for sure, I did that today.’

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

Going into the fight for bronze, Weinberg said he was ‘battling demons.’

‘I was scared, anxious, nervous, everything you can think of,’ he said.

‘The whole tournament, I’ve honestly been pretty calm. But then today, I was like, ‘Damn, it’s a pretty serious game.’ (I) was super freaking nervous.’

But you’d never know based on the way he played and how his instincts kept Hungary off the board in the 3-0 shootout. Team USA attacker Ryder Dodd aptly called the goalkeeper the ‘backbone of our team.’

‘All those guys, my players, they well deserve what’s happened today,’ 11-year Team USA coach Dejan Udovičić said. ‘They were underestimated for a long period of time, and we knew that we have talent, but we were waiting (to) grow our experience and mature.’

In a close and physical match, Hungary took an 8-6 lead with 3:22 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Udovičić called a timeout – to calm his team, he said – from which the Americans emerged and quickly scored to pull within one 

With less than two minutes left, two-time Olympic attacker Hannes Daube found the back of the Hungarian net to tie the match at 8-8, ultimately sending it to a shootout. Both late goals to tie it were in man-up situations, where the Americans previously struggled in their semifinal loss to Serbia.

‘Hungary is a very good team,’ said Alex Bowen, a 30-year-old attacker and three-time Olympian who posted one goal. ‘They have a history of water polo; it’s their national sport. It means a lot to beat them. …

‘To go from up one to down two, to tie it up … (with) less than two minutes left, to throw it into a shootout and to hold on – they had the last full minute of possession. We went block, block, block. It’s incredible. It’s a testament of the grit and determination of the team and the willingness to die for each other.’

American captain and three-time Olympian Ben Hallock, 26, led the team in scoring with two goals. Weinberg was phenomenal late, and he became the Americans’ hero and a brick wall in the shootout.

‘Great guy,’ Udovičić said about Weinberg. ‘He was going (through) some ups and downs. He was born in 2001. … I think he’s the youngest goalie by far, goalie here. We are expecting from him in the future. We work with him. We got two, three people who are working with him on a daily basis: tactics, preparation, mental preparation.’

And the first-time Olympic goalkeeper is already looking ahead. 

‘It’s amazing − a big win for just not our sport but our country as well,’ Weinberg said. 

‘I’m very excited for L.A. (in 2028).’

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast.Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

PARIS — U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles will be required to return the individual bronze medal she received at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the International Olympic Committee announced Sunday morning.

The news comes less than 24 hours after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the judging panel for the women’s floor exercise final made a mistake in granting an inquiry filed by Chiles’ coaches, which moved the American gymnast into medal position. The Romanian Gymnastics Federation had challenged the validity of that inquiry, saying it was filed four seconds beyond the deadline by which any scoring appeals had to be submitted.

The IOC said in a statement that it will reallocate the bronze medal to Romania’s Ana Barbosu, who had previously been fourth.

‘We are in touch with the (national Olympic committee) of Romania to discuss the reallocation ceremony and with (the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee) regarding the return of the bronze medal,’ the IOC said in a statement.

Spokespeople for USA Gymnastics and the USOPC did not immediately reply to messages seeking comment, though they released a statement Saturday night that described the CAS decision as ‘devastating.’

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

‘The inquiry into the Difficulty Value of Jordan Chiles’ floor exercise routine was filed in good faith and, we believed, in accordance with (International Gymnastics Federation) rules to ensure accurate scoring,’ the entities said.

‘Throughout the appeal process, Jordan has been subject to consistent, utterly baseless and extremely hurtful attacks on social media. No athlete should be subject to such treatment. We condemn the attacks and those who engage, support or instigate them. We commend Jordan for conducting herself with integrity both on and off the competition floor, and we continue to stand by and support her.’

Chiles, 23, wrote on Instagram on Saturday that she was leaving social media to protect her mental health.

The IOC’s decision to take away Chiles’ bronze medal is the latest emotional whiplash following the floor final Monday at Bercy Arena. Chiles went last in the final and initially received a score of 13.666, which put her fifth behind both Barbosu and another Romanian gymnast, Sabrina Voinea. But after U.S. coaches filed an inquiry, or scoring appeal, with the judges, her score increased by one tenth of a point to 13.766. And she leapfrogged two Romanians, who both had scores of 13,700, to take bronze.

The last-minute inquiry came as Barbosu was already up on the podium celebrating the medal she thought she had won, prompting outcry from the Romanians. They later filed a formal appeal with CAS, the Swiss-based court that usually serves as the final arbiter of international sports disputes, and alleged that the inquiry had been submitted four seconds past the 60-second deadline by which inquiries must be filed.

CAS ruled in the Romanians’ favor and said Chiles’ score should be reverted back to 13.666, but it punted any decisions on the final order of finish or medals to the International Gymnastics Federation, known as FIG.

FIG then confirmed it would reinstate Chiles’ initial score and that she would be moved to fifth, but it punted any decisions on whether she would have to return her bronze medal to the IOC, which knocked over the final domino Sunday morning.

Chiles, 23, had spoken after the floor exercise final about how proud she was to earn an individual Olympic medal. While she contributed to the teams that won silver and gold, respectively, in Tokyo and Paris, she had never won an individual medal at the Olympics, nor qualified for an individual final at the Games.

‘All this talk about the athlete, what about the judges?’ Chiles’ teammate Sunisa Lee wrote on Instagram. ‘Completely unacceptable. This is awful and I’m gutted for Jordan.’

At least in recent years, the IOC has most commonly used the medal reallocation process in the wake of confirmed doping cases.

Earlier this week, members of the U.S. figure skating team from the 2022 Beijing Games received their golds, which were upgraded from silvers amid the fallout of the Kamila Valieva case. On Friday, the IOC held a rare ceremony to reallocate 10 medals from the 2000, 2008 and 2012 Games, with many of the changes due to Russians who were found to be part of the country’s state-sponsored doping program.

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @Tom_Schad. Follow columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.

SAINT-DENIS, France – The U.S. track and field team showcased their skills at the Paris Olympics, winning 34 total medals.

The U.S. men redeemed themselves following a disappointing Tokyo Olympics that resulted in two total gold medals, the fewest ever by a U.S. men’s track and field team at a single Olympics.

In Paris, Rai Benjamin, Ryan Crouser and Noah Lyles headlined a men’s squad that won seven gold medals, and 18 overall medals.

On the U.S. women’s side, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas dominated every time they stepped onto the track. The women’s team won seven overall gold medals and 15 total medals in Paris.

Overall, the U.S. track and field team won the total medal count with 34 medals and their 14 gold medals were the most of any country.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

There were plenty of outstanding individual performances by Team USA at Stade de France. USA TODAY Sports selects the 10 brightest U.S. track and field stars from the Paris Olympics.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone

The most dominant U.S. female track and field athlete, and maybe the top female athlete across all sports in the U.S., McLaughlin-Levrone put on a show in Paris. Her competition in the 400 hurdles is herself and the clock as she ran with no runner in her vicinity in the final. She ran a world-record and gold-medal winning time of 50.37. It’s the sixth time McLaughlin-Levrone’s lowered her own world record. She’s also the only woman to win the event in consecutive Olympic Games.

‘It’s a blessing. Just grateful for another opportunity, grateful to be healthy and to come out of it in one piece. There was a lot of anticipation leading up to this race,’ McLaughlin-Levrone said. ‘Just grateful for all that has been taking place. God has been good to me.’

McLaughlin-Levrone won her second gold medal, and fourth career gold, as a member of the women’s 4×400-relay. Her split of 47.71 on the second leg would’ve won the open 400 in Paris.

Ryan Crouser

Crouser became the first shot putter in history to win gold at three Olympics, and he accomplished the feat at three consecutive games.

The shot-put world-record holder tossed 75 feet, 1¾ inches to win this third Olympic gold medal.

After Crouser made shot put history, he coached Jamaican Roje Stona to an Olympic record and first-place finish in the men’s discus, which might be equally as impressive for the 31-year-old thrower (and coach). It’s the first time ever Jamaica won an Olympic gold in the men’s discus.

Noah Lyles

The beginning of the Olympic track and field competition was a Lyles’ showcase. His dramatic photo-finish win in the 100 was one of the highlights of the Olympics. The race was the most competitive men’s 100 final in Olympics history during which all eight runners finished under 10 seconds for the first time ever, according to World Athletics.

‘Everybody on the field came out knowing they could win this race. That’s the mindset we have to have,’ Lyles said after winning the Olympic 100 final. ‘Iron sharpens iron. I saw my name and was like, ‘I didn’t do this against a slow crowd, I did this against the best of the best, on the biggest stage, with the biggest pressure.’

‘I wasn’t even in the 100 in 2021. First Olympics in the 100. Having the title, not just at world champs but at the Olympics, of world’s fastest man.’

Lyles was never quite himself after the stunning win in the 100. He contracted COVID-19 prior to the 200 final and finished third in the race behind the gold-medal winner Letsile Tebogo of Botswana and silver medalist Kenny Bednarek of the U.S.

Gabby Thomas

Thomas thrived at the Paris Olympics.

Thomas had the fastest 200 time in the world entering the Olympics, and she validated her top-ranked status in Paris. Thomas blazed around the turn and left all other sprinters behind her in a commanding win in the women’s 200 with a time of 21.83.

Thomas got a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. She left no doubt on the track on the way to gold at the 2024 Paris Games.

‘It feels incredible. I feel like I’ve worked very hard, and everything has been a part of the plan. This has been a six-year plan ever since moving to Texas. We didn’t want this to be my first Olympics. We wanted Tokyo to be that, and we’ve been working hard every day for this,’ Thomas said. ‘So I earned it, but it’s still an unbelievable, indescribable feeling.’

Thomas wasn’t done accumulating medals. She ran the third leg on Team USA’ gold-medal winning 4×100 relay squad and displayed her endurance running third leg for the women’s 4×400 team that easily won gold.

The three gold medals Thomas collected were the most of any track and field athlete in Paris.

Rai Benjamin

At the Tokyo Olympics, Benjamin was defeated by Norway’s Karsten Warholm and earned the silver medal. This time, though, Benjamin got his revenge.

Benjamin won his first Olympic gold in the men’s 400 hurdles, running a season-best 46.46.

‘It has eluded me for so long, this gold medal,’ Benjamin said. ‘To get it done here in this fashion at the Olympic games in front of my friends and family and in front of everyone just means so much to me.’

A day after winning gold in the 400 hurdles, Benjamin anchored the men’s 4×400 relay team to a gold medal win in an Olympic record time of 2:54.43.

Cole Hocker

The men’s 1,500 was supposed to be a showdown between defending Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Norway) and 2023 world champion Josh Kerr (Great Britian). But Hocker had other ideas.

In one of thebiggest upsets at the Paris Olympics, Hocker dug deep and ran past Ingebrigtsen and Kerr to win and set a new Olympic record with a time of 3:27.65.

‘With 100 meters to go, I knew I had enough,’ Hocker said. ‘I saw Jakob, I feel like he was thinking about Kerr and started drifting out, and I thought I’d take advantage of that and try to punch that inside, which I’ve been able to do a couple times in my career. He’s a smart enough racer where he closed that down immediately, so I had to reassess. It was special to be able to attack not only once, but twice.’

Hocker is just the fourth American to win an Olympic gold medal in the 1,500.

Valarie Allman

Allman tossed 228 feet to become a back-to-back Olympic champion in the women’s discus. She’s the first American women to win two gold medals in the women’s discus.

‘I don’t know how to put into words what I’m feeling. I feel so grateful for how tonight played out. I didn’t let myself believe that I was Olympic champion until it was all done. I think it’s been such a fight to show up and to be at our best and do it when it matters,’ Allman said. ‘I feel so grateful for having this come together, a little bit of luck on our side, and being able to walk away on top. It’s just so special.’

Quincy Hall

Hall was in fourth place with just 100 meters to go. He remarkably found another gear and ran past the three sprinters ahead of him to win the 400 with a personal-best time of 43.40. It was one the most memorable comeback victories at the Paris Olympics.

‘This means a lot. I’ve been putting a lot of work in. I told you guys I was going to get a gold medal this year and I guess I just showed you I did it. I know I can win,’ Hall said. ‘That’s what I’ve been doing my whole career. A lot of work, being hard on myself. I’ve been talking to my coach on the phone and he just told me, ‘Keep going, keep going’.

‘I don’t give up. I just grit, I grind. I’ve got determination. Anything I think will get me to that line, I think of it. A lot of hurt, a lot of pain. I just won. It’s over. For the next four years I can say I’m an Olympic champion.’

Hall is the first American male to win an Olympic gold medal in the 400 since the 2008 Beijing Games.

Masai Russell

Masai Russell outraced defending Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico to win her first ever Olympic gold medal in the women’s 100m hurdles. She ran a time of 12.33 to earn the gold.

Russell’s had an impressive climb to the top of the hurdles. She didn’t finish the 100 hurdles semifinal at the 2023 world championships. But 2024 has been her year. She won the event at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials with a personal-best and world-leading time of 12.25, the fourth fastest time in history. And she capped off the year as an Olympic champion.

‘I just want every young girl to understand and know that if you believe in yourself, if you can see the work, day in and day out, there’s nothing that’s impossible for you. I always tell myself that it’s possible,’ Russell said. ‘Can’t no one take it away from you.’

Grant Holloway

Holloway illustrated why he’s the top 110 hurdler in the world this year. He dominated each round in Paris. When it came time for the 110 final, Holloway took commanded of the race early and finished with a gold-medal winning time of 12.99. He was the only runner to run sub-13 seconds in the race.

The win earned Holloway, a three-time world champion, his first ever Olympic gold medal.

For the first time in history, the U.S. team swept all four hurdle events at the Olympics on behalf of Holloway, Russell, Benjamin and McLaughlin-Levrone.

SAINT-DENIS, France − Shelby McEwen almost got all the way through his interview with reporters Saturday night, discussing the difficult circumstance of how he’d just ended up with a silver medal in the men’s high jump finals at the Paris Games, without having to hear a preview of what awaited him on his phone. In case you missed it, McEwen passed on the chance to share gold with New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr, instead engaging in a jump-off to try to win outright, and ended up with silver instead.

Standing in a place where several other disappointed Team USA athletes had chosen this week to talk very little or not at all, McEwen spoke of his sadness with grace and class and as much positivity as he could muster. Then it came up: he was being panned on social media because Team USA was embroiled in a gold medal count battle with China, and McEwen could’ve added one to the United States’ total. China ended the night leading all nations with 39 gold medals, with the United States right behind at 38.

In responding, McEwen showed the class his critics didn’t.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

‘It never really went through my head,’ said the former University of Alabama high jump standout.

Nor should it have.

The calculation to make in that moment is strictly a personal one, and that’s all McEwen did. Per the rules, Kerr and McEwen could’ve agreed to both receive gold medals after failing to clear the bar at 7 feet, 9 3/4 inches. By approaching McEwen with the suggestion of continuing with a jump-off, Kerr was in essence challenging his opponent not to take the easy way out. Not to come all the way to Paris to accept a draw.

Olympians don’t train for draws.

No athlete in any individual sport should ever be expected to play for a tie. A coach’s decision to accept a tie in a team sport is a little different scenario − depending on the circumstance, it can be best for the team − even though ties generally taste just as bitter to them.

But this wasn’t that.

For McEwen, the chase of victory was paramount, something the social media jackals who blasted him can’t understand. More than likely, the random and largely anonymous class of geniuses who ripped him on the X platform have never been competitive athletes themselves. McEwen was supposed to base his decision on knotting the national gold score with China?

Yep, X wins the gold for stupidity.

Entering Sunday, the final day of Olympic competition, there are still chances for the U.S. to pass China for the most gold medals. The women’s basketball team can claim gold with a win over France. So can the women’s volleyball team, against Italy. There are others, but the point is that McEwen won’t be to blame if Team USA finishes behind China in the gold count. It’s also worth noting that the U.S. has already run away with the total medal count (122) to China’s 90.

But there they were Saturday night, lined up online to pin the problem on a guy who simply decided he didn’t put in years of training for the Paris Games to show up and accept a tie. Even a tie for gold. The medal count is more for Olympic fans than it is for athletes, anyway. That’s not to say the athletes don’t care about it − McEwen himself said afterward the United States winning the most gold medals matters to him − but it wasn’t what should’ve been foremost in his mind.

Yes, McEwen ended up with a silver medal when he could’ve had gold.

But he’d have looked at that gold medal on his mantle for a lifetime and wondered what would’ve happened if he’d agreed to a jump-off. Instead, he’ll look at silver and not have to wonder. He’ll rightly feel better about competing and falling short.

And he certainly won’t feel any worse for the criticism.

Reach Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X @chasegoodbread.

PARIS — LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant hugged.

They celebrated, laughed and smiled. They made sure they were pictured together holding gold medals.

The reason they hatched this plan to play in an Olympics together — the three biggest American stars of the past two decades, future Hall of Famers, all-time greats — was for that moment.

A gold-medal moment at the 2024 Paris Olympics. To say they did it side by side by side.

It was a modern-day version of Bird-Magic-Jordan’s 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and it will be a while before we see a collection of stars like that on a U.S. Olympic team.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

“We got our moment, and this is what we wanted,” James said.

The U.S. needed all three to defeat France, 98-87, for its fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal.

Playing in his first Olympics, Curry was sensational with 24 points — on eight 3-pointers, including four 3s in the final 2:47 and the final one with 35 seconds left in the fourth quarter put the U.S. up 96-87 and buried France. That performance followed a 36-point effort against Serbia in the semifinals.

James, at 39 years old, was the best all-around player at the Olympics and was named MVP after recording 14 points, 10 assists, six rebounds, two steals and one block against France.

Durant will hoop just about anywhere, anytime, and his 15 points helped ensure a gold and made him the first player to win four Olympic gold medals in men’s basketball.

It’s quite possible that without one of those players on the roster this summer the U.S. does not win gold.

But with all three, they weren’t losing.

“Steph earned this the last few weeks, the last couple weeks every day with his work ethic,” Kerr said. “I tell people all the time when Kevin was with our team, my favorite part of practice with the Warriors was after practice watching those two work and it’s not an accident that they’re able to do what they do down the stretch of games. Just watching these two guys day after day after day is really impressive.

“I’ve talked about LeBron during this experience as well. When you see these guys behind the scenes and how hard they work, how much they love the process of the work itself, it all makes sense that they’re as good as they are.”

France’s young superstar Victor Wembanyama had his best game of the Olympics with 26 points and seven rebounds. He was a handful for the U.S., and the juxtaposition was obvious. Stars were passing in Paris, three burning the final light of amazing careers and the other’s brightness about to light up the NBA for at least the next decade.

But James, Curry and Durant weren’t ready to give Wembanyama the keys just yet.

If you don’t think the Olympics matter to millionaire NBA stars, then you weren’t paying attention to the U.S. in this event, the knockout stage in particular against Serbia in the semifinals and against France in the gold-medal game.

They are elite-level competitors, so they want to win no matter what the competition is. But they also take pride in playing for their country.

“It’s all about representing your country the right way and there’s just a different sense of pride being on that podium, getting your gold medal,” Curry said.

Said James: “I’m just living in the moment. Super humbled that I could still play this game, play it at a high level, played with 11 other great players, with a great coaching staff, and then go out and do it for our country. It was a great moment.”

Said Durant: “My goal every time I put this jersey on was to represent my country, my state, my street, my family name and it help put the game forward. And since I’ve been here, we’ve done that. We built off the Dream Team in ’92, and we carried that torch and that was the main goal.”

It matters. They listen to Doug Collins when he shows them a picture on his cellphone of him getting fouled in the controversial game against the Soviet Union at the 1972 Munich Olympics. They pay attention when Spencer Haywood talks about his experience at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

In 30, 40 years, they will want Olympians to know their stories.

We haven’t seen the last of LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant.

Maybe we’ve seen the last of them at the Olympics (who knows with Durant, maybe he plays at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics).

But the Olympics proved they have still plenty to left to give.

They didn’t win the gold alone. Nine other players contributed.  You can go down the list.

But to see James, Curry and Durant on the same team for the first and (likely) final time and win the last two games for gold in Paris the way they did was a beautiful tribute to what they have given to basketball, and what basketball has given to them.

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

I got a call from a colleague last spring with an unusual request.

He has an 8-year-old son who plays rec soccer and baseball. We have chatted on occasion about the joys, and headaches, of youth sports.

There is one part of these games, in his eyes, that brings out particularly poor behavior in kids as well as adults. It creates an environment, he has seen, where a kid’s hat is knocked off, derisive comments are hurled and compliments are more robotic.

It’s the postgame handshake line.

My co-worker suggested I write that it should be banned.

He has seen the line become more than just an opportunity for an occasional gloat after a win. It has unraveled, he says, into a breeding ground for hate.

Maybe you agree. It can get chippy right after a game. I have seen 14-year-old kids tell my son’s team to ‘have a nice trip home’ in that line after beating them in a tournament. I have noticed coaches walk unemotionally through it themselves and even, on occasion, mouth off to kids.

But that line can be an opportunity, too. It can develop sportsmanship within our young athletes, help them process life’s ups and downs and allow us to see how we can be better examples for them. Perhaps we just need to reassess how we approach it.

Here are five ways young athletes – as well as their coaches and parents – can get the most out of the postgame handshake line.

Our kids’ behavior is a reflection of our behavior. Use the handshake line to look in the mirror.

Moms and dads are notorious for disputing sports rulings and outcomes related to their kids.

Just last weekend, I watched as a coach in a 16U baseball game needed to be forcibly restrained from going after an umpire. ‘You just cost us the game,’ he shouted to the ump, amid a flutter of name-calling and obscenities that all the spectators heard.

The coach was ejected before he even had a chance to reach the postgame handshake line.

‘I’ve had parents come up to me after a game and spit in my face for not playing their kid enough and what they perceived as enough,’ says Tony Snethen, a longtime baseball coach for his two sons.

Snethen is also the vice president of brand innovation for the Kansas City Royals and an executive producer of a 2023 documentary aimed at overbearing and unruly parent behavior at sports events. The film contains footage of parents brawling at kids’ games, spectacles we have seen go viral in a number of states.

‘It’s just gotten so bad,’ Snethen says. ‘You can drop a pin on a map and go to a complex and see it happen every single night.’

While we’re reacting in the heat of the moment, perhaps we don’t realize how closely our kids are watching us.

‘We forget we’re teaching them things, right?’ says Laurel Williams, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

She’s also a sports parent to a 12-year-old daughter. Williams says her biggest advice for parents is to imagine if someone had a camera on you while your kids are playing sports. Would you be happy with what you saw?

‘You have a short amount of time on some level to teach them before they launch into the world,’ Williams tells USA TODAY Sports. ‘And so what are you teaching them? Are you teaching them when you get mad, you yell at somebody and you go in their face and tell them they’re an idiot? OK, well don’t be surprised when (your kids) yell at your face later and tell you you’re an idiot. Because they learned it from you.’

At the next game, watch your son or daughter walk through the postgame handshake line. Does their behavior mirror how you act at games?

Have your kids shake the referee’s or umpire’s hand after the game. It’s a key move in their maturation as an athlete.

Handshake lines were actually barred for a few weeks this past winter in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador after a series of altercations that led to suspensions of hockey coaches and players. The ritual was reinstated a few weeks later but led to an examination of the youth sports culture across Canada. It’s a country where parents aggressively promote the sports success of their kids, sometimes at the expense of referees whom they feel stand in the way of it.

‘I have had several players from other teams (often the best player who I may have shut down defensively) pull their hand from me and refuse to shake,’ says Brian Gladman, a basketball coach from Vaughan, Ontario, whom I reached out to via social media. ‘It has happened three times this year. That’s just poor sportsmanship and poor parenting.

‘I always have my U10 guys line up right after the final buzzer. We are one of, if not the only, teams who also take the opportunity to thank the refs and scorer table with a fist bump. I think it’s important and shows character.’

It also shows you’re not blaming an easy target of abuse who, in the case of hockey or basketball, is watching 10 players at a time and won’t see everything. You’re accepting what has just happened, whether you won or lost, which is the ultimate lesson of sports.

‘As a longtime coach as well, the most passionate thing I teach (is) searching out and shaking the hand of the game officials,’ says Steve Buskard, who has refereed youth hockey for more than 16 seasons in Ontario. ‘The players that look you in the eye and thank you is the warmest gesture and restores your commitment to ref the kids. I’ve seen a couple parents actually chastise their kids for doing it but it’s the small few.’

The move can look instinctive if ingrained in a kid. Just watch a clip Greg Olsen, a retired NFL player-turned-youth sports advocate, showed on his podcast last year.

The moment the game-winning hit is delivered to right field, the losing catcher turns to the home-plate umpire and offers his hand.

‘To me, these are the moments that capture how special youth sports are and why they can be just the best vessel for raising adults in this world,’ Olsen said.

COACH STEVE: Greg Olsen offers suggestions for managing youth sports

Find a player or coach on the other team to compliment. Good competition helps you play your best.

When you shake the hands of your opponents, don’t look at the exercise as facing someone you have just beaten or who has beaten you.

Instead, think of shaking an opponent’s hand as an opportunity to congratulate them on how hard they tried to beat you.

J.P. Nerbun, an author and leadership coach who has extensively studied team culture, encourages players to single out one individual on the other side of the line they can affirm.

Great shooting today.

Your defense was fantastic; it was really hard to play against you.

As a coach, you can offer similar affirmations to kids or the other coach.

‘It all comes back to teaching kids that competition − truly competing, as the Latin word competō suggests − is to strive together,’ says Nerbun, who played basketball at South Carolina and has coached the sport at the high school level. He now coaches his school-aged kids.

‘True competition is two teams or individuals striving and pushing each other to their best,’ he says. ‘The handshake line is an opportunity to honor your competitor.’

Know that losing is a crucial element of your kid’s development

Sportsmanship can come to life in the handshake line. If we want to foster it there, we can encourage it in all of our kids’ actions: From when we are holding the door for someone to helping an opponent off the ground after a fall.

‘I see a lot more good sportsmanship than bad,’ says Asia Mape, a coach and mom who founded ‘I Love to Watch you Play,’ a website dedicated to enriching the parent-athlete dynamic. ‘I see players raise their hands to signal to a ref that they committed a foul without being asked. I’ve seen parents from opposing teams rushing to get ice and help when our athlete was injured. I’ve watched young spectator students offer up their front-row seats to elderly grandparents.’

The most prominent example in Paris came from gymnast Simone Biles, who, along with American teammate Jordan Chiles, bowed down to Olympic floor champion Rebeca Andrade on the medal stand when they fell short of gold.

Regardless of how she acts, Biles will go down as the best gymnast ever. But she made a choice to act in a certain way, and it is most likely how she will be remembered at these Olympics in which she won three gold medals.

Use the handshake line as an opportunity to handle adversity. It teaches our kids resilience.

How athletes conduct themselves can work the other way around, too. I took my older son to a baseball camp at a college in January where a recruiting specialist told a story about a prospect. This player had scouts lined up to see him one day, until they witnessed the tone in which he talked to his mother.

After the scouts watched how the kid berated her for bringing him the ‘wrong’ flavor of Gatorade, they all left.

The path to becoming a mature athlete can start early. In fact, it can start in that postgame line.

‘The handshake is an odd thing,’ says Buskard, the longtime referee and coach from Ontario. ‘The losing team wants nothing to do with it but it’s amazing how civil it always is. The kids start this when they’re 4 years old in learn-to-play and it becomes natural for them. I’ve seen the videos where things can go wrong but have never witnessed it.’

My colleague raised the subject of banning the handshake because of actions taken by opponents his kid faced. It’s frustrating when coaches can’t control their players, or choose not to do so.

But we can always set the tone for our own kids. It’s why all of the coaches I consulted for this column said ‘no’ to the ban.

Jeff Stengel, who coaches baseball on Long Island, New York, even sees value in the other team disrespecting you.

‘It will teach your boys to be bigger people and be able to take the crap that life throws at them,’ he said. ‘If I caught one of my kids gloating or disrespecting the opposing team, I would definitely have a word with them after the handshake. No doubt. Life deals lessons all the time and as coaches, fathers, mothers, figures of authority, we are here to guide them down the right path, not teach them to hide and not deal with it.’

Our kids can be more proactive than we think. Remember that baseball coach I mentioned who had to held back from charging the umpire?

It was his 16-year-old catcher who was restraining him.

Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for a high schooler and middle schooler. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.

PARIS – He came out in shoes as shiny and golden as the medal he would put around his neck Saturday night for the third, and perhaps final, time in his career.

For LeBron James, the color choice seemed like a statement: About his intent in the Olympics, about his mission for Team USA, about everything in his basketball life leading to another gold medal.

Even with all he’s done at age 39, James didn’t come here just to help his country win a tournament. He proved a point. As long as he’s playing this sport, nobody is going to shine brighter.

LeBron, in fact, has still got it. He was the best player at the Olympics, winning the tournament’s MVP award. He’s still so clearly capable of dominating a basketball game at a level hardly anyone in the world can match.

And it leads to one question more important than what he did over this last month: How are the Los Angeles Lakers screwing up this chapter of his career so badly?

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

I’ll admit, despite being named All-NBA third team, I thought it finally looked like James lost a step last season. And I thought because of how much investment they had tied up in James and Anthony Davis that it didn’t really matter what else they did: The Lakers were going to be stuck with an old team that would continue to be in play-in purgatory as James continued declining until his inevitable retirement.

Maybe the Lakers thought so, too. Maybe that explains why Rob Pelinka has sat on his hands this offseason, failing to make a single roster move to improve a team that went 47-35 last season and finished seventh in the Western Conference.

But after watching James plow through everyone at the Olympics, I’m actually now enraged at the Lakers’ front office for fiddling around on the fringes the last few years while time runs short on this once-in-a-lifetime career.

OK, so he’s not quite the defender he once was, and you can’t play him 82 games the way he used to. But those are the only concessions to time James has made as he has reached his late 30s.

His physical capability is still elite. His passing is still otherworldly. His ability to read the game and make decisions may be better than ever. When he’s determined to just put his head down and be a freight train to the rim, nobody in the world can stop him.

Can James still lead a team to the NBA title? How could you watch these Olympics and think anything else?

Even on a team full of superstars, he elevated above everyone. When it’s America’s best versus the world’s best, there’s still no doubt who gets the job done.   

In this tournament, nobody else was going to do it.

Anthony Edwards didn’t have the gravitas. Jayson Tatum was just along for the ride. The guys who are supposed to eventually replace James as the American face of the league weren’t ready for this.

In the end, this team was conceived by and for James to have one last Olympic run, with his few true peers in the NBA pantheon alongside.

But from training camp to exhibitions and all the way to the final game, everyone else on this team rode the roller coaster. Steph Curry went from being uncomfortable early to making a barrage of 3-pointers that held off France in the gold medal game. Kevin Durant had to work his way back from injury. Joel Embiid was useful in some moments, out of place in others.

James, though, was always there. He erased potential humiliating moments against South Sudan and Germany. He was the Americans’ energy source in the preliminary rounds. When everything was on the line against Serbia, James willed Team USA across the finish line. And in the gold medal game against France, everything ran through him: 14 points, six rebounds, 10 assists in nearly 33 minutes on the floor.

Even on a team full of superstars, this gold medal was only possible because James wore red, white and blue one more time. Nearing his 40th birthday, we’ve never seen anything like it.

And what are the Lakers doing with this national treasure? Selling tickets and running out the clock.

There probably aren’t many more great years left, but these Olympics showed that it’s still worth it for the Lakers to make the most of them – trading draft picks, mortgaging the future, whatever it takes.

He’s still one of the best players on the planet, and there’s no time to waste. What are they waiting for?

James will be 43 years old when the next Summer Olympics come to Los Angeles, and it’s impossible to believe he’ll still be this kind of player four years from now. But with LeBron James, you don’t just have to allow for the impossible. You have to imagine it.

Team USA did and was rewarded with a gold medal. Now it’s the Lakers’ turn.