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On her 32nd birthday -- July 19, 1996 -- Teresa Edwards made the rounds with President Bill Clinton in Atlantas Olympic Village, took part in the opening ceremony, recited the athletes oath, and was left thinking, This has been one pretty amazing day.No womens basketball player has spent more time wearing a Team USA jersey at the Olympics than Edwards did. She competed in the Summer Games five times -- 1984, 88, 92, 96 and 2000 -- winning four gold medals and one silver.They were all special experiences, but the Atlanta Games, held in her home state of Georgia, were the most amazing of all.When I first met the president, we were doing a flag presentation in front of all the captains of the various sports teams in an auditorium. He was charming, personable, happy to be around the athletes. My mother loved the man to death, so I had to say, Mr. President, my mom wanted me to say hello to you from her. We went around the village so the athletes could meet and shake hands with him. And that felt great. Then I went back to get ready for the opening ceremony.A couple of days later, the president and Hillary showed up in our locker room after one of our games. They were everywhere. It was one heck of an experience. It was wonderful to have them want to be there and spend time with our team.Edwards was born and grew up in Cairo, in the southwestern part of Georgia, not far from the Florida border. She had played at Georgia for coach Andy Landers, leading the Bulldogs to the Womens Final Four twice.She already had competed in one Olympics in the United States: the Los Angeles Games when she was just 20 and still in college. Now, after a nearly year-long Olympic preparation tour by the U.S. team, during which the team went 52-0, it was a pivotal time in womens basketball history. Both the ABL and WNBA were set to launch after the Atlanta Games in 1996.In 1984, I wouldnt have been able to really define the word Olympics. I just didnt know anything about it. I went to the Olympic trials reluctantly; I think I was a little nervous. Coach Landers gave me a great talk that got me out there. Once I made the team and we went to L.A., at first it still just felt like a really big, fancy basketball tournament. By the time we got to the last game and we were celebrating, I really, really realized what it was all about.By 1996, it felt like we had an opportunity to truly do something different: To introduce people in the United States to womens basketball at a higher level so we would have an opportunity to have pro ball here. That was so huge, but it actually wasnt distracting. Because the core of what we do was just play. I thought, All I need to do is perform, entertain and have fun.You can sense true greatness in certain people. Once [USA Basketball] assembled our team, you could tell we were about to embark on something huge. Every one of those players was special. We grew up very fast, and we enjoyed each others company. When we got out on the court, we jelled like peanut butter and jelly. We were smooth.One of the early stops of the pre-Olympics USA Basketball tour had been in Atlanta, in October 1995. U.S. coach Tara VanDerveer took the players to the Georgia Dome then to see what it would be like competing there the following summer, and had them visualize winning the gold medal. By that point, Edwards already had two golds, but she also had bronzes from the 1992 Olympics and 1994 world championship that still stuck in her craw.So when she took to the court to start the Atlanta Games, Edwards was pinpoint-focused.Wed played together so long, and we were so close to the finish line, I just felt like, This is not the time to screw it up. So once I was inside the lines on the court, I would not look outside the lines. I said, Im not speaking to anyone or looking over, no matter how many times they call my name. I dont care if its my mom in the stands yelling at me; Ive got to stay focused. The stakes were just too high. Me being the oldest one, the captain, the point guard, that was how I handled it.Wed played all these teams so many times that we could have lost a game to them. They knew us just as well as we knew them.But, in fact, no team could stop the Americans, who won their eight games in Atlanta by an average of 28.6 points. They shot 66.2 percent from the field in beating Brazil 111-87 in the gold-medal game.Edwards then went through the joy and heartbreak of the ABL, which launched in the fall of 1996 but lasted just two full seasons. Eventually, Edwards played and coached in the WNBA, but she says working with younger kids is her true passion. She and two of her Olympic teammates, Katrina McClain and Ruthie Bolton, have formed a group called Gold Medal Team that gives clinics and works on community projects across the country.Edwards was the chef de mission for the U.S. Olympic team at the 2012 London Games, which gave her an even greater connection to all American athletes. And when she thinks about Atlanta 1996, its with a mixture of pride ... and a little relief.I wanted to kick Brazils butts to the fullest, and I was totally excited about playing them in the final because theyd beat us in the 94 world championship. I was the old lady whod been through it before, but winning the gold medal really was a big relief, too. Because mentally, physically, emotionally, it was a big load for me to be able to let go.I remember that Olympics that everybody else from the United States was winning, too. Gymnastics was on the other side of [the Georgia Dome] and we saw them walking in and out. We already knew the soccer team, and softball was also doing well. We were well aware what all the women were doing, so when you saw each other, there was this light, this glow, this support.It was like, Theres no stopping us. We felt the momentum of it, and it felt amazing. We were all in the same spotlight in the same place, and I do think we changed womens sports with those Olympics forever.Custom Tampa Bay Lightning Jerseys . Still, Brewers manager Ron Roenicke thought taking him out before the fifth inning was an unusual move. "Im looking up at the board and hes got two hits given up and one run, and Im taking him out after the fourth inning," Roenicke said. Custom New York Islanders Jerseys . 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Now tied for second in the league in shootout goals, the 24-year-old likes to see what the opposing goaltender has in store before he ultimately lands on a move.Having seen Ron Howards documentary, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, about the legendary bands brief but insanely popular touring years, I found myself thinking about how we react to greatness when its in front of us.Did the people who saw the Beatles in concert in 1964 really know the magnitude of what they were seeing? No, how could they? In a clip in the film, when asked that year about being a cultural phenomenon, Paul McCartney sounds embarrassed and says theyre just doing this for a laugh. Throughout 1964, the question even the Beatles themselves asked was: When will the bubble burst? Of course, it never did. And never will.Sports greatness is different in a lot of ways. New future Beatles fanatics are still born every day. But its harder to fully appreciate athletes without seeing them in the moment.When it comes to womens sports, there is even more tied to the immediacy of seeing them live, because their legends generally arent built up or maintained as well as mens are. So as Minnesota and Phoenix meet in the WNBA semifinals over the next week, dont miss the opportunity to reflect on seeing Maya Moore and Diana Taurasi on the same floor again.Moores Lynx and Taurasis Mercury are meeting in the playoffs for the fifth time in the past six years, starting with games Wednesday (ESPN2, 8 p.m. ET) and Friday (ESPNews, 8 p.m. ET) in St. Paul, Minnesota. The best-of-five series shifts to Phoenix on Sunday (ESPN, 5 p.m.). The Lynx won all three regular-season meetings.Moore and Taurasi also shared the court on the same side during the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Taurasi was the U.S. teams leading scorer as she won her fourth Olympic gold medal. Moore was second on the team in scoring and led in assists; she won her second gold.Both have three WNBA titles. If one should lead her team to the championship this year, shell join Houston Comets standouts such as Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes and Tina Thompson with a record four championships.Taurasi and Moore have been linked ever since the latter ended up on the same college path at UConn, but it goes back even further. They share a birthday: June 11.Taurasi, born in 1982, is seven years older, and she came cross-country from California -- a Lakers fan, with vibrant West Coast sports pride -- to play at UConn in 2000.I still can recall a coach who saw Taurasi play in high school saying that she might be the best player ever to come into the womens college game, but ... she was cocky as hell. This coach wondered if UConns Geno Auriemma would be able to deal with her.Its hilarious to now think back on that conversation, because we know they ended up being -- and still are -- a match made in basketball heaven. Taurasi will always be the player closest to Auriemmas wisecracking, fiercely competitive heart. When Taurasi famously went 1-of-15 from the field as a freshman in the 2001 national semifinals and UConn fell to Notre Dame, Auriemma still praised her for the way shed played all that season. He said she might never lose at the Final Four again.And she never did, playing on perhaps the greatest womens college team in 2002, and then putting the team on her back for two more titles, in 2003 and 04.Moore was born and spent her childhood in Missouri, then moved to Atlanta. When she went to UConn in 2007, there was similar hype even though she and Taurasi were different types of players. And very different personalities. You werent going to get wisecracks and comic bravado from Moore. Even as an 18-year-old, Moore seemed to haave the sensibilities of a 30-year-old.ddddddddddddAnd she related to other players on court differently, too. Taurasi thinks like a point guard even when shes not in that spot in a lineup, and her ability to connect to, inspire and communicate with teammates is unsurpassed in womens hoops.Moore, a smooth and fluid forward, is more insular. Its not that she isnt a great teammate. But she was always in her own head a little more, constantly critiquing and refining her own performance to exacting standards.Both Auriemma and Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve talked about how one of Moores challenges was to integrate herself fully with her teammates, to not be quite so much on Planet Maya. And she has worked hard at doing that.Moore won two national championships at UConn, and then in 2011 was drafted No. 1 to a Minnesota team that was perfectly set up to need her as the final piece to the championship puzzle. The Lynx won the WNBA title her rookie year and have been contenders ever since. The only season of the Moores career that the Lynx didnt make the WNBA Finals was in 2014, when they lost to Taurasi and the Mercury in the Western Conference finals.The show within the showTaurasi was drafted No. 1 to a Phoenix franchise in 2004 that still had to grow to reach contender status. The Mercury won their first title in 2007. Two more followed, in 2009 and 14.Taurasi (2009) and Moore (2014) have been the leagues MVP, and in both cases it seems weird, actually, that each has won that honor only once. In the time theyve been in the WNBA together, Taurasi and Moore have been the premier players.At 27, Moore is still in her peak years as an athlete. As long as the Lynx can stay competitive around her, its reasonable to wonder just how many WNBA titles she might win. Seven? Eight?Taurasi, at 34, is getting closer to the end of her career, but its hard to say how close. If her body holds up, you can see her playing as long as she possibly can. Shed like to add more to her championship collection, too.Taurasi has hit so many clutch shots over the years, its hard to tag just one as her signature moment. But its easy to pinpoint her signature play: the pull-up 3-pointer. She makes it looks deceptively simple, and its deadly. Shes dribbling ... dribbling ... and then after what seems a mere flick of the wrist, the ball is going through the net. You can only imagine how defenders feel.For Moore, the signature shot is that balletic finger roll: the grace, the power, the body control as she glides to the rim.Her signature moment came last year in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals at Indiana. The teams had split games at Minnesota, and it was feeling a lot like the 2012 WNBA Finals, in which the Fever upset the Lynx in four games. But Moores 3-point buzzer-beater gave the Lynx a 80-77 victory.If she missed, the game would have gone to overtime. And if the Fever had won, they would have been playing for the title at home a few nights later. But she didnt miss.With the new playoff format this season doing away with conferences and taking the top eight teams, Minnesota earned a comfortable and familiar position: the No. 1 seed. Phoenix had a much bumpier ride and ended up as No. 8.But theyre both here now, three wins from a place in the WNBA Finals. The show within the show is Maya vs. Diana.Is it true greatness vs. true greatness? You know the answer to that: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ' ' '