THE GIRLS OF SUMMER

As a hard-throwing 10-year-old growing up in Orlando, Florida, Dot Richardson wanted to play Little League baseball. But a coach said she'd have to cut her hair first and call herself Bob. Dot passed up that invitation and opted for girls' softball instead. Two decades and a gold medal later, she notes that things have improved for sports-minded girls. "You can see the change in women's athletics," she says. "Young girls today have more opportunities than I ever had."

Richardson had her opportunity in the third inning of the gold-medal game between the U.S. and China. With a runner on first in a scoreless game, she lifted a fly ball deep down the right-field line. As it sailed toward the foul pole, the exuberant 5-ft. 5-in. shortstop crouched low on the base path (so the home-plate umpire could see better, she later explained), then leaped in the air as the ball was ruled fair. The Chinese team disputed the call for 10 minutes, to no avail, and the homer provided the winning 3-1 score, bringing the favored U.S. team a long-awaited gold medal.

Viewers may have had trouble seeing it on NBC's equally disputed TV coverage (which opted for flashy individual performances on the track and in the diving pool over less glamorous team efforts), but sisterhood was powerful at the Atlanta Games. Sparked by Richardson, and by dominating pitching from Lisa Fernandez and Michele Granger, the U.S. softball team survived some low-scoring squeakers (and a 2-1 loss to Australia in extra innings) to capture the first Olympic gold medal ever awarded in the sport. The U.S. women's soccer team also dispatched the world's top teams, including Norway (which had beaten them in last year's world championships) and China in a hard fought 2-1 final, on the way to America's first soccer gold medal. Along with the women gymnasts, who had captured a team gold the previous week, the gold medal-winning synchronized swimmers and the powerful U.S. women's basketball team--which showed that Olympic hoops can actually be fun and not just a marketing exercise--these were sister acts worth standing in line for.

The acts have been in rehearsal for a long time. The core of the U.S. soccer team has been together since December 1990, when it was formed in anticipation of the 1991 world championships. With only a $1,000-a-month stipend for living expenses, most of the team members had to move in with parents or depend on spouses for support, and the team had to play most of its games outside the U.S. to draw any crowds. Though they captured the world title in 1991, the U.S. players still won little fame and no full-time jobs. The team virtually disbanded for two years before reassembling for the 1995 world championships. "We are here because we love to play the game," says team captain Carla Overbeck. "For years we played for nothing. But we played because of the friendships."