The other side of victory
Hilary Braysmith

We called you champions and role models but now, finally, we can call you heroes. Until Sydney, we measured your greatness by clean and elegant play on the pitch and gracious winning. But you taught us that the true gauge lies on the other side of victory. All the exciting tackles, headers, passes, hopes and expectations, all the drama, culminated in a truly rare Olympian event.

After the game, Tiffeny Millbrett and Brandi Chastain carried our flag around one side of the field and then the US players all turned and cheered Norway. As the nation continues to savor the glory of this peerless class act, we all walk taller, feel prouder, more grateful than ever for a fate which chose you to wear our colors and move all of women's sports forward. If you had won the final match, we would never have known just how great you are.

Who could have imagined that Tiffeny Millbrett would surpass the glory of her goal in the last seconds of stoppage time? But her sincere complimenting of Norway just after OT quietly thrilled us even more.

Mia Hamm, the quantum striker, who appears everywhere on the field at once, took the game up yet another notch with her unwavering pride in her teammates and their accomplishments: "Heads up. Keep your heads held high," she said after the medal ceremony.

Brandi Chastain gave us a memory as precious as her '99 PK when she countered the suggestion that Norway's golden goal might have included an uncalled handball: "The referees are part of the game. The only person you should ever look at after a loss is yourself."

In the '90s you won the heart of the nation. We thought we could not love you more. But in 2000 you took our hearts higher than the top and showed us that a team can shine brighter than gold.

Thanks Team USA, sports can never be better than this. And neither can you.