USA Basketball President Tom Jernstedt: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and those people that are connected via teleconference. This is an exciting day. Many of the people here in Indianapolis and elsewhere have been preparing for this day, which is really the first step along the way by naming the head coach. There have been many people who have been working on this particular project for a period of time and I'd like to take just a moment or two to describe that to some of you. Some of you may be hearing this for the first time and others are somewhat familiar with it. This will be the first time that the United States has served as host for the FIBA World Championship Games, the first time ever in the 52-year history of the organization, which is obviously very noteworthy. I can't think of a better place or a more appropriate place for this competition to be held than in Indianapolis, Indiana, with the Hoosier hysteria and the tremendous basketball interest in this state and in the surrounding area.

It was in May of 1997 that Indianapolis was selected by USA Basketball to serve as the bid city and then subsequent to that in November of 1997, FIBA, the international governing body of the sport of basketball, selected Indianapolis to serve as the host city in 2002. Since that time, it has been a team effort for the Indiana Sports Corporation President, Dale Newberger, and his outstanding staff have been integral; the NCAA's been involved; USA basketball, the NBA -- Russ Granik and David Stern have been very helpful as well as their entire staff, and the local organizing committee here co-chaired by Ted Bone, who's been instrumental in many major activities in Indianapolis. Jim Morris is the other co-chair, and I happen to be serving with those two distinguished gentlemen.

The plan has been in place for a number of years and months. I've been involved in NCAA activities for 30 years and a number of NCAA Final Fours and other competitions, but the planning and organization that has gone on in Indianapolis in preparation for this competition is outstanding. And the teamwork again with USA Basketball, the local organizing committee, the Indiana Sports Corporation, the NBA and the others will make this the finest world championship that has been had in the 52-year history.

The FIBA World Championship, the importance of it to the world, it's held every four years. Many people think that this competition around the world is more significant than the Olympics. One of the reasons is that there are 16 teams that go through the zone qualifying to qualify for the World Championship, whereas in the Olympics there are 12 teams, and many people worldwide think that this is a more competitive opportunity and a fairer competition than the Olympics. I think America will be excited to have this brand of basketball played in the USA next year. It started, as I mentioned, in 1950. The USA has a overall record of 91-23. We've won three gold medals, three bronze medals, three silver medals. What that quickly tells you is that worldwide, the game of basketball has grown and is extremely competitive, which on one end is exciting to see that kind of growth, but the USA will have its work cut out for it next year. As you'll recall in 1998, we did not have the benefit of all the best players in the world and the USA got a bronze medal. In 1994, we did win the gold.

Next, the real reason we're here is to introduce the coach. Just a moment about the process. USA Basketball is the governing body for the sport, international basketball in the USA. One of our significant committees is the Senior National team committee, which is chaired by Stu Jackson. Stu is a Senior VP in the NBA, and he's also one of our VPs with USA Basketball. His committee is composed of nine other individuals. They are individuals that have distinguished themselves in the sport of basketball over a long period of time and have done an excellent job. Stu's committee has been working for the last several months, and within the last two weeks that committee forwarded its recommendation to the USA Basketball Executive Committee, who approved the recommendation. It was a unanimous approval to select George Karl, Head Coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, as the USA's head coach for the 2002 FIBA World Championship in Indianapolis in August-September 2002. Coach Karl, congratulations.

Stu is going to come on in a few moments and speak about more details. But just briefly, I couldn't be more excited on behalf of USA Basketball with this selection. George has distinguished himself with a long and impressive list of accomplishments as a coach internationally, and through his NBA career, and of course some of you may remember when he played with the North Carolina Tar Heels and Coach (Dean) Smith. He has distinguished himself along the way; he's an uptempo coach highly respected in the game of basketball. We're thrilled to have you heading up USA's team for the 2002 World Championship, George. Congratulations.

George Karl: Thank you, Tom. Thank you to USA Basketball. I'm 50 years old and I've had a great year. When Russ Granik and Stu Jackson and David Stern asked me if I'd be interested in this job it was very humbling, but I took about 10 seconds to say yes. I appreciate that the USA Basketball committee asked me and allowed me to have the opportunity. For me, coaching has been my life and now to represent the profession of coaching at this level is an honor, a privilege and one that I'm very respectful of. There'll be many, many good basketball teams. We have many great international stars as we see every week, and they will play very aggressively and very proudly for their countries come next August. And of course, the opportunity to try to win a gold medal to bring a championship to Indianapolis and also to American Basketball and the NBA & I'm just tremendously honored, humbled by it, excited about it, childlike about it. As you all know, I can be very childlike. I've actually asked Jim Tooley and USA Basketball to have the job. I've always wanted to coach a USA team. I'd kidded I'd coach a girls team in Argentina, it didn't matter. I just wanted to coach a USA team and now to coach the best in the World Championships & I lived in Spain for two seasons and I'd like to reemphasize that a lot of European basketball thinks the World Championships are much more important than the Olympics, and America, I think we always have the Olympics as a priority. I know for a fact in Spain that sometimes they didn't even send their best team to the Olympics, but they always send their best team to the World Championships. It will be a great challenge. It will be great basketball.

And then to play it in Indiana, where most people here know that they are very proud of their basketball, and I've had to sweat a lot of nights playing in this building, now hopefully they'll be a few Indianapolis people supporting me and yelling for me. And hopefully we'll have a Pacer or two coaching/playing with the team too. Thanks very much Tom, Thanks NBA.

Jernstedt: I think also it goes without saying with his background that he will be a great ambassador. His coaching record is proven over many years. He'll also be a great ambassador of this country, USA Basketball, and I think at this point in time that is also very, very important. I'd like to introduce Stu Jackson. As I mentioned a moment ago, Stu is currently the Senior VP with the NBA, serves also as a VP with USA Basketball and is currently the chair with the Senior National Team Committee that made the recommendation that George Karl be the coach. Stu, I want to congratulate you and your committee on the diligent work you've done so far. I know Coach Karl's interested in knowing when you're going to help him put the team together, when he's going to help you put the team together, but I know you'll do as thorough of job in selecting the team as you've done in selecting Coach Karl. I'd like to turn it over to you for a couple of comments, Stu.

Stu Jackson: Thank you very much, Tom, and I appreciate your comments. And I too would like to congratulate George on his selection as the head coach of the 2002 World Championship team. As Tom mentioned before, I do in fact chair the Senior National Team Committee. As the chair of that committee, the committee is comprised of nine members. We use as our criteria for selecting a coach that the coach has to certainly have a wealth of head coaching experience, specifically three of those head coaching years in the NBA and two out of the last three years as a head coach in the NBA. In addition to that, we wanted to find a coach with obvious very good ability, knowledge and tact and a style of play that we felt would be appropriate for the World Championship, and certainly we think that we've found in George Karl one of the NBA's most successful and respected coaches -- George certainly having proved himself, being the fourth-leading coach in terms of winning percentage of all active coaches and currently seventh in the number of victories among active coaches, and most recently capped a stellar career with an NBA Central Division Championship last season. On top of that, I would add that George has, through the years, exhibited a great love of the game, certainly has shown the ability to communicate with players and more importantly direct players to a winning system. As has been mentioned before, we really feel confident that George will undoubtedly have our team perform at a very high level. Our hope is to come away with the Gold medal and a Championship, that has been mentioned before, is a very important championship to us as well as in the eyes of the rest of the world. Being a member of a USA Basketball team is very important to everybody in the NBA community. And to look at how it's viewed among our coaches, and certainly George is no different, it really is a crowning jewel to any of our coaching careers. Among the players representing the USA, being a part of USA Basketball has taken on a perception that is definitely equal to and maybe is sometimes greater than actually being a NBA All-Star. Being able to represent your country is held in that high esteem. We face a tough battle, certainly, in the World Championships. Look at our most recent two international competitions -- the 2000 Olympics and the most recent competition in the Goodwill Games. What has been proven is that the international basketball world continually gets better and certainly has proved to be a very worthy opponent. Again I will close and just say good luck to Coach Karl. We know that he'll do an outstanding job and we look forward to participating in the World Championships.

Jernstedt: Thanks very much, Stu. Lastly but also very important, Mike Henn is going to give you some ticket information.

Mike Henn, Local Organizing Committee: How does one follow this much? I don't know. Brad Carlson from the Sports Corporation asked me to say a few things about tickets. I asked him, "Why me?" and he said I like to talk a lot. I am trying to figure out if that is a compliment to this point or not. But&

Phase two of our ticket operation, noon today, we put on our multi-level ticket packages. We've had our season tickets on sale since last April. I have been with the Indiana Pacers for 20 years, and this is as fine an event we've been involved with, in addition to the NBA Finals, but this will be one of the great events in all the world, no question about it.

I've been in ticketing along time, I get this: One, I want a great seat, number two, I want a real big discount and number three, I want a whole lot of flexibility in packages. We've put that in there. No question about it. This is stage two, 12-16-game ticket packages, both in Conseco Fieldhouse and obviously the RCA Dome. One of my favorite numbers, and we have some fine representatives here from Ticketmaster, noon today, right ladies? (317) 239-5151 www.ticketmaster.com, and 2002worldbasketball.com. So another way you can get your ticket packages, certainly you can see any of this after the press conference is over if you are interested in purchasing today.

This is kind of interesting. The RCA Dome seats 35,669 for basketball, Conseco Field House, for this event, 17,515. There are just 2,000 Gold level seats remaining for the gold medal game. Get your tickets today, no question about it. But we have ticket packages for people who can come just on a weekend, ticket packages for those who can only come on a weekday, ticket packages for those who are coming from around the world and have a limited amount of time to stay here and go back. We feel like we've met everything, and we feel like we have the ticket package for anybody who wants to attend this event. The NBA is behind this, the Indiana Pacers are behind this and the world Basketball community is obviously behind this. And also over the Internet, so Tom, there's your ticket update.

Jernstedt: OK, thanks very much, Mike. I think also just in closing, one of the reasons that Indianapolis was selected was the two facilities in this city. Conseco is a state of the art building. The RCA Dome, where we have had numerous NCAA championships and many others, is also a world class facility. It's unusual for any city in the world to have two facilities of this caliber, but that was certainly an important ingredient. And Indianapolis being selected to serve as host of the World Championships. In closing, Coach Karl, congratulations again, a long and distinguished career and this will be another step along the way, and we look forward to you winning the gold medal here in eight or nine months. Congratulations again.

Q: Coach Karl, how soon do you expect to start announcing members of the team? Will it start incrementally and how much influence do you have in the selections? Do you have a small input and the committee has the final input or how does it work?
Karl: My primary job is to be the coach of the Milwaukee Bucks over the next few months. That question should be addressed to Stu Jackson and the selection committee more than me. I'm sure I'll have a conversation or two with the committee but the NBA has many, many great players and I'm sure that the players that are chosen, I will have a ball coaching them. I realize I'm a coach and now to be coaching in a situation where I will be representing the United States and coaching the best players. I don't care who my point guard is. I don't care who my off guard is. There are a lot of great players out there and I'm sure the committee will come up with a great team.

Jackson: The plan going forward is that within the next two weeks, the committee will select a core group of players -- somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight players -- that will be asked to participate on this team, with the idea that throughout the rest of this year and the beginning of next year that we would ask the remaining four or five players to join the team. Certainly, before we begin those final selections for the core players, we of course wanted to select a head coach to have some input into the composition of the team, but ultimately the decision will rest with the committee.

Q: In 1994, with the NBA players, most of the games were basically blowouts on the way to the gold medal. How far has the rest of the world -- in your opinion -- closed the gap if you count on the guys you are going to have next year?
Karl: It's funny -- I don't know if it's funny or not -- it's a nightmare right now. But my college Olympic team was in 1972 and it was the game that America lost in the Olympics. You have a Lithuania team who played a very close game in the 2000 Olympics. In the Goodwill Games, Brazil played a very close game -- in fact an overtime game. And you have many scares. It's very obvious -- if you look at the players in the Draft this year -- I don't know how many players were drafted in the first round but I don't know half of them because I can't pronounce their names. The game of basketball is exploding, the coaching of basketball has gone worldwide. When I coached in Spain with Real Madrid, it was a great experience to witness the world community of basketball. China now has players that are playing in the NBA in America. I think the one thing that we have going in representing America is energy and enthusiasm. I think we have an edge on them but we still have to play a first-class rate of basketball to be successful. I don't know if blowouts are an indicating factor of your greatness, I think winning the gold medal is going to be the goal and how we do that. Hopefully, we're going to have a few easy games. There are also a lot of representative basketball teams throughout the world.

Q: Is there going to be a lot of pressure on you to win?
Karl: I call it good pressure. I love to play in playoff basketball. I love to be involved in championship situations. I love to play in the seventh- or fifth-game situations like the one we played. There's pressure. There are nightmares and you don't sleep some nights, but it's good pressure. It makes you better as a person, win or lose. It stimulates you to focus. The intensity of my knowledge and my intelligence in the game is 10 times more intense. So it's fantastic for me to be in a good pressure situation. There's not many things that I have done in my career that will be as special as doing this next August.

Q: Do the events going on worldwide right now affect the tournament at all next year in any way?
Jernstedt: I think that since September 11, world class events have been staged, a lot of preparation has taken place. I made reference a few moments ago to the management of this facility & we are pursuing all avenues to take necessary precautions and the necessary procedures are underway as we speak.

Q: Coach Karl, are there any players on the Indiana Pacers team that you would want to take a good hard look at?
A: A lot of the committee's search is going to be based on who wants to play. Would Reggie Miller play? Would Jermaine O'Neal want to play? There are many good players. Reggie has beaten me so many times that maybe he would want play for me once in awhile. There's Travis Best and Jalen Rose has a very high push to becoming a great player in the league. I don't know. I really have a lot of confidence in the committee. I'm kind of a hands-off personnel guy. My last personnel decision was Chris Washburn so I'll probably stay out of personnel in the future.

Q: Stu Jackson -- you mentioned that you would announce a core group of six to eight players -- in the next few weeks. Do you have any indication or reason to believe that Michael Jordan -- who says he just wants to play basketball -- now might be interested in representing the U.S. one more time?
Stu Jackson: Certainly, we don't have any knowledge of that presently. But it's certainly worth the asking. But certainly Michael has represented the country, USA Basketball and the league very well over the years in international competition and if he elects to take a pass certainly we would understand. We do think that the pool of player with which we have to draw from is a very deep pool of players to form a team that we think will be very well represented.

Q: Hi George! First of all congratulations, and second of all obviously knowing your relationship with Coach Smith and his experience with USA Basketball, can you talk about your conversation with him when you let him know you had been selected?
Karl: Coach Smith called today and actually I have not talked to Coach Smith. He knows about the selection but I have not had that phone conversation with him. But again, he was the first coach after Hank Iba, when, if you know the history of the Olympics, Hank Iba coached five or six Olympic teams and then Coach Smith in 1976 was chosen to coach the team. I think he kind of started the process of "You should only do it one time," and after Coach Smith there have been numerous coaches. To be one of the coaches to coach a team of the caliber of the Olympics is common North Carolina tradition, and there have been a lot of Carolina players and coaches represented in the Olympic teams and world USA Teams. I am just proud of being one of those guys. I am a proud Tar Heel but I am also a proud NBA coach and hopefully come home and win all the games.