The Foreign Service Journal, December 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2021 109 proud to lose by only 20 to 30 points, much less actually come out the victor. Equally stunned, several of us gathered to say goodbye to the players. Our two sons were among the embassy kids eagerly waiting with their programs for autographs. But Team USA swept out of the locker room headed for their bus, brushing aside the uncomprehending children. Parents were left to explain The Hungarian team, Ferencváros, managed a surprise upset against the vaunted 1996 U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team in February 1999. Physical education teacher Géza Kuncze introduced basketball (korbball) in Hungary in 1912, after he first saw it in Germany. IGORGRUNER that, while it is important to always be gracious in defeat, even adults some- times behave less than civilly. A teach- able moment, perhaps. Ferencváros was the only defeat on the U.S. national team’s five-game winter tour against European professional teams in Slovakia, France and Hungary. As we debated how this debacle could have happened, the coach blamed the heavy lunch the team enjoyed from the Hungarian hosts earlier that day. “I’ll never allow them to eat liver pâté again,” she declared. n