Dot Richardson is back with the U.S. Olympic team, surviving her medical residency and a 21/2-year snub by the softball selection committee to chase a second gold medal -- this time with even more enthusiasm, if that's possible, than before.

 "There were thoughts of not stepping on the field as an athlete again. I wanted the last moment to be that glorious moment," the star of the Atlanta Games said this summer before leaving for Sydney. "But I never lost the love for this sport."

 Richardson is now a second baseman instead of a shortstop and a fully credentialed orthopedic surgeon and specialist in sports medicine. At 38 -- she will turn 39 during the Olympics -- it's getting harder to juggle the two professions.

 But "Dr. Dot" believes she can be an example to those she meets. And two jobs means she meets twice as many people.

 "For me, it's meant a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of times playing when I was exhausted," she said. "I hope that nobody feels it's been easy. I hope that when people hear about me and my story, they realize that they have a lot of talent too, and in order to express that talent it takes a lot of hard work."

 While finding the time for two careers has been difficult, keeping them separate is more like impossible. Twice this summer while working on softball she been called upon to handle medical emergencies.

 One time during the team's Olympic preparation tour, she left a game to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a fan. After handing the man off to an ambulance, she returned to the field and her spot in the lineup.

 None of her teammates was surprised, least of all pitcher Lisa Fernandez. During Richardson's residency, she would sometimes come home and say, "Lisa, I lost one,"

 Fernandez knew her roommate wasn't talking about a fly ball in the lights.

 "She does the best she can to provide for those people. But if it's meant to be, it's meant to be," Fernandez said. "She talks about living life to the fullest and it forces you, when you're around her, to do the same."

 It's one thing for a doctor to change somebody's life. What's more remarkable is that Richardson has the same effect on people through softball.

 "She truly changed my life in terms of what it meant to be ballplayer, and how I'm going to handle the role," Fernandez said. "Watching her and all that she was able to achieve, on and off the field, really pushed me to do the same. I ended up being on the honor roll and Pacific 10 first team All-American academically.

 "I look at her as someone that's inspiring. Nothing is overwhelming to her," Fernandez said. "She can always manage everything that's thrown on her plate."

 Or over it.

 Richardson batted .273 in the '96 Games with three homers, including the game-winner in the gold medal game against China. Still, the selection committee left her off the national team for the next 21/2 years.

 Upset by the snub and not lacking in demands on her time, Richardson considered concentrating on medicine full-time. But she couldn't put her softball career behind.

 "I've been through the rejection and disappointment and wanting something so badly, it keeps bringing you back," she said. "For me, my passion for the sport of softball has been able to keep me at this level."

 The typically unbeatable Americans were a mere steamroller in Richardson's absence, losing four games -- three of them to archrival Australia. Since she returned to the team in late 1998, the Americans have beaten the Aussies five consecutive times -- and everyone else, too.

 "I wouldn't necessarily say she was the complete cause of those losses we suffered. But she's an integral part or the team," Fernandez said. "And when you lose someone like that, that comes into play."

 When Richardson returned, it was at second base instead of shortstop -- a move that allowed coach Ralph Raymond to use slugger Crystal Bustos and a designated hitter, too. It also gave the team back its emotional leader.

 "Dot never changes. She's still the sparkplug and still the Energizer Bunny," first baseman Sheila Douty said. "Everybody else wonders how she does it. But she's just Dot."

 Although this is most likely the Olympic finale for softball's most visible star, that's what people thought in Atlanta, too. Either way, Richardson wants to keep one at least spike in the sport through the Dot Richardson Softball Association, which runs clinics and leagues around the country.

 "I know that, one day, I'll have a lot of time to look back. But as we go for all the goals I have and that the world has, there's something driving me to live life to its fullest, to do all that I can," she said. "As I'm doing it, it doesn't seem as tough as it may sound.

 "My day of rest will come. And when it does, I'll know that my purpose on this Earth has been fulfilled."