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- Karra Porter The Story of the First Women’s
Professional Basketball League, 1978–1981
Mad Seasons
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4 Mad
Seasons
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12 Karra Porter The Story of the First Women’s
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14 Professional Basketball League, 1978–1981
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38 University of Nebraska Press • Lincoln & London
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12 Publication of this volume was assisted by
13 the Virginia Faulkner Fund, established [-4], (4)
14 in memory of Virginia Faulkner, editor in
15 chief of the University of Nebraska Press.
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17 © 2006 by Karra Porter. All rights reserved. ———
18 Manufactured in the United States of America 11.5240
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21 Library of Congress
22 Cataloging-in-Publication Data
23 Porter, Karra. [-4], (4)
24 Mad seasons : the story of the first
25 Women’s Professional Basketball
26 League, 1978–1981 / Karra Porter.
27 p. cm.
28 Includes bibliographical references and index.
29 isbn-13: 978-0-8032-8789-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
30 isbn-10: 0-8032-8789-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
31 1. Women’s Professional Basketball League—
32 History. 2. Basketball for women—United
33 States—History. 3. Women basketball play-
34 ers—United States—History. I. Title.
35 gv885.515.w66p67 2006
36 796.323'8—dc22
37 2005026399
38
- 1 List of Illustrations vii
2 Preface ix
3
Acknowledgments xiii
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5 Prologue: Birth of a League 1
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1. The Lights Go Up 13
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2. Chance of a Lifetime 22
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9 3. A Man’s Game 35
10 4. In the Locker Room 52
11 5. Playing by the Rules 57
12 Contents 6. Working Hard for the Money 73
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7. Makeup Game 87
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8. Ball Games 104
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9. Color Commentary 118 Lines: 147 to 2
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17 10. Changing the Lineups 127 ———
18 11. Standards of Conduct 138 * 25.1732pt
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19 12. The Money Men 143 Normal Page
20 13. Wrong League 154 * PgEnds: PageB
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14. Out-of-Bounds 167
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15. Benched 178
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24 16. The Super Rookies 186
25 17. Foul Play 199
26 18. Suspended 209
27 19. Home Court Disadvantage 221
28 20. Final Buzzer 230
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21. Snapshots of the wbl 246
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31 Epilogue 269
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Appendix: wbl Teams and 275
33
wbl Player Roster
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35 Source Notes 283
36 Index 325
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- 1 The New York Stars announce the
2 hiring of Dean Meminger as coach
3 The Iowa Cornets enjoy a Christmas
4 bonus from owner George Nissen
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The Dannon Twins: Kaye and Faye
6 Young (New York Stars)
7
Sherwin Fischer
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9 Liz “the Whiz” Silcott (St. Louis
10 Streak), Adrian Mitchell (Chicago
11 Hustle), and Anita Ortega (San
Francisco Pioneers) relax before the
12 Illustrations 1979–80 wbl All-Star Game
13 [-7], (7)
f o l l ow i n g pag e 1 3 2
14 Michelle McKenzie (Dayton
15 Ann Meyers (New Jersey Gems) Rockettes) reaches for a rebound
enjoys a good play during her first Lines: 238 to 3
16 The Minnesota Fillies a few weeks
wbl game before they went on strike in 1981 ———
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18 The New Jersey Gems celebrate their Washington Metros players at
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first win of the 1979–80 season ———
19 preseason practice in 1979
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20 All-time wbl scoring leader “Machine Coach Doug Bruno (Chicago Hustle) * PgEnds: PageB
21 Gun” Molly Bolin (Iowa Cornets)
Chris Critelli of the New England
22 Mary Jo Peppler and Karen Logan Gulls takes a shot
23 (Chicago Hustle) harass a Houston [-7], (7)
24 Angels guard Pearl Moore (St. Louis Streak)
25 Hattie Browning (Dallas Diamonds) George Nissen (owner, Iowa Cornets)
26 goes in for a lay-up signs a contract with Wilson Sporting
27 Goods to produce the first “women’s”
Nancy Lieberman (Dallas Diamonds) basketball
28
dribbles into the paint
29 Connie Kunzmann (Iowa Cornets)
30 Althea Gwyn (New York Stars) tries goes up for a lay-up
31 to keep the ball from Sue Digitale
and Janie Fincher (Chicago Hustle) San Francisco Pioneers Cardie Hicks
32 and Pam Martin
33 “Chicago’s Sweetheart,” Janie Fincher
(Chicago Hustle) Patti Bucklew (Dayton Rockettes)
34
and Nancy Rutter (Iowa Cornets) in
35 Joanie Smith (Milwaukee Does) takes a first-season game in 1979
36 it up against Rita Easterling, Debra
Waddy-Rossow, and Janie Fincher The 1978–79 Houston Angels
37
38 (Chicago Hustle)
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12 Preface
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15 “I have to ask you a question,” Bill Byrne said as we sat in a hotel lobby near
his home in Ohio. “Who was Joe Carr? You don’t know, do you?” Lines: 377 to 4
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17 No, I didn’t. ———
18 “Joe Carr was the first commissioner in the nfl,” he said. “Everybody for- 1.0pt PgVa
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19 gets believe me, everybody forgets unless people like you are writing books.”
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And that’s why I wrote this book. The Women’s Professional Basketball PgEnds: TEX
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22 League has been erased from history. As both a sports and history buff, I
23 find it disturbing. Without understanding the past, how can players, owners, [-9], (9)
24 and fans appreciate what they have now? A three-hour layover in an airport
25 doesn’t sound so bad to women who used to drag themselves into a gym
26 after an all-day bus ride, play a 48-minute game in a 55-degree arena, then
27 turn around and ride back again to save hotel costs.
28 And where are the great intergenerational debates that rage in men’s
29 basketball? We might not know whether Wilt Chamberlain would have
30 schooled Shaquille O’Neal, but we’ve certainly heard it argued often enough.
31 Would Rosie Walker, indeed, “break Lisa Leslie in half ”? Most of us could
32 not refute this contention of St. Louis Streak coach Larry Gillman, because
33 so few are aware of the first generation of professional women’s basketball
34 players. (My take, by the way: wbl mvp Walker might have twisted wnba
35 mvp Leslie into a pretzel, but Leslie can go inside or out, and Walker never
36 strayed more than four feet from the basket. Each of them would score 32
37 points, but Walker would muscle her way in for more rebounds.)
38 People like Gillman, who can still recount the strengths and weaknesses
- x • Preface
1 of virtually any wbl player put to him, are a rare source of such fun
2 speculation. “If you took Rosie Walker, Althea Gwyn, [Nancy] Lieberman,
3 [Ann] Meyers, [Carol] Blazejowski, and [Liz] Silcott those six, they would
4 kick anybody’s butt in this league right now,” he says, then adds, “Molly
5 [Bolin] should have been in that group too.” It’s an intriguing, if not
6 audacious, claim that begs to be tossed around. It’s my kind of conjecture.
7 But I hadn’t even heard of the wbl until a few years ago, when I leafed
8 through a piece of basketball memorabilia that turned out to be a media
9 guide from a women’s professional league twenty years ago? That was
10 a shock; I had always assumed the first pro league was the American
11 Basketball League (abl), which tipped off in 1996, a year before the Women’s
12 National Basketball Association (wnba).
13 When an Ohio man named Bill Byrne decided to start a professional [-10], (10
14 women’s basketball league in 1978, the idea some might say the nerve
15 was almost inconceivable. The men’s pro league was on shaky ground at the
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16 time. (One of my favorite headlines of that era is from a 1979 New York Post
17 article: “O’Brien denies nba is kaput.”) Women had been playing full court ———
18 for less than a decade, and many prospects for a women’s league hadn’t 0.0pt P
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19 been able to play high school ball, let alone hope for an athletic scholarship
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20 to college. I am still amazed at the man’s audacity or vision, depending
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21 on one’s perspective.
22 I am even more amazed that no one has written about the Women’s
23 Professional Basketball League before. The wbl lasted three full seasons, [-10], (10
24 longer than any women’s league except the wnba. It had scandal, conflict,
25 humor, bitterness, pride, and even murder. The players happily struggled
26 for little or no pay under conditions that today’s players could not imagine,
27 all for love of the game.
28 In interviewing nearly one hundred people involved with the wbl, I was
29 struck by the recurring theme that, regardless of the league’s problems a
30 quarter century ago, it is now a source of accomplishment. Susan Summons,
31 whose New England Gulls went on strike after months of nonpayment, puts
32 it well: “When we look at history, there was never a great event before there
33 was a great struggle. I am proud that we are part of history, and I feel just
34 as proud that we were a part of the struggle.”
35 While I am likewise proud to chronicle both the wbl’s history and its
36 struggles, one disadvantage of being the first to do so is the impossibility of
37 completely covering any one subject while keeping the work manageable.
38 In my view, each chapter in Mad Seasons could sustain its own book. I also
- Preface • xi
1 had to sacrifice individual team histories and playoff accounts that were
2 nearly as long as the main text.
3 Finally, a style note: Many wbl personnel married or changed their names
4 after their time in the league. For ease of reference, I have generally used
5 the names by which they were known at the time.
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12 Acknowledgments
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15 This book would not have been possible without the dozens of wbl players,
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16 owners, and staffers willing to be interviewed, whose names are interspersed
17 throughout the text. In addition, a vast amount of information about the ———
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19 Hustle co-owner Sherwin Fischer hadn’t let me camp in his supply room Normal Page
20 for a week rifling through his copies of league records.
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21 wbl founder Bill Byrne was also generous with his time, allowing me to
22 delve into old memories for two days in Ohio. Another extended interview
23 was with league “midwife” Karen Logan, who, I learned after putting the [-13], (13)
24 word out for her all over the country, turned out to live only thirty-five
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miles from me in Utah.
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(Incidentally, one of the worst moments in this project was when a
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secretary who was transcribing interview tapes for me after hours “lost”
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several tapes after she was terminated by my firm, causing those people
29
who gave their time to be underrepresented in the book.)
30
31 I am also indebted to many people for sharing their scrapbooks and other
32 memorabilia, including Jo-Ellen Bistromowitz Mesa, Molly (Bolin) Kazmer,
33 Patti Bucklew, Jean Cione, Chris Critelli, Jimmy Damon, Tom Davis, Jan
34 Doleschal, Doris Draving, Liz Galloway McQuitter, Lynda Gehrke Phillip,
35 Bertha Hardy, Cardie Hicks, Bill Himmelman, Sue Hlavacek, Barb Hostert,
36 Jill Hutchison, John Katzler, Marguerite Keeley, Candace Klinzing, Larry
37 Kozlicki, Rod Lein, Karen Logan, Cindy Lundberg, Charlie McCabe, Kate
38 McEnroe, Michelle McKenzie, Muisette McKinney, Mariah Burton Nelson,
- xiv • Acknowledgments
1 Anita Ortega, Darla Plice, John Robert Scott, Ione Shadduck, Lynnette
2 Sjoquist, Sylvia Sweeney, and Ethel “Poco” White.
3 The Iowa Women’s Archive went above and beyond my expectations in
4 helping with the Cornets, and I owe a big favor now to my sister Kelly Porter
5 Hull and niece Elizabeth Hull, who made the long trip to the University of
6 Kansas library for days on end after I played the desperate-sister card. I’m
7 also grateful to Connie Barney for hundreds of hours of transcription and
8 revision work, and to my mother Betty Porter, who swore she didn’t mind
9 using her entire vacation and more to proofread, check cites, and handle
10 other tedious but critical stuff.
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12 Prologue Birth of a League
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19 “I’ll spring it on these guys,” he decided. “They’re all jocks.”
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20 A couple of drinks later, Byrne opened the conversation. “What do you
think of women’s pro basketball?” he asked. Not much, as it turned out, but PgEnds: TEX
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22 Byrne persisted. Did they know how many colleges now had women’s basketball
23 teams? How many scholarships were now being offered to women? Byrne knew. [1], (1)
24 In 1971 fewer than three hundred thousand girls in the United States
25 competed in interscholastic athletics, only 7 percent of all participants. Eleven
26 states had no girls’ programs at all. By the 1976–77 school year, that figure
27 had grown to 28 percent, and participation by women at the college level had
28 tripled. More than eight hundred colleges now sponsored women’s basketball
29 teams, a number expected to double in the next few years.
30 It didn’t take a genius to see that big action was coming to women’s
31 sports, Byrne figured. He had seen the signs with his own eyes, as he drove
32 past schoolyards with young girls playing basketball under the 100-degree
33 sun. Crowds were growing for Amateur Athletic Union (aau), high school,
34 and collegiate women’s basketball games five hundred here, fifteen hundred
35 there and some women’s teams were drawing better than a minor league
36 football team that he operated. “What the hell is happening here?” he mused.
37 The six men in an Ohio bar remained unimpressed. “Well, I’m going to do
38 a women’s pro basketball league,” he declared. His friends laughed, and Byrne
- 2 • Prologue
1 stood up, more determined than angry. “I can do this,” he insisted. Byrne
2 walked out of the bar shortly before midnight, thinking about his friends’
3 derision. No, he was not an idiot, he decided, and, no, he had not lost his mind,
4 but anything that could arouse that much negativity must have potential. The
5 next morning, Byrne called his staff together and announced the formation of
6 the Women’s Professional Basketball League.
7
8 This was not the first time that friends had heard Bill Byrne enthusing about
9 some unconventional sports venture. Since graduating from Ohio State
10 University sixteen years earlier, William J. Byrne had gone from operating
11 a sporting goods store to the presidency of the semi-pro football team
12 Columbus Bucks. In 1974 he became director of player personnel for the
13 Chicago Fire, a franchise in the short-lived World Football League. [2], (2)
14 Shortly after that venture, Byrne founded two more entities: the National
15 Scouting Association, which provided player information to the National
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16 Football League and other sports leagues, and the American Professional
17 Slo-Pitch League. “In the 1950s, I was known as a hustler. In the ’60s, I was ———
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20 Byrne was, by all accounts, a salesman which was not always a com-
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21 pliment. “I think you either loved him or you hated him,” says Kate
22 McEnroe, director of public relations for the wbl in its first season. “He
23 was absolutely an entrepreneur and I liked him, but I also understood that [2], (2)
24 he was demanding and, I think, a little before his time. He talked big, and
25 I think he dreamt big, and his vision of the league is what the wnba is
26 today. He might have stretched the truth at times, but part of it was to keep
27 enthusiasm up and running.”
28 Lynn Arturi, a wbl player who also worked in the league office, puts it
29 a little more bluntly. “I have to say that sometimes I thought of him as the
30 flim flam man,” she says, “a guy who would talk you out of your last dollar.
31 He was good with people. He was a likeable guy, but you always had a sense
32 that you were talking to someone that was trying to get the most out of you
33 and might take advantage of you.”
34 Joining Byrne’s new venture were some key staffers from the slo-pitch
35 league. Byrne’s right-hand man was David S. Almstead, a business major
36 from Ohio Wesleyan who sold insurance to help put himself through
37 college. Byrne met Almstead when the young man tried out for a kicker
38 position with the Fire. Driving away from the field, Byrne saw one of the
- Prologue • 3
1 hopefuls walking along the road and offered a lift back to the hotel. No,
2 thanks, Almstead declined pleasantly, he’d like to walk. “It was five miles!”
3 Byrne exclaims. He liked Almstead’s gumption, and when Byrne needed
4 help with a professional softball league, he gave Almstead the job. Byrne
5 now tapped Almstead again to help run his new basketball league.
6 Another, less enthusiastic transplant from slo-pitch was Tim Koelble, a
7 former sportswriter who handled public relations for the softball league.
8 Koelble was not high on the notion of women’s professional sports, Byrne
9 says. “He hated women. Hated them,” at least when it came to athletics.
10 “It was a trial for Tim,” he recalls. “There’s women’s women and there’s
11 men’s men. He was a man’s man.” Nonetheless, Koelble agreed to take on
12 communications duties for the new venture.
13 When Koelble transferred to management of the wbl’s Dayton franchise, [3], (3)
14 Byrne replaced him with twenty-four-year-old Kate McEnroe, a University
15 of Colorado graduate he had met when she wrote a freelance article about
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16 the wbl. McEnroe was interested in sports but hadn’t had many opportu-
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20 if we could make this successful, generations behind us wouldn’t have to
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21 work so hard and have to prove themselves.”
22 Although the league’s official title was the Women’s Professional Basket-
23 ball League, Byrne dropped the P to keep the moniker three letters long. [3], (3)
24 “nfl, nba, wbl, end of story,” he figured. “If they can do it, we can do
25 it.” (Some newspapers, however, refused to recognize the league’s preferred
26 abbreviation and insisted on using the letters wpbl, even going so far as to
27 change quotes from league personnel to insert the extra P.)
28 The new league needed a logo, and Byrne approached a local graphic
29 artist named Rick Mock, who had created a logo for one of the slo-pitch
30 franchises. Mock had heard of Byrne which wasn’t good. His own softball
31 team had nearly joined Byrne’s slo-pitch league, only to have the deal fall
32 through when the owner heard about certain unpaid bills.
33 When Byrne approached him about creating a logo, Mock was glad to get
34 the job but wasn’t sure he would actually see his money. As for the idea of
35 a women’s league, “I guess I was like most people,” he says, figuring “here’s
36 Bill again, trying something that nobody else has tried, and you know, it
37 may work and it may not.”
38 The artist sat down with a black Rapidograph pen and brush and went
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