Even though the NBA is still waiting to meet its first female head coach, women have gradually established themselves and today there are more and more women in the NBA, whether as assistants, managers or staff members. What is less well known is that no rule prevents a woman from playing in the NBA, and in 1969 and 1977, the San Francisco Warriors and the New Orleans Jazz selected Denise Long and Lucia Harris respectively during the Draft. But that was as far as it went…
In 2013, we also remember that Mark Cuban had promised to draft Brittney Griner, who was breaking everything in the NCAA, but the Mavericks boss did not follow through with his idea despite the enthusiasm of the current star of the Phoenix Mercury, ready to fight with men.
One of the best players in NCAA history
In fact, it is on the Indianapolis side that we must find traces of an “NBA player”. Even if she entered the Hall Of Fame and is a prominent personality in women's basketball in the United States, Ann Meyers is not known to the general public in France.
Yet her jersey hangs on the ceiling of the UCLA arena, alongside those of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton. Wearing the Bruins jersey, she even recorded the first quadruple-double in the NCAA, for both men and women. In 1976, she was a member of the first U.S. Olympic team, and she brought home silver from Montreal. But in the mid-1970s, women's basketball had no equivalent to the WNBA, and it was difficult to make a career out of it.
Except that in 1978, an entrepreneur decided to create the Women's Professional Basketball League (WBL). It was the ancestor of the WNBA, and three years after leaving the NCAA, Ann Meyers was selected first in the 1978 Draft. Three years later, the WBL disappeared, but Meyers was elected MVP of the first season, and her level of play caught the eye of the NBA! At least of one franchise, the Pacers.
At the time, the franchise was young, having arrived in the NBA in 1976, and it owed its survival to a telethon! Publicity stunt or not, the Pacers made Ann Meyers enter history by offering her a contract for a tryout. It was a real contract, and at 24, she received $50,000 at the time for this tryout and a position within the franchise. She had already played with the men, and already at university, there had been talk of her joining the men's team. She had then backed out because of “they say”…
“It was probably a publicity stunt, and I don't deny it, but I've never been one to seek it out.” Ann Meyers confided a few years ago. “It was the best decision I ever made. When I was in high school, I played on the boys’ Summer League team between my junior and senior year. I had planned on playing on the boys’ varsity team during the regular school season, but a lot of things had been said. When you’re in high school, feelings change and you change physically, so you care what people say. So even though I played on the summer league team, even though I wanted to play on the boys’ varsity team, I let people talk me out of it. After UCLA, all of a sudden, I got a call from Sam Nassi, the new owner of the Indiana Pacers, who was living in California. He said, ‘Would you like to try out?’ My brother David was already playing for the Bucks at the time. I thought back to what had happened five years ago and I thought, 'Well, people talked me out of it once. I'm not going to let them talk me out of it a second time.' I thought it was the opportunity of a lifetime. It wasn't an easy decision to make, but once I made the decision, I said, 'I'm going to give it my all.'
Between mockery and machismo
In the United States, the news is causing a smile, and the press is not being kind. Here is what a journalist writes in the Washington Post : ” In case Ann doesn't make it, the Pacers say she'll stay on the team “in some capacity,” which I suppose means she'll be cooking pregame meals for the actual players.” .
The opposing leaders are no more tender. An example is Sonny Werblin, the owner of the Knicks. “This is completely ridiculous” he wrote. “It's a disgrace. I don't think the commissioner should tolerate it. I think it's bad for the image of professional basketball. It's a travesty.”
“It was very difficult for the coach, because he came from a generation where women were at home raising a family and not on the basketball court with a bunch of boys.”
Mike Bantom has the same story, interviewed by the New York Times at the time of the announcement. At the time, he was part of the Pacers' roster, and he did not understand the owner's decision. “This was all done in Los Angeles by our owner, and I don't see how it could help us. I think when you're trying to build a team to win, that's not the way to convince our fans that we're serious about our goals.”
In 1979, the Pacers coach was Slick Leonard, who died last April, and it was he who led training sessions with this surprise guest among his players. “It was very difficult for Slick Leonard, the coach, because he came from a generation where women were at home raising a family and not on the basketball court with a bunch of boys.” remembers Ann Meyers. “I'm sure he was put in a very difficult position. But I was 24 and I was focused on myself and nothing else, trying to do the best I could.”
Here she is for three days on the Butler campus where the Pacers were organizing their camp. She has three days to convince with two training sessions per day. The first sessions are complicated because of… the players. They refuse to play physical, and a manager gathers all the players and asks them to behave normally, and not to try to spare him. She is not part of the first group of players cut, and she believes in it even more. But the second cut will be fatal for her.
Not just a marketing ploy
“Have I been treated fairly?” she wondered a few years ago. “I would have loved to have moved on to the next round of rookie free agent camp. I went through the three-day process with two practices a day. So we had six practices and then I was let go, even though it was a contract to work within the franchise. When Slick said to me, ‘Hey, you did great. We liked having you here, but we’re going to move on,’ I wasn’t happy. I was hurt, I was broken. I thought I had played well enough to move on. But it opened so many doors for me, gave me the opportunity to meet my future husband Don (Drysdale) and my life changed.”
Cut by the Pacers, Ann Meyers returned to the WBL where she was the best player, and she stayed with the Pacers to commentate the matches. A star of women's basketball, she played friendly matches with Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving. At 1m77 tall, she proved that her tryout was not just a marketing stunt, and the greatest players respected her and played with her. We even saw her in an advertisement with Magic Johnson again.
“I'll tell you one thing: we invited a bunch of players, and she was better than a lot of them.” said Slick Leonard, the former Pacers coach, who was behind the end of his dream. “I cut her like any other player. I didn't feel good about cutting. I didn't like the moment. But she did a great job, and I was proud of her.”
Forty years later, what remains of this experience? The feeling of having been a pioneer. During my trials, I remember a journalist saying to me: 'You are the Jackie Robinson of women's sport.' she said. “At the time, Billie Jean King (tennis legend who had faced men) was still there, and such a comparison was very flattering, but I said to myself the following: 'There's no way I'm Jackie Robinson!'”
“When people give you a chance, why not take it?”
A few years later, Ann Meyers would marry a baseball star, a former teammate of… Jackie Robinson, and she would become much more than a pioneer.
That year, in 1979, she became the first woman to commentate on NBA matches. A TV consultant, she was still at the microphone in 2016 for this Pacers – Suns match, the first to be commentated by two women.
As a leader, she also showed the way, and she is still vice president of the Phoenix Mercury today, after having been its GM. At 66, she hopes to have changed mentalities and opened doors. “Even though it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, being a part of the Pacers opened so many doors for me,” she wrote in his autobiography published in 2012. “I just had a privileged life because of a decision that a lot of people didn’t agree with, and didn’t understand. When people give you a chance, why not take it? It might not work out for them, they might think it’s wrong, but someone believes in you, and that’s why I say don’t look back on your life and say, ‘What if?’”
The final word goes to Bill Russell, the legendary Celtics center. “For me, Ann is one of the greatest basketball players in history. Regardless of whether he was a man or a woman.”.
Article originally published in 2021
