Women's Professional Basketball League - Formation and 1978-79 Season

Formation and 1978-79 Season

The league began with a player draft held in Manhattan's Essex House in July 1978, with eight teams participating. While few of the teams had firm commitments on playing locations (or team names, for that matter), the league planned to play a 34-game season with teams in Chicago, Houston, Iowa, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, New Jersey, New York City and Washington, D.C. Houston drafted Ann Meyers from UCLA, while New Jersey's top choice Carol Blazejowski of Montclair State University said that she wanted to retain her amateur standing to be eligible to play in the 1980 Summer Olympics. Lusia Harris, a collegiate star at Delta State University, was selected by the Houston team, but was reluctant to commit to playing after hearing the $3,000 to $5,000 salaries estimated by the Minnesota franchise. With its last pick in the draft, the Cornets selected Uljana Semjonova, a 7-foot-4-inch player for the Soviet Union's national women's basketball team who would be inducted as an inaugural member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in the class of 1999, but would never play a game in the WBL. The New Jersey Gems selected Carol Blazejowski from Montclair State College, but she announced while on tour in Bulgaria with the U.S. national women's team through her coach Maureen Wendelken that she had no intention of playing professionally and that her goal was to retain her amateur standing to be able to play for the U.S. at the 1980 Summer Olympics. Molly Bolin, who grew up in Moravia, Iowa, became the first player signed by any team in the WBL when she was signed by the Iowa Cornets.

The league played its first game on December 9, 1978, between the Chicago Hustle and the Milwaukee Does at the Milwaukee Arena, with the league's inaugural game attracting four minutes of coverage in the previous night's CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Milwaukee mayor Henry Maier issued a proclamation likening this first game to the first professional football game, played in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and the first pro baseball game, played in Cincinnati.

The league was divided into two divisions, with Chicago, Milwaukee, the Iowa Cornets and Minnesota Fillies playing in the Western Division, while the Dayton Rockettes, Houston Angels, New Jersey Gems and New York Stars were in the East. The eight initial teams paid $50,000 for their franchise, while the four teams to be added for the 1979-80 season were expected to pay $100,000, and $250,000 per team for each of four more teams in the following season. The Does had a crowd of 7,824 at the game, which saw the hometown team lose to Chicago 92-87, with Debra Waddy Rossow scoring 30 points to lead the Hustle.

The league was able to arrange an all-star game in 1979, which was played at the Felt Forum in New York City's Madison Square Garden in front of 2,731 fans. The game was hastily arranged and inserted into the league's schedule, using a court borrowed from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and forcing some players to have to make hectic travel arrangements to get to their next regular season game. The East beat the Midwest by a score of 112–99. Althea Gwyn of the New York Stars led the East with 19 points and 16 rebounds, while Chicago Hustle players Debra Waddy Rossow with 26 points and Rita Easterling with 19 points led the Midwest. Easterling, who also grabbed 18 rebounds, was named the game's most valuable player.

Behind 36 points by Paula Mayo, the Houston Angels defeated the Iowa Cornets on May 2, 1979, to take the league's first championship, 111-104 in the final game of a best three-out-of-five competition.