Even if the NBA is still waiting to know its first female “head coach”, the fairer sex has gradually imposed itself and today there are about ten women in the NBA, whether as assistants, leaders or members of the staff. . What is less 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 had respectively selected Denise Long and Lucia Harris during the Draft. But it had not been further …
In 2013, we also remember that Mark Cuban had promised to draft Brittney Griner, who broke everything in NCAA, but the boss of the Mavericks was not at the end of his idea despite the enthusiasm of the current star of the Phoenix Mercury, ready to do battle 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”. Although she entered the Hall Of Fame and is a prominent figure in women’s basketball in the United States, Ann Meyers is not known to the general public in France. Still, his jersey is on the ceiling of the UCLA hall, alongside that of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton. In the Bruins jersey, she even signed the first NCAA quadruple-double, men and women alike. In 1976, she was a member of the first Olympic team in the United States, and she brought money back from Montreal. But in the mid-1970s, women’s basketball had no equivalent to the WNBA, and it was difficult to make it her profession.
Except that in 1978, an entrepreneur decided to create the Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL). It is the ancestor of the WNBA, and three years after leaving the NCAA, Ann Meyers is selected for the first place of the Draft 1978. Three years later, the WBL disappears, but Meyers is elected MVP of the first season , and its level of play catches the eye of the NBA! At least from a franchise, the Pacers.
At the time, the franchise was young, arrived in 1976 in the NBA, and it owes its survival to a telethon! Publicity stunt ‘or not, the Pacers make Ann Meyers make history by offering her a contract for a test. It’s a real contract, and at 24, she gets $ 50,000 at the time for this trial and a position in the franchise. Playing with the men, she has done it before, and already at the university, there had been talk of joining the men’s team. She then backtracked because of the “we say” …
“It was probably a publicity stunt, and I don’t deny it, but I’ve never been the type to look for it” Ann Meyers confided a few years ago. “It was the best decision in my life. When I was in high school, I played on the Men’s Summer League team between my junior and senior years of high school. I had planned to play on the boys’ varsity team during the regular school season, but a lot 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 had played on the Summer League team, even though I wanted to play on the varsity men’s 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 lived in California. He said, “How would you like to give it a try?” At the time, my brother David was already playing for the Bucks. I remembered what had happened five years ago and I thought to myself, “Well, people dissuaded me once. I’m not going to let them dissuade me a second time ”. I thought it was the opportunity of a lifetime. The decision was not easy to make, but once I made the decision, I told myself that I was going to give my all. “
Between mockery and machismo
In the United States, the news makes people smile, and the press is not kind. Here is what a reporter wrote in the Washington Post: “ In case Ann doesn’t make it, the Pacers say she’ll stay with the squad “at a certain position” which could mean, I guess, that she’ll cook pre-game meals for the real ones. players« .
On the side of the opposing leaders, we are not more tender. An example with Sonny Werblin, the owner of the Knicks. “It’s completely ridiculous” he writes. ” It’s a shame. I don’t think the commissioner should tolerate it. I think it’s bad for the image of professional basketball. It’s a parody ”.
“It was very difficult 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”
Same story with Mike Bantom, 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 try to build a team to win it’s not a way to convince our fans that we are serious about our goals ”.
In 1979, the Pacers coach is Slick Leonard, who died last April, and it is he who leads the training 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” recalls Ann Meyers. “I’m sure he was put in a very difficult position. But I was 24 and focused on myself and nothing else, trying to do the best I could. “
Here it is for three days on the campus of Butler where the Pacers organized their camp. She has three days to convince with two workouts per day. The first sessions are complicated because of… the players. They refuse to play physical, and a leader brings all the players together and asks them to behave normally, and not to try to spare him. She is not part of the first group of cut players, and she believes in it even more. But the second cut will be fatal to him.
Not just a marketing stunt
“Have I been entitled to fair treatment? ” she wondered a few years ago. “I would have liked to move on to the next round of the free agent rookie camp. I went through the three day process with two workouts per day. So we had six practices and then I was let go, even though it was a contract to work in the franchise. When Slick said to me, “Hey, you were awesome. We liked you to come here, but we’ll move on, ”I was not happy. I was hurt, I was broken. I thought I played well enough to level up. But it opened so many doors for me and gave me the opportunity to meet my future husband Don (Drysdale) and my life changed. “
Cut off by the Pacers, Ann Meyers returns to WBL where she was the best player, and she remains at the Pacers to comment on the matches. Star of women’s basketball, she plays friendly meetings with Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving. From the height of her 1m77, she proves that her test was not just a marketing coup, and the biggest players respect her and play with her. We even see her in an advertisement always featuring Magic Johnson.
“I’ll tell you one thing: we had invited a slew of players, and she was better than a lot of them” had told Slick Leonard, the former coach of the Pacers, at the origin of the end of his dream. “I cut her like any other player. I wasn’t sure about cutting it. I didn’t like this moment. But she had done 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 tests, I remember a journalist telling me: ‘You are the Jackie Robinson of women’s sport’ ” she says. “At the time, Billie Jean King (tennis legend who had faced men) was still there, and such a comparison was very flattering, but I was like, ‘I can’t be Jackie Robinson!’ “
“When people give you a chance, why not take it? “
A few years later, she will marry a baseball star, former teammate of… Jackie Robinson, and she will be much more than a pioneer.
That year, 1979, she became the first woman to comment on NBA matches. TV consultant, she was still at the microphone in 2016 for this Pacers – Suns meeting, the first commented by two women.
As a leader, she also showed the way, and she is still today vice-president of the Phoenix Mercury, after having been GM. At 66, she hopes to have changed mentalities and opened doors. “Even if it didn’t turn out the way I would have liked, being part of the Pacers opened so many doors for me”, she wrote in her autobiography published in 2012. “I just had a privileged life because of a decision that a lot of people didn’t agree with, that they didn’t understand. When people give you a chance, why not take it? It may not work for them, they may think it’s wrong, but someone believes in you, and that’s why I’m saying don’t look back in your life and say to yourself ‘And if ?’ “.
The last word for Bill Russell, the legendary pivot of the Celtics. “For me, Ann is one of the greatest basketball players in history. Without distinction of man or woman “.
