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Speaker 1: When I think about the future of basketball, I think

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Speaker 1: about women.

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Speaker 2: Whoa what a pass?

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Speaker 3: Now what I'm walking?

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Speaker 4: Leslie with the bucket, the assistant.

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Speaker 2: Inn esco, a long three for the women's school, and

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Speaker 2: the buzzard.

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Speaker 1: I get asked all the time about the newest class

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Speaker 1: to enter the WNBA, megastars Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Camera

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Speaker 1: and break and what they mean for the future of

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Speaker 1: the sport.

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Speaker 2: My answer is always the same.

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Speaker 1: This is an era of unparalleled interest in women's basketball,

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Speaker 1: made possible by generations of players, coaches and pioneers.

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Speaker 2: Rossie, they don't look for it. Fee to Potter for

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Speaker 2: the finish. What a dish from Diana Tarossi. It's going

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Speaker 2: away by Rasatti, Come on, show, hustle down. Zatti's waiting

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Speaker 2: for it.

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Speaker 3: Gets the swoops, download Valdemoro.

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Speaker 5: That's it, the our scores, it's a triple double first Slopes.

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Speaker 1: In fact, what we're seeing today is actually over one

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Speaker 1: hundred years in the making.

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Speaker 6: Did you know basketball is for gals too? That's right, folks.

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Speaker 5: Just one year after the.

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Speaker 6: Venerable doctor James Naysmith hung his first peach basket to

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Speaker 6: the wall at a Springfield, Massachusetts branch of the Young

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Speaker 6: Men's Christian Association. The fairer Sex began partaking in the

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Speaker 6: greatest game ever creator. The Dribbling Dames at Smith College

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Speaker 6: in Connecticut were the first to learn the rules and

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Speaker 6: play intramural contests. Then Iowa State, Vasa Wellesley and brynmar

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Speaker 6: caught bascat Freva. Of course, the rules of the game

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Speaker 6: were modified. The court was divided into three sections and

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Speaker 6: players were required to stay in the assigned areas. Snatching

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Speaker 6: the ball, holding it for more than three seconds, or

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Speaker 6: dribbling it more than three times were all forbidden, and

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Speaker 6: to keep the ladies well ladylike, men were barred from

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Speaker 6: attending games, and the ladies ran the floor in corsets,

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Speaker 6: floor length skirts, and long sleeved blouses. However, in eighteen

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Speaker 6: ninety six, after a number of tripping incidents, those skirts

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Speaker 6: were replaced with bloomers.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, enough of that, though all these things corsets included

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Speaker 1: are true.

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Speaker 2: From the outset.

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Speaker 1: Men's basketball was a game, but women's hoofs was a revolution.

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Speaker 1: In the earliest days, it was actually scandalous. By the

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Speaker 1: late nineteen twenties it was niche. There were industrial leagues,

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Speaker 1: church leagues, and competitive tournaments, but they were all organized

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Speaker 1: by men. Some of those events even included beauty contests,

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Speaker 1: but the women kept playing.

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Speaker 3: Got ninety three points in her brief game in a

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Speaker 3: tournament this year for an Artimer.

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Speaker 1: In the nineteen fifties, women's basketball became popular enough that the

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Speaker 1: Pan Am Games included the sport for the first time.

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Speaker 1: Team USA, led by future Hall of Famer Lomita Odum,

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Speaker 1: won the gold medal. In nineteen seventy two, Title nine

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Speaker 1: breathed new life into the sport. For a young val Ackerman.

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Speaker 1: It meant four more years playing the sport she loved.

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Speaker 1: Value played basketball for the University of Virginia. This was

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Speaker 1: seven years after UVA became co ed, which is just

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Speaker 1: hard to imagine. Yeah, and five years after Title nine

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Speaker 1: had passed. And I'm just wondering how those two things

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Speaker 1: affected your college experience.

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Speaker 4: First, just financially, you know, the Title nine implementation in

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Speaker 4: seventy two opened up opportunities to get your play funded.

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Speaker 4: And so I was able to go to Virginia on

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Speaker 4: first to partial and then eventually a full scholarship. And

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Speaker 4: that was music to the ears of my family, my

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Speaker 4: parents that my education was essentially going to get paid

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Speaker 4: for that was a direct impact. And then number two,

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Speaker 4: it just experientially the chance to be on a team

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Speaker 4: at that time when the women's programs at UVA were

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Speaker 4: just getting off the ground.

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Speaker 1: Today, Val is one of the most influential people in

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Speaker 1: the sports world.

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Speaker 4: Hi everyone, I'm Val Ackerman, president of the WNBA.

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Speaker 1: She's the commissioner of the Big East Conference and was

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Speaker 1: the first president of the WNBA.

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Speaker 2: Back in the mid seventies.

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Speaker 1: She was a college freshman splitting the lone basketball scholarship

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Speaker 1: available for women at the University of Virginia.

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Speaker 4: There was one scholarship for women's basketball, and my coach,

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Speaker 4: Debbie Ryan, who made an amazing career out of that

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Speaker 4: position at UBA thirty plus years, was very inventive. She

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Speaker 4: split it so I got half and another teammate who

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Speaker 4: came in at the same time, got half. And I

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Speaker 4: joke that I got tuition and fees and she got

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Speaker 4: room and board, got to go to class and she

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Speaker 4: got to eat. And that was our kind of our

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Speaker 4: sharing deal for at least that year, and then things

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Speaker 4: got better after that. By the time I left, all

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Speaker 4: of the team was getting fuller partial money to support

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Speaker 4: their education, so things definitely got better while I was there.

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Speaker 1: On the global stage, times were changing too. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy six, women's basketball was included for the first time

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Speaker 1: in the Summer Olympics in Montreal. Among the athletes on

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Speaker 1: that first team USA was my friend and future co

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Speaker 1: worker and Myers Drysday.

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Speaker 7: Game against Sacramento where the Liberty won and overtime almost

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Speaker 7: a triple double with twelve points ten. They tried to

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Speaker 7: have women's basketball and the Olympics in nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 7: but it fell through, and so seventy six was going

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Speaker 7: to be the year. So I'm a freshman nineteen seventy five,

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Speaker 7: and I go to the Pan Am Games, we go

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Speaker 7: to the World Championships, we go to the Taiwan for

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Speaker 7: the Jones Cup. So now I'm traveling the world.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy six, only six teams competed on the

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Speaker 1: women's side, the Soviet Union, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Canada, Japan, and

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Speaker 1: the United States. Annie was a college student at the time,

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Speaker 1: the first woman to receive a full athletic scholarship to UCLA,

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Speaker 1: where she played three sports.

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Speaker 7: So we go to Montreal, the Soviets dominate, especially they

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Speaker 7: dominated US, but we had played a lot of friendly

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Speaker 7: games before and so forth, so you knew that they

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Speaker 7: had Uleana Semonova, the seven footer. Their frontline average sixty six.

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Speaker 7: They had guards that were like in their late twenties,

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Speaker 7: early thirties. And we were all high school kids or

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Speaker 7: college kids because you'd be an amateur. But we didn't

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Speaker 7: receive a lot of recognition. We weren't even supposed to

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Speaker 7: be there. The men received all the recognition because the

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Speaker 7: new team and the new you know it was fresh

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Speaker 7: Dean Smith. They had four North Carolina guys on the

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Speaker 7: team and so forth, so they received a lot of attention.

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Speaker 4: But we were there.

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Speaker 7: We were there, and we ended up winning silver.

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Speaker 1: The growing interest in the women's game prompt I had

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Speaker 1: a sports entrepreneur named Bill Byrne to launch the first

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Speaker 1: professional league for women, the WBL Women's Basketball League in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight. Anne was the first pick of the draft.

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Speaker 1: She declined in order to play in the nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: Olympics in Moscow, which the USA under President Jimmy Carter

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Speaker 1: boycotted over the USSRS invasion of Afghanistan.

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Speaker 6: And I have notified the Olympic Committee that with Soviet

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Speaker 6: invading forces in Afghanistan, neither the American people nor I

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Speaker 6: will support sending an Olympic.

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Speaker 7: You know, we knew that there was going to be

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Speaker 7: a team in nineteen eighty, but then all of a

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Speaker 7: sudden we boycott. And before we boycotted, though, I had

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Speaker 7: gotten a call after I'd got back from Russia the

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Speaker 7: Sparta Kid Games from the new owner of the Indiana Pacers.

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Speaker 1: You heard that, right, the Indiana Pacers of the NBA.

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Speaker 7: No sense saying that publicity was not involved. Of course

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Speaker 7: it was, but I never looked at it that way.

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Speaker 2: I just looked at it as an opportunity of a lifetime.

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Speaker 7: But you know, most men don't get and I know

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Speaker 7: a lot of people were upset about it. A lot

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Speaker 7: of people did not think that I should have tried out.

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Speaker 7: They didn't want me to try out. As a matter

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Speaker 7: of fact, that coach Bob Leonard came out to California

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Speaker 7: several times to talk me out of it. And I

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Speaker 7: didn't want to look back. And this is one of

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Speaker 7: the things I tell people. I said, don't back and

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Speaker 7: say what it should have. Could you know when you

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Speaker 7: have an opportunity to do something at least try this.

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Speaker 7: Don't work out the way you want to, but it's

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Speaker 7: going to open up doors.

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Speaker 2: And it was interesting.

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Speaker 7: It was a free agent.

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Speaker 2: I was a free agent.

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Speaker 7: And I was signed a personal service contract, so I

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Speaker 7: would be with the team whether it made it or

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Speaker 7: not as a player. And I never looked at it

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Speaker 7: like I'm going to do anything else. I'm going to

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Speaker 7: be on the team. It didn't work out that way,

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Speaker 7: but it was interesting that I was offered a fifty

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Speaker 7: thousand dollars contract. Where else was I going to make

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Speaker 7: that kind of money at that time. But if you

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Speaker 7: look back at that day, Hannah, the minimum salary for

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Speaker 7: a rookie was one hundred and forty five thousand, so

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Speaker 7: I was still getting underpaid. As much as it's change,

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Speaker 7: it hasn't. And so I went through the three day

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Speaker 7: client we had two practices a day. I did not

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Speaker 7: make it. I was not happy about it. I was

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Speaker 7: hurt and so forth. But I also knew too it

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Speaker 7: was an opportunity that I was working in the front office.

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Speaker 7: I was going out and speaking, and then it opened

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Speaker 7: the door to broadcast.

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Speaker 1: Also, change moves at a much slower pace than it

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Speaker 1: should like generations before her. Annie had an abundance of

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Speaker 1: talent and a shortage of opportunity. She wound up doing

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Speaker 1: color commentary for the Pacers, but the WBL was still calling,

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Speaker 1: so at age twenty four, she went pro. So you

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Speaker 1: go to the New Jersey Gems for one hundred and

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Speaker 1: forty five thousand dollars, but that was spread over three seasons.

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Speaker 7: The first year was going to be forty thousand, right,

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Speaker 7: and then it would go up to the to equal

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Speaker 7: out to one hundred and forty thousand. So I was

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Speaker 7: playing in the second year of the league, which I

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Speaker 7: was MVP, but they didn't pay me all my money.

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Speaker 7: But while I with the Pacers had I was offered

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Speaker 7: a lot of different speaking things, and so I had

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Speaker 7: an obligation to fulfillos. And I also was offered to

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Speaker 7: compete in something called the Women's Superstars. And so when

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Speaker 7: I went to go play for the New Jersey Gyms,

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Speaker 7: there was a window. I went and competed in the

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Speaker 7: Women's Superstars down in the Bahamas. And like I said,

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Speaker 7: I was a pretty good athlete playing all the different sports.

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Speaker 7: I ended up coming in fourth and so I was

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Speaker 7: not very happy about it. But it's where I would

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Speaker 7: meet my future husband.

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Speaker 1: Her future husband was Dodger great Hall of Famer Don Drysdale.

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Speaker 7: Oh, I know, Don's got a real good fastball.

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Speaker 4: I moves in on you and also move.

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Speaker 1: Who, like Annie, would retire from the sport that made

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Speaker 1: him famous and then have a storied broadcasting career.

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Speaker 7: Of basketball people. There's so much excitement, you almost feel

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Speaker 7: like you're playing. Everybody is so fired up about this game.

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Speaker 7: We talked about the nerves, the butter.

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Speaker 1: In those years, there were really only two opportunities for

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Speaker 1: talent and basketball players play and oney of the many

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Speaker 1: US leagues to start up and then ultimately fold or

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Speaker 1: go overseas like so many, val Ackerman chose the latter.

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Speaker 4: What really appealed to me was playing overseas, in part

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Speaker 4: because I had never had a chance to do my

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Speaker 4: semester abroad, given that basketball was the two semester sport,

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Speaker 4: So that was an impetus for me to seek out

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Speaker 4: a chance to play basketball overseas when I left UVA,

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Speaker 4: and I was able to get placed through a Virginia

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Speaker 4: connection with a team in central France where they were

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Speaker 4: looking for an American player to replace a woman who

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Speaker 4: had played for them. I think she had gone to

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Speaker 4: Drake and then she left, and so they wanted another

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Speaker 4: American because Americans knew how to play basketball. So I

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Speaker 4: ended up at this team in Constoli, France and the

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Speaker 4: Laire Valley.

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Speaker 2: Did you even speak French? At the time, I.

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Speaker 4: Was reading Berlitz. I bought Burlitz like phrases, and I

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Speaker 4: was reading that on the plane ride to Paris. It

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Speaker 4: was insane, and my parents, of course, were beside themselves

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Speaker 4: because there was no internet then there was no way

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Speaker 4: to reach me. I was promised a phone call home

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Speaker 4: a week, but that was that was my experience. I

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Speaker 4: kind of wish I'd done it longer because it was

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Speaker 4: such interesting looking back to have had that opportunity to

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Speaker 4: see another country and that through that lens. But I

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Speaker 4: did it for roughly a season, and then I came

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Speaker 4: back to the USA and went on with my life.

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Speaker 1: Over and over again, efforts to start a women's professional.

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Speaker 2: Basketball league failed.

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Speaker 1: The WBL faced a lot of the same problems the

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Speaker 1: ABA faced, low attendance numbers, no TV deal. During its

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Speaker 1: three years of existence, the WBL generated more than fourteen

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Speaker 1: million dollars in losses, and yet a pattern emerged women's

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Speaker 1: pro basketball leagues kept popping up, even if they didn't

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Speaker 1: last the Ladies Professional Basketball Association, the Women's American Basketball Association,

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Speaker 1: the Women's Basketball Association. Finally, in April of nineteen ninety six,

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Speaker 1: Lightning struck.

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Speaker 3: I am pleased to announce that the Board of Governors

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Speaker 3: approves the concept of the NBA establishing the Women's National

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Speaker 3: Basketball Association.

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Speaker 1: The NBA Board of Governors had approved a women's league

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Speaker 1: with its full backing for the first time. The money, infrastructure,

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Speaker 1: and TV contracts were all there, Houston.

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Speaker 2: Trailing by on twenty seconds, let's a play. It was

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Speaker 2: a watershed moment in my career. Cooper Cooper driving, dishing it.

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Speaker 1: Up, and for a new generation of women who would

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Speaker 1: get the opportunity to do something so many had longed for,

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Speaker 1: make a career of the game they loved in the

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Speaker 1: United States. From the NBA and iHeart podcast This is

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Speaker 1: NBA DNA with me Hannah's Storm, Episode eight from Pipe

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Speaker 1: Dreams to Hoop.

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Speaker 3: Dreams fourteen point deficite four of the Storm comments had

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Speaker 3: been brilliant, shooting sixty three percent here smooths Itchingsworthy first

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Speaker 3: ever WNBA Playoff triple.

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Speaker 1: Level Having a successful sports league with sold out arenas,

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Speaker 1: merchandise deals, and TV contracts takes a level of investment

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Speaker 1: and fan engagement that for years women's basketball just didn't have.

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Speaker 2: Attempts to start.

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Speaker 1: Women's leagues had been undertaken by dreamers like Bill Burn,

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Speaker 1: founder of the WBL, whose most successful venture was a

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Speaker 1: men's slow pitch softball league. The point is women's basketball

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Speaker 1: in the US didn't really take off until the behemoth

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Speaker 1: of the NBA got involved in the mid nineties.

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Speaker 2: Group very Well Writer's Team everal Shovel.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety six, the NBA's popularity had reached new heights,

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Speaker 1: riding off the Jordan era the Men's Dream Team. The

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Speaker 1: NBA had clout, money, infrastructure, everything needed to start up

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Speaker 1: a new league. Even more importantly, it had Commissioner David Stern.

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Speaker 4: He was the one that had to talk to the

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Speaker 4: owners to clear out the budgets so that there was

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Speaker 4: room to pay for this in the NBA's financials. He

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Speaker 4: was the one that had to go to sponsors and say, frankly,

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Speaker 4: if you want to support the NBA, if you want

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Speaker 4: to be in on that club, you got to you

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Speaker 4: got to have the WNBA two, and same with the

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Speaker 4: network discussions. I'm sure you know it starts with him.

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Speaker 4: The atmosphere was changing in a way that made it

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Speaker 4: easier for him to have those conversations with people. Because

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Speaker 4: this is now early nineties, We're starting to see the

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Speaker 4: rise of you. They're winning national titles. All of a sudden,

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Speaker 4: the Northeast media is noticing this. ESPN is noticing this.

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Speaker 4: The Yukon Tennessee rivalry that was.

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Speaker 2: Huge, was huge.

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Speaker 1: Interest in the NCAA tournament similar to today, was at

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Speaker 1: a fever pitch. Stearn's angle, the hook that would carry

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Speaker 1: fans of women's collegiate hoops over to the pros. Was

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Speaker 1: the US women's national team a dream team two point zero?

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Speaker 1: The NBA would fund it, promote it, use it as

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Speaker 1: a test balloon for how the public would receive a

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Speaker 1: women's pro league.

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Speaker 4: Was there a way that we could create a dream

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Speaker 4: team of women's players together with USA Basketball working in partnership,

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Speaker 4: Could we create a team that could get itself going

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Speaker 4: pre Atlanta, get itself readier for the gold medal chase there,

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Speaker 4: but at the same time test the waters a bit

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Speaker 4: on the interest of sponsors and networks and writers journalists

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Speaker 4: like yourself and most of all fans. And it did

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Speaker 4: coincide with sort of the back of the mind at

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Speaker 4: the time thinking about, well, maybe maybe a women's pro

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Speaker 4: basketball league fronted by the NBA. Maybe the time is

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Speaker 4: finally right for that. But we needed more than that

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Speaker 4: sort of supposition.

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Speaker 1: At the time, val l Ackerman was in her second

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Speaker 1: act as Vice President of Business Affairs at the NBA.

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Speaker 1: Not only was she the brains behind the move, she

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Speaker 1: recruited the players.

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Speaker 4: We came up with the idea to have the women's

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Speaker 4: team be together, not just for a few weeks before Atlanta.

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Speaker 4: That wasn't working. We weren't winning a gold medal that way.

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Speaker 4: And then we sort of put it on steroids and

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Speaker 4: had them be together for the better part of the

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Speaker 4: ten months or so leading into Atlanta. We would pay them,

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Speaker 4: they would do some US games, some international games, all

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Speaker 4: the while sort of spreading the word about the excitement

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Speaker 4: of the women's game. Tara Van Dervier agreed to take

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Speaker 4: a year off from her program at Stanford usaast All

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Speaker 4: had relations with all the good players, some of whom

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Speaker 4: had been in Barcelona, had been in Australia, had endured

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Speaker 4: the disappointment of not winning the gold medal or super

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Speaker 4: motivated to have their chance again, and then it all

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Speaker 4: sort of came together because we were able to bring

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Speaker 4: the NBA's might to this endeavor and then Atlanta came,

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Speaker 4: they won the gold, and the women's game really hasn't

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Speaker 4: looked back from that point.

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Speaker 8: Lobo to turnaround n nice work, great combinations, great focused

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Speaker 8: by Rebecca Lovo.

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Speaker 2: Rebecca Lobo was on that ninety six team.

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Speaker 1: She had just finished off a crazy senior year at

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Speaker 1: Yukon where she led Gino Oriema's Huskies to a thirty

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Speaker 1: five and oh season and that national championship. She capped

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Speaker 1: it off by winning the nineteen ninety five Nay Smith

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Speaker 1: College Player of the Year award.

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Speaker 5: Right after we won the national championship in nineteen ninety five,

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Speaker 5: everything was going so fast for me. There was a

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Speaker 5: lot going on. I was underslept, I was stretched thin

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Speaker 5: doing so many different things. It was just getting kind

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Speaker 5: of pulled in every direction, and that piece of it

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Speaker 5: was hard. And then trying out for the national team

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Speaker 5: that year. I had kind of always thought that two

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Speaker 5: thousand was the Olympics that I would be ready for,

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Speaker 5: because you know, in ninety six, I would just be

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Speaker 5: out of college. I wouldn't be a seasoned pro. But

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Speaker 5: how everything worked out. I went to those trials and

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Speaker 5: I made that national team, and then he had As

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Speaker 5: you know, we trained for a full year from basically

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Speaker 5: the early summer of nineteen ninety five, and then it

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Speaker 5: really got going in the fall of ninety five all

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Speaker 5: the way through to the following year. So it was

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Speaker 5: a lot of sacrifices, being away from family, being away

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Speaker 5: from friends, and for me, it was just like there

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Speaker 5: was no rest because we were trying to promote the Olympics,

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Speaker 5: promote the national team. We learned later that this was

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Speaker 5: also the test balloon for the WNBA, and it was

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Speaker 5: just a lot.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the players talk about how brutal it was.

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Speaker 1: And also, you know, you were coached by Tara van

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Speaker 1: der Vere, who she had taken a year off from

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Speaker 1: coaching at Stanford. We know now she is the winningest

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Speaker 1: coach of all time in college basketball, passing coach k

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Speaker 1: She was very tough. I've heard Cheryl Swoops and others

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Speaker 1: talk about it. Just describe how that kind of added

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Speaker 1: to the atmosphere as you're traveling around the world and

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Speaker 1: you're playing and you're doing all this for a year,

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Speaker 1: and you're playing for one of the toughest coaches out there.

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Speaker 5: Well, we did kind of a barnstorming tour across the

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Speaker 5: US first, and this was in the fall through the winter,

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Speaker 5: where we went all over the country and played against

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Speaker 5: a variety of college urned.

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Speaker 2: Around the unifide B poor three maybe four on that

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Speaker 2: one that a Reggy Miller shot. Oh.

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Speaker 5: Then we also went all over the world. We played

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Speaker 5: in China, we played in Siberia, we played in Australia.

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Speaker 5: And the funny part that a lot of people talk about,

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Speaker 5: in order to be named to the national team, we

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Speaker 5: all had to sign a contract and it was the

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Speaker 5: first time that they were doing a team like this,

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Speaker 5: so it was the first time that USA Basketball was

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Speaker 5: also paying. And the contract for each of us was

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Speaker 5: for fifty thousand dollars five zero for the year, which

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Speaker 5: you know, for somebody like me just out of college,

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Speaker 5: that was a lot of money. But it also basically

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Speaker 5: you signed away all of your rights and like you

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Speaker 5: could not sign a deal with somebody that was a

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Speaker 5: competitor of USA Basketball, you know, if they had a category,

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Speaker 5: you know, whoever was their drink sponsor. You could not

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Speaker 5: sign a deal with any competitor like you signed away

396
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Speaker 5: potential to make a lot of money in different areas.

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Speaker 5: But if you wanted to play in the Olympics and

398
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Speaker 5: wanted to play on this national team, that's that's what

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Speaker 5: you had to do. So you had that piece of it.

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Speaker 7: We called Prollaly field for sacramentally the leaguet scoring, and

401
00:21:50,119 --> 00:21:52,760
Speaker 7: she also was a player of the very first player.

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Speaker 1: Players like Katweena McLain and Ruthie Bolton, who had spent

403
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Speaker 1: years playing overseas, took significant pay cuts play with the

404
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Speaker 1: national team.

405
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Speaker 5: So you had players with varying levels of professional experience.

406
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Speaker 5: I had none because I was right out of college.

407
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Speaker 5: And then you go and are playing now for a

408
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Speaker 5: coach who's under a tremendous amount of pressure. Tara Vanderer

409
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:18,040
Speaker 5: takes the year off from coaching at Stanford, a team

410
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Speaker 5: that had been in the final four to two years prior.

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Speaker 5: I guess one year prior, and she was really hard

412
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Speaker 5: on us. I was used to that because I played

413
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Speaker 5: for Gino Oriama and he could be, you know, really

414
00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:34,160
Speaker 5: tough on us. But she was a very different type

415
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:37,320
Speaker 5: of coach, and so you know, challenging for me. I'm

416
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Speaker 5: sure she had to be challenging for some of the

417
00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:42,480
Speaker 5: players who'd been overseas kind of in a professional environment,

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Speaker 5: and this environment was very much more a college environment.

419
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Speaker 5: We were handed our itinerary for the week. You're going

420
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Speaker 5: to be here at this time, here at this time,

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Speaker 5: and it wasn't just going to practice. It was right

422
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:55,679
Speaker 5: after practice, we're going to have it's an open practice,

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Speaker 5: so we're gonna have an autograph signing, and then later

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Speaker 5: in the day we're going to have an appearance. It's here, there,

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Speaker 5: and everywhere, and so there was just a lot riding

426
00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 5: on this year, and therefore a lot expected of the players,

427
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 5: and at the same time, like everybody's competing because they

428
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 5: never told you that you're going to be on the

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Speaker 5: Olympic team. You were still in this year long tour

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Speaker 5: of the country and the world. You were fighting for

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Speaker 5: a spot on the Olympic team. So it was like

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Speaker 5: it was sort of a really high pressure environment for

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Speaker 5: everybody at that time.

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Speaker 1: That is wild on so many levels, and some of

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Speaker 1: it is derivative of the success of the Dream Team

436
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Speaker 1: and the fact that USA Basketball had decided to bring

437
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:49,680
Speaker 1: the pros in they wanted to get back to gold

438
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Speaker 1: medal status, they wanted to establish themselves as the best

439
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: basketball country in the world. And then four years later,

440
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: the women having not been as successful in Barcelona, they're like,

441
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:03,119
Speaker 1: we're going to put together this women's version of the

442
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:06,440
Speaker 1: Dream Team. But you know, there was no professional league

443
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:08,360
Speaker 1: at the time to pull from. So, like you said,

444
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:12,400
Speaker 1: they're pulling from college, they're pulling internationally, and you go

445
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: fifty two and oh, that's how many games we're played

446
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:19,199
Speaker 1: in the runouf to the Olympics.

447
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 2: How how did that feel?

448
00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 1: I mean, because you had had an undefeated season obviously

449
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: at the college level in Yukon.

450
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,679
Speaker 5: It was interesting because there it was the expectation that

451
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:30,880
Speaker 5: we were going to win every game and there's kind

452
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:32,880
Speaker 5: of this weight on our shoulders. Again not only are

453
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 5: we representing the US and we're getting ready for the Olympics,

454
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,400
Speaker 5: but you know, then we find out that there's talk

455
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 5: about starting a WNBA, a professional league in the US,

456
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,920
Speaker 5: and so it's not like it was a celebratory environment.

457
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:48,600
Speaker 9: Oh we won game number fifty, like let's go out

458
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 9: and get a drink. It was more like sort of relief, Okay,

459
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:54,879
Speaker 9: we just we just won another one, and that's what

460
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,359
Speaker 9: we're expected to do. And you know, I mean, Hannah,

461
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:02,680
Speaker 9: we're in Siberia and febus Ruary where when we're not players,

462
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:05,679
Speaker 9: not in the game, they were wearing like perkas on

463
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 9: the bench because the arena was freezing cold.

464
00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 5: It was full. I've never seen so many like black

465
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 5: and gray jackets in my life. I was like, do

466
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:16,320
Speaker 5: they not sell colored fabrics here? It was just sort

467
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 5: of like this this feeling of I don't know what,

468
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:23,359
Speaker 5: but you know, so it wasn't even like, you know, yes,

469
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,159
Speaker 5: we had a lot of games you know at the

470
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 5: University of Tennessee or Yukon where it was sold out

471
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 5: and there's this warm and welcoming feeling to it, but

472
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,640
Speaker 5: then there was a lot that were also in gyms

473
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 5: where it wasn't the best environment to play. And so yeah,

474
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,400
Speaker 5: it felt great to not lose any games. But that's

475
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,680
Speaker 5: what it felt like. It felt like, Okay, we haven't

476
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 5: lost any games, more than it felt like, oh, you know,

477
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,680
Speaker 5: we're this incredible team celebrating the fact that we've won

478
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:50,879
Speaker 5: X number of games in a row.

479
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 2: Here's val again.

480
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:57,160
Speaker 4: Plans for the WNBA were quietly in motion before that point.

481
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 4: While the national team was doing its thing. We were

482
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 4: in another room keeping an eye on that, but in

483
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 4: another room basically writing the business plan for the w NBA,

484
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 4: and I was chairing this internal committee that was pulling

485
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:16,400
Speaker 4: this all together. David hired Gary Stevenson, now senior executive

486
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:18,159
Speaker 4: at Major League Soccer to come in and help us

487
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:21,200
Speaker 4: think out the television and the marketing and the approach

488
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 4: we use was somewhat innovative to bring that together. So

489
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:25,680
Speaker 4: we were kind of it.

490
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:26,120
Speaker 6: Was a go.

491
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 4: It was a go because we saw again the response

492
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 4: along the way with this tour. We thought there was

493
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 4: going to be interest.

494
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,719
Speaker 1: What was the conversation like when you were asked to

495
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: be a president of the w NBA.

496
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:40,439
Speaker 2: It was it was sort of sweet.

497
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 4: I mean, I was, you know, I was the women's

498
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 4: basketball person. Everybody knew it. I was, you know, running

499
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 4: the national team pieces that we were involved in together

500
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 4: with you know, my good colleagues. But I was sort

501
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:55,400
Speaker 4: of the day to day I think it was sort

502
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 4: of expected that I would be, you know, offered this opportunity.

503
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 4: I had to talk to my husband, is it was

504
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 4: becoming more evident. We had young kids at the time,

505
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 4: and my kids were four and two when the league launched,

506
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 4: So it was it was going to be a heavy lift.

507
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:13,160
Speaker 4: But my husband was great about it, understood the opportunity,

508
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:15,639
Speaker 4: and so it was. But it was an honor and

509
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 4: something I took very seriously handah as you might expect.

510
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 4: I mean, I felt like I'd been handed this, this precious,

511
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 4: incredible asset, and we all felt tremendous pressure because it

512
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 4: was very visible. There was going to be a lot

513
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 4: of scrutiny. There were naysayers around every corner who didn't

514
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 4: think a women's pro basketball league could be successful, and

515
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:38,119
Speaker 4: as you know, it took a while. We're starting to

516
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 4: see now, I think what everybody hoped for. But I

517
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 4: felt just a tremendous sense of responsibility when I was

518
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 4: asked to do it, and very happy to lend my

519
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 4: expertise to it. And again, you couldn't look back, you

520
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 4: only could look ahead.

521
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: Adding to the pressure the creation of a rival league,

522
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 1: the American Basketball League, which began in nineteen ninety five

523
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 1: and poached more than half of that ninety six dream

524
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: team lineup, including Don Staley, Teresa Edwards, and Jennifer Azy.

525
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: Rebecca opted out.

526
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:14,679
Speaker 5: My feeling had always been it's not going to succeed

527
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:17,120
Speaker 5: unless it's got David Stern behind it, unless it has

528
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 5: the money of NBA ownership behind it. But the ABL

529
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 5: was appealing to players because it was in the traditional

530
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:26,359
Speaker 5: basketball season, you know, it was in the in the

531
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 5: winter time. It paid more than the WNBA. But it

532
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 5: lasted two years. Why because it didn't have the NBA

533
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 5: behind it, and it was an interesting model for the NBA.

534
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 5: But one at the time you were like, okay, this

535
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 5: makes sense. They have buildings that aren't full in the

536
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:42,719
Speaker 5: summer that you know, there's less competition in the summer,

537
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 5: and David cern you know, you just he didn't let

538
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 5: a lot.

539
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 2: Of things fail.

540
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 6: It's all right.

541
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 5: I think players are like, all right, you know, this

542
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 5: is probably the one that has the best chance for

543
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 5: long term success.

544
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: Team USA's test balloon worked one two three. In April

545
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety six, three months before the Olympic Games began,

546
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: the NBA's Board of Governors announced the creation of the

547
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: Women's National Basketball Association, the w NBA.

548
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 2: So it's nineteen ninety six and the WNBA.

549
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: Is actually approved by the Board of governors in April,

550
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: largely due to the success of this foreign storming tour.

551
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: The NBA was really watching, you know, are people going

552
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 1: to come out and play, what's going to happen with

553
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: these exhibition games and all of that. How much are

554
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 1: you aware of your success being monitored in that regard.

555
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:49,920
Speaker 5: I think we were aware to it to a slight degree.

556
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 5: I think it was more, oh, cool, Look, they're selling

557
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 5: a jersey with a USA jersey with my name on it.

558
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 5: I've never seen that before, because you know, we're coming

559
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 5: from college long before, so that didn't exist. Oh, there's

560
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 5: a poster and our picture is on it. Like those

561
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 5: were kind of the excited feelings we were having. I

562
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 5: don't think we really understood necessarily, sort of again the

563
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 5: test balloon nature of what we were doing. And then

564
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 5: you had the other dynamic, Hanna, where the ABL was

565
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 5: also starting. They were going to start in the fall

566
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:23,959
Speaker 5: of ninety six, and every single one of my teammates

567
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 5: had signed a contract to play with the ABL. I

568
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 5: was the only one who had it, so there was

569
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 5: a little bit of pressure on me too. Like later on,

570
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 5: Cheryl and Lisa ended up saying, you know, we're also

571
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 5: not going to play in the ABL this year. We're

572
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 5: going to go on with the WNBA. But at that time,

573
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 5: maybe January, February March of nineteen ninety six, as we're

574
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 5: approaching the Olympics, I had a lot of pressure on

575
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 5: me because I was the one who had yet to sign.

576
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: Looking back, nineteen ninety six was a banner year for

577
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: women's sports. On the heels of their barnstorming tour, the

578
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 1: women's basketball team ended up on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

579
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: Women's soccer and softball were added to the Olympics for

580
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: the first time ever. The Atlanta Olympics provided a massive

581
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: platform for a whole new generation of female athletes, and

582
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 1: they rose to the occasion. Women's soccer, softball, basketball, and

583
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: team gymnastics all took home goals. The biggest stars also

584
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 1: took home endorsements. Cheryl Swoops got a Nike shoe, Dot

585
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: Richardson a signature bat Mia Hamm deals with Pepsi and Gatorade.

586
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: You sign a deal with Reebok and historic deal with

587
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: Reeboch and I believe you're also, in addition, the first

588
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: Latina to get a shoe contract like that. How did

589
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 1: the Rebok deal come about?

590
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 2: After the Olympics.

591
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 5: What's funny because a historic deal then is like a

592
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 5: pittance of a deal now, especially when you talk about

593
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 5: the economics of what's going on in women's basketball.

594
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: We'll put it in context because that's really interesting for

595
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: people today to hear what it was like back then.

596
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 5: Like if you could get a low six figure, very low,

597
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 5: barely six figure shoe deal, that was huge. Only a

598
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 5: handful of people had them, like people on the Olympic team.

599
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 5: That was it, because you couldn't get them in college

600
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 5: and there was no professional basketball here, so nobody was

601
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 5: investing in footwear for somebody who's playing over in Italy

602
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 5: or Japan. But how it came to be for me,

603
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 5: it was my senior year we started wearing rebox at Yukon.

604
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 5: That was back in the day before universities did school

605
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 5: wide deals or athletic department deals. Like each coach had

606
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 5: their own deal. So my first three years at Yukon,

607
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 5: coach o AMA's deal was with A six and a

608
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 5: six made great running shoes and their basketball shoes were terrible,

609
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 5: but that's what we wore because that's what coach or

610
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 5: AMA's who Coach or Amma had his deal with. And

611
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 5: then my senior year went with Reebok and so as

612
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 5: I'm graduating, Reebok gets in touch with me. It was

613
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 5: the impetus for me getting an agent at the time,

614
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,080
Speaker 5: and after some negotiating, we went from you know, I

615
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 5: think their initial offer was like twelve thousand dollars or

616
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 5: something like that, and like that was in the ballpark

617
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 5: for a shoe deal at that time, so it wasn't

618
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 5: like an insulting offer. Fortunately we were able to increase

619
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 5: that because that became my means of making money outside

620
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 5: of the fifty pre tax that USA Basketball was giving us.

621
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 5: But that's how that kind of came to be was

622
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 5: I was already associated with Reebok in some ways because

623
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 5: of my year at Yukon, and then you know, they

624
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 5: were willing to pay me a little bit to wear

625
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 5: their product.

626
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:35,320
Speaker 2: So it was a six figure deal.

627
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 5: It ended up being a low six figure deal. I

628
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 5: think it was like maybe one hundred per year for

629
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 5: a couple of years. And again that was a really

630
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 5: really good deal for that time and way above like

631
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 5: what Nike or anybody else at least was offering me

632
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 5: at that time.

633
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: Back then, I was working at NBC covering all that

634
00:33:56,000 --> 00:34:00,479
Speaker 1: hype with my friend and producer Lisa Lax spent more

635
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: than a decade at NBC Sports and later ran it's

636
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: Olympic Features unit. One of the things that the NBA

637
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 1: was paying attention to was how how would the crowds

638
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: be all right? How marketable was this team?

639
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 10: Like?

640
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,479
Speaker 1: Would people respond? Would they come to the games? And

641
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,839
Speaker 1: an answer was a definitive yes, was it not?

642
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:23,719
Speaker 2: Yeah?

643
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 10: It was. I mean everywhere they went they were filling

644
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:29,880
Speaker 10: stadiums for the first time ever. Really, you know, they would,

645
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 10: you know, play at local colleges. They went to Tennessee

646
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:36,359
Speaker 10: and the place was packed. And at that time too,

647
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 10: you had Tennessee and Yukon of big, big rivals playing

648
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 10: against each other. So the basketball in general was becoming

649
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 10: a more notable sport whenen's basketball, and you know that

650
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 10: the NBA was curious, is their real talent? You know,

651
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 10: what is the level of basketball? What was you know,

652
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 10: there were so much at stake in ninety six. And

653
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:01,319
Speaker 10: you know what's interesting that I haven't thought about in

654
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 10: a long time. Nike at that time in the mid

655
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 10: nineties never had a women's sports marketing department until they

656
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 10: saw something happening with women's basketball and women's soccer. So

657
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:15,440
Speaker 10: in nineteen ninety five, they started a whole division at night,

658
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 10: the four women and women in team sports. They were

659
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 10: doing the three on three at Rucker Park, where you know,

660
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 10: the tagline was like basketball as basketball athletes or athletes.

661
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 10: It wasn't whether you're a man or a woman, but

662
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 10: you're if you're a basketball player, you're legit.

663
00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:30,359
Speaker 5: You know.

664
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 10: We see it today and we see Caitlin Clark's you know,

665
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 10: sponsorship deals and all of that, but that that kind

666
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 10: of momentum was started back in the nineties when this

667
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 10: was all kind of you know, brewing.

668
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:46,479
Speaker 4: I think of myself as an athlete and not as

669
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 4: a woman athlete.

670
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 3: I think the biggest experio type is that women cannot done.

671
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 5: I think we were all kind of even going into

672
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 5: it aware that there was momentum around women's sports at

673
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 5: the time, in particular softball and soccer, as you mentioned.

674
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:05,880
Speaker 5: And then we shared the venue with gymnastics, so we

675
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 5: were in the Georgia Dome and there's there's a separator

676
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,279
Speaker 5: between both sides and on one side was where they

677
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 5: had the gymnastics set up and then the basketball course

678
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 5: on the other side. And one of my fondest memories

679
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 5: that still makes me laugh to this day is sometimes

680
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:21,839
Speaker 5: we'd be walking out of our locker room to go

681
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 5: to our side, and we would pass the gymnasts as

682
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 5: they were coming back, kind of wind up and like

683
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:33,240
Speaker 5: the two just different varieties of human species, of female

684
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 5: human species. Like we'd walk by and we'd give them

685
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,080
Speaker 5: like low fives, and they're like giving us high fives

686
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 5: because you've got like, you know, six, four sixty five

687
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 5: whatever walking by these petite little gymnasts. And when we

688
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 5: were back at our hotel or whatever, I was watching

689
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 5: and invested because, like I just high five you know,

690
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:54,240
Speaker 5: that gymnast and she's going to win a gold medal?

691
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 4: Like how cool?

692
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 5: How cool is this?

693
00:36:56,400 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: The nineteen ninety six Olympic Women's Basketball Tournament began on

694
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: July twenty. First, your first game was against Cuba. There

695
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: were about forty one hundred people watching those first couple

696
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 1: of games, which were played at Morehouse College.

697
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 2: Do you recall the first game?

698
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 5: I do. I actually do remember that game pretty well,

699
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,879
Speaker 5: and I remember like it was packed. I'm assuming Morehouse's

700
00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 5: capacity is forty eight hundred because it was packed. We

701
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 5: had played Cuba a number of times throughout the course

702
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 5: of our year long lead up to the Olympics, but

703
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 5: just kind of a sense of it's finally here. And

704
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:35,760
Speaker 5: one of the strongest memories I have from the Olympics

705
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 5: is the opening ceremonies too. We walked out with the

706
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 5: men's team. I believe we were the last US team

707
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 5: to walk out, and it was like an overwhelming feeling

708
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 5: of Oh, I understand now why people play football.

709
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 9: There's like one hundred thousand people cheering at the top

710
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 9: of their lungs.

711
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:54,800
Speaker 5: Is really cool. But yeah, I do certainly remember getting

712
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 5: on the bus going out and playing that first game.

713
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 5: I think we played the first couple of games at Morehouse.

714
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:02,960
Speaker 2: Here's Lisa.

715
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 8: I think that a lot of what happened in Atlanta

716
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 8: was directly these were the first generation of women to

717
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 8: really receive the benefits of Title nine, and it all

718
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 8: came together in Atlanta in terms of.

719
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 2: The actual team sports.

720
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:22,439
Speaker 10: As you mentioned, like you had Julie Bowdie and Maya

721
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:26,800
Speaker 10: Han who were really you know, the beneficiaries of Title

722
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 10: nine going to you know, Stamford and North Carolina and

723
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 10: receiving you know, scholarships, et cetera. Then you had Doc

724
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 10: Richardson and Lisa Fernandez from the softball team, and they

725
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 10: were huge names at the time, and they you know,

726
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:43,560
Speaker 10: there were many other players on all those teams, and

727
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 10: then you have Lisa Leslie and you have Don Staley

728
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 10: and Rebecca Lobo and Cheryl Swoops and Ruthy Bolton and

729
00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 10: all these amazing women coming together at the Atlanta Olympics,

730
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:59,799
Speaker 10: you know, and really paying it forward all the way.

731
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:05,320
Speaker 1: Team USA would also win gold, defeating Brazil one eleven

732
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 1: to eighty seven on August fourth, nineteen ninety six, in

733
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 1: front of thirty three thousand fans. There were nineteen and

734
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:17,879
Speaker 1: a half million TV viewers at the time for that.

735
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:20,320
Speaker 2: Seriously, yeah, wow.

736
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: Which is insane. The feeling of winning a gold medal.

737
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 1: You know, most people haven't experienced that. Can you share

738
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: what that was like? And just watching the flag and

739
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: hearing the playing of the national anthem for you personally,

740
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: what was that like?

741
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 5: It's like everything you would expect it to be, you know,

742
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 5: like the hair standing up on the back of your

743
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:44,479
Speaker 5: neck and just you know, we had had a moment

744
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 5: where running around the court and you change and go

745
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 5: get put your you know, your metal ceremony sweats on,

746
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,720
Speaker 5: and just being up there listening to your national anthem,

747
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 5: because I'm sure I was like a lot of other kids,

748
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 5: Like when I was in college, you had the anthem

749
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 5: before everyone your games, and oftentime I would think about

750
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 5: one day representing my country in the Olympics as the

751
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 5: anthems being played, and so that played into it. And

752
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 5: plus it was like the culmination of a year of

753
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:17,800
Speaker 5: really hard living in terms of, you know, we're playing

754
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 5: all the time, we're sacrificing, we're away from our families,

755
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,839
Speaker 5: all of that. It was the culmination. So it was

756
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 5: not just all right, we just won gold. We're representing

757
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 5: our country, and that's one level of awesome, but also

758
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 5: all the sacrifices that were made to get there brought

759
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 5: it to a whole new level. It was that was incredible.

760
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 1: Those Olympics set into motion an incredible legacy. Every team

761
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: USA to place since then has one gold. Lisa Leslie

762
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: led Team USA with twenty nine points and six rebounds

763
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: in the gold medal game.

764
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 4: We were all there at the games. I remember sitting

765
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 4: in the stands with Russ Granick and others, and they

766
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 4: won the gold medal. I don't if you remember. It was

767
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 4: one of the best basketball games ever. I mean, I

768
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 4: would tell your viewers, if you want to watch a

769
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 4: really good basketball game, go online and find NBC had it,

770
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 4: you know, and watch that game. It was USA women

771
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 4: versus Brazil. It was just one of the best basketball games,

772
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 4: not met or women I've ever watched. And then we won.

773
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 4: It was inspiring, and I remember bursting into tears at

774
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 4: the end of the game. I just sat there as

775
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 4: just sobbing because it had happened. We did it, and

776
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 4: then I think a few days later, I was announced

777
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,359
Speaker 4: as the first president of the WNBA, and then we

778
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 4: were just rolling.

779
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:38,280
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety six marked a transition to a new era

780
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: for women's professional basketball, and I had just a few

781
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 1: months to get ready for prime time.

782
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:46,800
Speaker 7: What Night.

783
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:53,320
Speaker 1: Next Time On NBA DNA, we go behind the scenes

784
00:41:53,520 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 1: of the inaugural season of the WNBA. NBA DNA with

785
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: Hannah Storm is a production of iHeart Podcasts, the NBA

786
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,840
Speaker 1: and Brainstorm and Productions. The show is written and executive

787
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 1: produced by me Hannah Storm, along with Julia Weaver and

788
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:22,960
Speaker 1: Alex French. Our lead producer and showrunner is Julia Weaver.

789
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 1: Our senior producers are Peter Kouder, Alex French, and Brandon Reese,

790
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 1: editing and sound design by Kurt Garrin and Julia Weaver.

791
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 1: The show's executive producers are Carmen Belmont, Jason English, Sean

792
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 1: ty Tone, Steve Weintraup, and Jason Weikelt