Women's Basketball History

It may be difficult to believe, but while with The New York Times as a sportswriter, I owned, managed and coached a women's traveling semi-pro basketball team. Created in the late 1940s, it existed for eight seasons.

The team played about 100 games in 17 states - but only against men. Its history included a television appearance on Steve Allen's The Tonight Show against his staff's male members. It played at Madison Square Garden and the Philadelphia Arena before Knicks and Warriors games.

I became interested in the sport after seeing games played at two New York colleges under the then existing women's rules. Six players comprised a side. Only the two forwards did the scoring. If a woman bounced the ball more than twice, her team lost possession. Games were slow and boring.

I was surprised. I'd seen women race up and down football-sized gridirons in field hockey and lacrosse matches. Why were women playing basketball being so limited? I contacted Dot Whalen, a top athlete who had just been mustered out of the U.S. Marines, to find out.

She said she'd played under those rules in high school. She added, however, that after working hours, she and other young women were engaging in pick-up games at local playgrounds - using men's rules. I made her captain of the New York Cover Girls, the team I subsequently organized and coached.

Within two years, our nine-woman team was on its way south with an ambitious schedule of 17 games in 30 days - against men only - as far as New Orleans.

A colorful article by my friend Oscar Fraley, a featured sports columnist for the United Press, was helpful in getting our games booked. He made our players seem extremely attractive. He wrote, "They were so pretty hey perspired Chanel No. 5."

Fraley ultimately struck it rich by becoming the originator of the long-running TV series The Untouchables.

Since our players all had day jobs - from teaching to secretarial work - they were able to make that extended trip only by using vacation time. I did the same but was unable to join the team until its second game, played in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

That was the only extended junket our Cover Girls made. After that first year, all our games were played in the Northeast. We had encountered competition. Two other women's teams were on the road - the Oklahoma Redheads and the Texas Cowgirls - playing full time against men's teams.

As a result, we became mostly a weekend team. Games were booked for Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. We played in more than 25 communities in New York state, from Long Island to Lake Erie. And we gained a new name, The Arthur Murray Girls when the dance studio became our sponsor.

Our team members were used to playing before crowds. Three had performed in the professional Women's Baseball League, the subject of the movie A League of Their Own. Whalen caught for the Springfield, Ill., Sallies. Teeny Petras starred at shortstop for Grand Rapids, Mich., while Helen Walulik pitched for Fort Wayne, Ind.

The game I remember best was one in Elmira, NY, on a Saturday night against the local men's American Basketball League team. Aware of their superiority in height, the home pros put up a loose defense. As a result the contest went two overtimes before the men emerged as the winning team.

Whalen, highly proficient in making long shots, kept making them. The game's length almost caused the Elmira team to miss the night train for Buffalo, where it was scheduled to play a league game the following afternoon.