A woman of firsts

Like so many  parents, I had visions of my kid getting a sports scholarship. And because he’s a boy, that could have happened, even if it were fifty years ago. But if you were a girl back then? No scholarship for you!

            It was 1974 before the first woman got a college sports scholarship. Ann Meyers Drysdale got a scholarship to play basketball for UCLA, just two years after Title IX was enacted. She was a standout player in California and is the holder of many other “first” titles.

  • First high school player to be chosen for a woman’s U.S. Olympic team
  • Player on the first Olympic women’s basketball team (that won silver at the 1976 Montreal Olympics)
  • First woman to carry her country’s flag at the Pan Am games
  • First woman to sign a contract with an NBA (National Basketball Association) team — a men’s team!
  • First woman to broadcast an NBA game
  • First overall draft pick for the Women’s Professional  Basketball League (WBL), which was a short-lived women’s league 

            Whew! That’s a lot of firsts. And Ann worked hard for those “first” titles.

            “There was no doubt I was competitive. I was fiercely and passionately competitive. A desire  to win coursed through my veins, and I was glad for it,” she said.*

            Ann was so competitive that part of her maturing as an athlete was to control the temper that came along with the competitiveness: “The first thing that every great athlete must learn;  to control the mind and emotions as well as the body.”                  

Bringing home the win

            That’s a particularly hard lesson for female athletes to learn, because for so long women were told they should play sports just for fun, not to be competitive and, god forbid, not strive to win. In the 1950s and ‘60s, “play days” were often the only option offered young athletic girls, and the scores didn’t count. Even in the days of the WBL (1978-81), the emphasis was often on demeanor — the players had to take lessons in how to eat, dress, walk and apply makeup. Some teams even sent their players to charm school! 

            Women were ready to break out back then, and Ann definitely wanted to win. And she did! While in college, she led the UCLA Bruin women to their first national basketball championship. She credits Title IX for that victory.

            “I’d been born into a wonderful family… with parents who stoked the flames of our competitive natures rather than squelch them for harmony’s sake,” she said. “But it was Title IX that gave me a full ride to a Division I school. If not for Title IX, I wouldn’t have been part of the Bruin women and their first national basketball championship.”

            Now let’s talk about that contract with an NBA team — the Indiana Pacers. Ann participated in a three-day tryout under a three-year contract. She played her heart out and was pretty happy with her performance in the tryout. But then the head coach lowered the hammer.

            “I wish you had their height,” he said. She read his words as: Hey, you got your shot, now get lost.

From the court to the camera

            Fortunately, Ann was able to parlay her contract into broadcasting work, where ultimately her career led her. In her day, after the WBL folded — and before the advent of the Women’s National Basketball Association — there was no professional path for a female basketball player to follow.

            For more than 26 years, Ann served as a network television sports analyst for TNT, ESPN, CBS and NBC. Currently, she is a vice president for the Phoenix Mercury and a color analyst for the Phoenix Suns television broadcasts. She was president and general manager for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a vice president for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns.

            The title of Ann’s book is You Let Some Girl Beat You? It’s what one mother yelled at her son when a young Ann tried out for a boys’ summer basketball league. She made the team. Sometimes, that competitive nature comes in handy!

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* All quotes come from Ann’s book You Let Some Girl Beat You? The Story of Ann Meyers Drysdale (Lake Forest, CA: Behler Publications, 2012). And just because I love baseball, let me mention that Ann married Don Drysdale, the Baseball Hall of Famer who played for the Dodgers (both Brooklyn and LA). Don died in 1993, when their children were still very young.