June 19, 2024 • 42 mins
In this week’s episode of NBA DNA, we dig into the history of women’s pro hoops: from the early days in colleges and church basements to the ill-fated leagues of the 1980s, and finally, the creation of the 1996 Women’s Dream Team. Hannah shares the lesser-known story of the barnstorming tour that led to today's WNBA and sits down with some of the women who made it possible: Rebecca Lobo and former WNBA president Val Ackerman.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
When I think about the future of basketball, I think
about women.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Whoa what a pass?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Now what I'm walking?
Speaker 4 (00:12):
Leslie with the bucket, the assistant.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Inn esco, a long three for the women's school, and
the buzzard.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I get asked all the time about the newest class
to enter the WNBA, megastars Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Camera
and break and what they mean for the future of
the sport.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
My answer is always the same.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
This is an era of unparalleled interest in women's basketball,
made possible by generations of players, coaches and pioneers.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Rossie, they don't look for it. Fee to Potter for
the finish. What a dish from Diana Tarossi. It's going
away by Rasatti, Come on, show, hustle down. Zatti's waiting
for it.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Gets the swoops, download Valdemoro.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
That's it, the our scores, it's a triple double first Slopes.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
In fact, what we're seeing today is actually over one
hundred years in the making.
Speaker 6 (01:18):
Did you know basketball is for gals too? That's right, folks.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
Just one year after the.
Speaker 6 (01:24):
Venerable doctor James Naysmith hung his first peach basket to
the wall at a Springfield, Massachusetts branch of the Young
Men's Christian Association. The fairer Sex began partaking in the
greatest game ever creator. The Dribbling Dames at Smith College
in Connecticut were the first to learn the rules and
play intramural contests. Then Iowa State, Vasa Wellesley and brynmar
(01:46):
caught bascat Freva. Of course, the rules of the game
were modified. The court was divided into three sections and
players were required to stay in the assigned areas. Snatching
the ball, holding it for more than three seconds, or
dribbling it more than three times were all forbidden, and
to keep the ladies well ladylike, men were barred from
(02:07):
attending games, and the ladies ran the floor in corsets,
floor length skirts, and long sleeved blouses. However, in eighteen
ninety six, after a number of tripping incidents, those skirts
were replaced with bloomers.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, enough of that, though all these things corsets included
are true.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
From the outset.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Men's basketball was a game, but women's hoofs was a revolution.
In the earliest days, it was actually scandalous. By the
late nineteen twenties it was niche. There were industrial leagues,
church leagues, and competitive tournaments, but they were all organized
by men. Some of those events even included beauty contests,
(02:52):
but the women kept playing.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Got ninety three points in her brief game in a
tournament this year for an Artimer.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
In the nineteen fifties, women's basketball became popular enough that the
Pan Am Games included the sport for the first time.
Team USA, led by future Hall of Famer Lomita Odum,
won the gold medal. In nineteen seventy two, Title nine
breathed new life into the sport. For a young val Ackerman.
It meant four more years playing the sport she loved.
(03:23):
Value played basketball for the University of Virginia. This was
seven years after UVA became co ed, which is just
hard to imagine. Yeah, and five years after Title nine
had passed. And I'm just wondering how those two things
affected your college experience.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
First, just financially, you know, the Title nine implementation in
seventy two opened up opportunities to get your play funded.
And so I was able to go to Virginia on
first to partial and then eventually a full scholarship. And
that was music to the ears of my family, my
parents that my education was essentially going to get paid
for that was a direct impact. And then number two,
(04:02):
it just experientially the chance to be on a team
at that time when the women's programs at UVA were
just getting off the ground.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Today, Val is one of the most influential people in
the sports world.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Hi everyone, I'm Val Ackerman, president of the WNBA.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
She's the commissioner of the Big East Conference and was
the first president of the WNBA.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Back in the mid seventies.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
She was a college freshman splitting the lone basketball scholarship
available for women at the University of Virginia.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
There was one scholarship for women's basketball, and my coach,
Debbie Ryan, who made an amazing career out of that
position at UBA thirty plus years, was very inventive. She
split it so I got half and another teammate who
came in at the same time, got half. And I
joke that I got tuition and fees and she got
(04:57):
room and board, got to go to class and she
got to eat. And that was our kind of our
sharing deal for at least that year, and then things
got better after that. By the time I left, all
of the team was getting fuller partial money to support
their education, so things definitely got better while I was there.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
On the global stage, times were changing too. In nineteen
seventy six, women's basketball was included for the first time
in the Summer Olympics in Montreal. Among the athletes on
that first team USA was my friend and future co
worker and Myers Drysday.
Speaker 7 (05:33):
Game against Sacramento where the Liberty won and overtime almost
a triple double with twelve points ten. They tried to
have women's basketball and the Olympics in nineteen seventy two,
but it fell through, and so seventy six was going
to be the year. So I'm a freshman nineteen seventy five,
and I go to the Pan Am Games, we go
to the World Championships, we go to the Taiwan for
the Jones Cup. So now I'm traveling the world.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
In nineteen seventy six, only six teams competed on the
women's side, the Soviet Union, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Canada, Japan, and
the United States. Annie was a college student at the time,
the first woman to receive a full athletic scholarship to UCLA,
where she played three sports.
Speaker 7 (06:18):
So we go to Montreal, the Soviets dominate, especially they
dominated US, but we had played a lot of friendly
games before and so forth, so you knew that they
had Uleana Semonova, the seven footer. Their frontline average sixty six.
They had guards that were like in their late twenties,
early thirties. And we were all high school kids or
college kids because you'd be an amateur. But we didn't
(06:40):
receive a lot of recognition. We weren't even supposed to
be there. The men received all the recognition because the
new team and the new you know it was fresh
Dean Smith. They had four North Carolina guys on the
team and so forth, so they received a lot of attention.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
But we were there.
Speaker 7 (06:55):
We were there, and we ended up winning silver.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
The growing interest in the women's game prompt I had
a sports entrepreneur named Bill Byrne to launch the first
professional league for women, the WBL Women's Basketball League in
nineteen seventy eight. Anne was the first pick of the draft.
She declined in order to play in the nineteen eighty
Olympics in Moscow, which the USA under President Jimmy Carter
(07:21):
boycotted over the USSRS invasion of Afghanistan.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
And I have notified the Olympic Committee that with Soviet
invading forces in Afghanistan, neither the American people nor I
will support sending an Olympic.
Speaker 7 (07:34):
You know, we knew that there was going to be
a team in nineteen eighty, but then all of a
sudden we boycott. And before we boycotted, though, I had
gotten a call after I'd got back from Russia the
Sparta Kid Games from the new owner of the Indiana Pacers.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
You heard that, right, the Indiana Pacers of the NBA.
Speaker 7 (07:54):
No sense saying that publicity was not involved. Of course
it was, but I never looked at it that way.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I just looked at it as an opportunity of a lifetime.
Speaker 7 (08:02):
But you know, most men don't get and I know
a lot of people were upset about it. A lot
of people did not think that I should have tried out.
They didn't want me to try out. As a matter
of fact, that coach Bob Leonard came out to California
several times to talk me out of it. And I
didn't want to look back. And this is one of
the things I tell people. I said, don't back and
say what it should have. Could you know when you
have an opportunity to do something at least try this.
(08:24):
Don't work out the way you want to, but it's
going to open up doors.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
And it was interesting.
Speaker 7 (08:28):
It was a free agent.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I was a free agent.
Speaker 7 (08:30):
And I was signed a personal service contract, so I
would be with the team whether it made it or
not as a player. And I never looked at it
like I'm going to do anything else. I'm going to
be on the team. It didn't work out that way,
but it was interesting that I was offered a fifty
thousand dollars contract. Where else was I going to make
that kind of money at that time. But if you
(08:51):
look back at that day, Hannah, the minimum salary for
a rookie was one hundred and forty five thousand, so
I was still getting underpaid. As much as it's change,
it hasn't. And so I went through the three day
client we had two practices a day. I did not
make it. I was not happy about it. I was
hurt and so forth. But I also knew too it
(09:11):
was an opportunity that I was working in the front office.
I was going out and speaking, and then it opened
the door to broadcast.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Also, change moves at a much slower pace than it
should like generations before her. Annie had an abundance of
talent and a shortage of opportunity. She wound up doing
color commentary for the Pacers, but the WBL was still calling,
so at age twenty four, she went pro. So you
(09:40):
go to the New Jersey Gems for one hundred and
forty five thousand dollars, but that was spread over three seasons.
Speaker 7 (09:46):
The first year was going to be forty thousand, right,
and then it would go up to the to equal
out to one hundred and forty thousand. So I was
playing in the second year of the league, which I
was MVP, but they didn't pay me all my money.
But while I with the Pacers had I was offered
a lot of different speaking things, and so I had
an obligation to fulfillos. And I also was offered to
(10:08):
compete in something called the Women's Superstars. And so when
I went to go play for the New Jersey Gyms,
there was a window. I went and competed in the
Women's Superstars down in the Bahamas. And like I said,
I was a pretty good athlete playing all the different sports.
I ended up coming in fourth and so I was
not very happy about it. But it's where I would
(10:29):
meet my future husband.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Her future husband was Dodger great Hall of Famer Don Drysdale.
Speaker 7 (10:36):
Oh, I know, Don's got a real good fastball.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
I moves in on you and also move.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Who, like Annie, would retire from the sport that made
him famous and then have a storied broadcasting career.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
Of basketball people. There's so much excitement, you almost feel
like you're playing. Everybody is so fired up about this game.
We talked about the nerves, the butter.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
In those years, there were really only two opportunities for
talent and basketball players play and oney of the many
US leagues to start up and then ultimately fold or
go overseas like so many, val Ackerman chose the latter.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
What really appealed to me was playing overseas, in part
because I had never had a chance to do my
semester abroad, given that basketball was the two semester sport,
So that was an impetus for me to seek out
a chance to play basketball overseas when I left UVA,
and I was able to get placed through a Virginia
connection with a team in central France where they were
(11:34):
looking for an American player to replace a woman who
had played for them. I think she had gone to
Drake and then she left, and so they wanted another
American because Americans knew how to play basketball. So I
ended up at this team in Constoli, France and the
Laire Valley.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Did you even speak French? At the time, I.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Was reading Berlitz. I bought Burlitz like phrases, and I
was reading that on the plane ride to Paris. It
was insane, and my parents, of course, were beside themselves
because there was no internet then there was no way
to reach me. I was promised a phone call home
a week, but that was that was my experience. I
kind of wish I'd done it longer because it was
(12:11):
such interesting looking back to have had that opportunity to
see another country and that through that lens. But I
did it for roughly a season, and then I came
back to the USA and went on with my life.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Over and over again, efforts to start a women's professional.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Basketball league failed.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
The WBL faced a lot of the same problems the
ABA faced, low attendance numbers, no TV deal. During its
three years of existence, the WBL generated more than fourteen
million dollars in losses, and yet a pattern emerged women's
pro basketball leagues kept popping up, even if they didn't
(12:51):
last the Ladies Professional Basketball Association, the Women's American Basketball Association,
the Women's Basketball Association. Finally, in April of nineteen ninety six,
Lightning struck.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I am pleased to announce that the Board of Governors
approves the concept of the NBA establishing the Women's National
Basketball Association.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
The NBA Board of Governors had approved a women's league
with its full backing for the first time. The money, infrastructure,
and TV contracts were all there, Houston.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Trailing by on twenty seconds, let's a play. It was
a watershed moment in my career. Cooper Cooper driving, dishing it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Up, and for a new generation of women who would
get the opportunity to do something so many had longed for,
make a career of the game they loved in the
United States. From the NBA and iHeart podcast This is
NBA DNA with me Hannah's Storm, Episode eight from Pipe
(14:05):
Dreams to Hoop.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Dreams fourteen point deficite four of the Storm comments had
been brilliant, shooting sixty three percent here smooths Itchingsworthy first
ever WNBA Playoff triple.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Level Having a successful sports league with sold out arenas,
merchandise deals, and TV contracts takes a level of investment
and fan engagement that for years women's basketball just didn't have.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Attempts to start.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Women's leagues had been undertaken by dreamers like Bill Burn,
founder of the WBL, whose most successful venture was a
men's slow pitch softball league. The point is women's basketball
in the US didn't really take off until the behemoth
of the NBA got involved in the mid nineties.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Group very Well Writer's Team everal Shovel.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
In nineteen ninety six, the NBA's popularity had reached new heights,
riding off the Jordan era the Men's Dream Team. The
NBA had clout, money, infrastructure, everything needed to start up
a new league. Even more importantly, it had Commissioner David Stern.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
He was the one that had to talk to the
owners to clear out the budgets so that there was
room to pay for this in the NBA's financials. He
was the one that had to go to sponsors and say, frankly,
if you want to support the NBA, if you want
to be in on that club, you got to you
got to have the WNBA two, and same with the
(15:45):
network discussions. I'm sure you know it starts with him.
The atmosphere was changing in a way that made it
easier for him to have those conversations with people. Because
this is now early nineties, We're starting to see the
rise of you. They're winning national titles. All of a sudden,
the Northeast media is noticing this. ESPN is noticing this.
(16:07):
The Yukon Tennessee rivalry that was.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Huge, was huge.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Interest in the NCAA tournament similar to today, was at
a fever pitch. Stearn's angle, the hook that would carry
fans of women's collegiate hoops over to the pros. Was
the US women's national team a dream team two point zero?
The NBA would fund it, promote it, use it as
a test balloon for how the public would receive a
(16:35):
women's pro league.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Was there a way that we could create a dream
team of women's players together with USA Basketball working in partnership,
Could we create a team that could get itself going
pre Atlanta, get itself readier for the gold medal chase there,
but at the same time test the waters a bit
on the interest of sponsors and networks and writers journalists
(17:01):
like yourself and most of all fans. And it did
coincide with sort of the back of the mind at
the time thinking about, well, maybe maybe a women's pro
basketball league fronted by the NBA. Maybe the time is
finally right for that. But we needed more than that
sort of supposition.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
At the time, val l Ackerman was in her second
act as Vice President of Business Affairs at the NBA.
Not only was she the brains behind the move, she
recruited the players.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
We came up with the idea to have the women's
team be together, not just for a few weeks before Atlanta.
That wasn't working. We weren't winning a gold medal that way.
And then we sort of put it on steroids and
had them be together for the better part of the
ten months or so leading into Atlanta. We would pay them,
they would do some US games, some international games, all
the while sort of spreading the word about the excitement
(17:54):
of the women's game. Tara Van Dervier agreed to take
a year off from her program at Stanford usaast All
had relations with all the good players, some of whom
had been in Barcelona, had been in Australia, had endured
the disappointment of not winning the gold medal or super
motivated to have their chance again, and then it all
sort of came together because we were able to bring
(18:14):
the NBA's might to this endeavor and then Atlanta came,
they won the gold, and the women's game really hasn't
looked back from that point.
Speaker 8 (18:24):
Lobo to turnaround n nice work, great combinations, great focused
by Rebecca Lovo.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Rebecca Lobo was on that ninety six team.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
She had just finished off a crazy senior year at
Yukon where she led Gino Oriema's Huskies to a thirty
five and oh season and that national championship. She capped
it off by winning the nineteen ninety five Nay Smith
College Player of the Year award.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Right after we won the national championship in nineteen ninety five,
everything was going so fast for me. There was a
lot going on. I was underslept, I was stretched thin
doing so many different things. It was just getting kind
of pulled in every direction, and that piece of it
was hard. And then trying out for the national team
(19:14):
that year. I had kind of always thought that two
thousand was the Olympics that I would be ready for,
because you know, in ninety six, I would just be
out of college. I wouldn't be a seasoned pro. But
how everything worked out. I went to those trials and
I made that national team, and then he had As
you know, we trained for a full year from basically
(19:34):
the early summer of nineteen ninety five, and then it
really got going in the fall of ninety five all
the way through to the following year. So it was
a lot of sacrifices, being away from family, being away
from friends, and for me, it was just like there
was no rest because we were trying to promote the Olympics,
promote the national team. We learned later that this was
(19:56):
also the test balloon for the WNBA, and it was
just a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
A lot of the players talk about how brutal it was.
And also, you know, you were coached by Tara van
der Vere, who she had taken a year off from
coaching at Stanford. We know now she is the winningest
coach of all time in college basketball, passing coach k
She was very tough. I've heard Cheryl Swoops and others
talk about it. Just describe how that kind of added
(20:21):
to the atmosphere as you're traveling around the world and
you're playing and you're doing all this for a year,
and you're playing for one of the toughest coaches out there.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Well, we did kind of a barnstorming tour across the
US first, and this was in the fall through the winter,
where we went all over the country and played against
a variety of college urned.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Around the unifide B poor three maybe four on that
one that a Reggy Miller shot. Oh.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Then we also went all over the world. We played
in China, we played in Siberia, we played in Australia.
And the funny part that a lot of people talk about,
in order to be named to the national team, we
all had to sign a contract and it was the
first time that they were doing a team like this,
so it was the first time that USA Basketball was
also paying. And the contract for each of us was
(21:10):
for fifty thousand dollars five zero for the year, which
you know, for somebody like me just out of college,
that was a lot of money. But it also basically
you signed away all of your rights and like you
could not sign a deal with somebody that was a
competitor of USA Basketball, you know, if they had a category,
(21:30):
you know, whoever was their drink sponsor. You could not
sign a deal with any competitor like you signed away
potential to make a lot of money in different areas.
But if you wanted to play in the Olympics and
wanted to play on this national team, that's that's what
you had to do. So you had that piece of it.
Speaker 7 (21:47):
We called Prollaly field for sacramentally the leaguet scoring, and
she also was a player of the very first player.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Players like Katweena McLain and Ruthie Bolton, who had spent
years playing overseas, took significant pay cuts play with the
national team.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
So you had players with varying levels of professional experience.
I had none because I was right out of college.
And then you go and are playing now for a
coach who's under a tremendous amount of pressure. Tara Vanderer
takes the year off from coaching at Stanford, a team
that had been in the final four to two years prior.
I guess one year prior, and she was really hard
(22:25):
on us. I was used to that because I played
for Gino Oriama and he could be, you know, really
tough on us. But she was a very different type
of coach, and so you know, challenging for me. I'm
sure she had to be challenging for some of the
players who'd been overseas kind of in a professional environment,
and this environment was very much more a college environment.
(22:46):
We were handed our itinerary for the week. You're going
to be here at this time, here at this time,
and it wasn't just going to practice. It was right
after practice, we're going to have it's an open practice,
so we're gonna have an autograph signing, and then later
in the day we're going to have an appearance. It's here, there,
and everywhere, and so there was just a lot riding
on this year, and therefore a lot expected of the players,
(23:10):
and at the same time, like everybody's competing because they
never told you that you're going to be on the
Olympic team. You were still in this year long tour
of the country and the world. You were fighting for
a spot on the Olympic team. So it was like
it was sort of a really high pressure environment for
(23:31):
everybody at that time.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
That is wild on so many levels, and some of
it is derivative of the success of the Dream Team
and the fact that USA Basketball had decided to bring
the pros in they wanted to get back to gold
medal status, they wanted to establish themselves as the best
basketball country in the world. And then four years later,
(23:56):
the women having not been as successful in Barcelona, they're like,
we're going to put together this women's version of the
Dream Team. But you know, there was no professional league
at the time to pull from. So, like you said,
they're pulling from college, they're pulling internationally, and you go
fifty two and oh, that's how many games we're played
(24:17):
in the runouf to the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
How how did that feel?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
I mean, because you had had an undefeated season obviously
at the college level in Yukon.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
It was interesting because there it was the expectation that
we were going to win every game and there's kind
of this weight on our shoulders. Again not only are
we representing the US and we're getting ready for the Olympics,
but you know, then we find out that there's talk
about starting a WNBA, a professional league in the US,
and so it's not like it was a celebratory environment.
Speaker 9 (24:46):
Oh we won game number fifty, like let's go out
and get a drink. It was more like sort of relief, Okay,
we just we just won another one, and that's what
we're expected to do. And you know, I mean, Hannah,
we're in Siberia and febus Ruary where when we're not players,
not in the game, they were wearing like perkas on
the bench because the arena was freezing cold.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
It was full. I've never seen so many like black
and gray jackets in my life. I was like, do
they not sell colored fabrics here? It was just sort
of like this this feeling of I don't know what,
but you know, so it wasn't even like, you know, yes,
we had a lot of games you know at the
University of Tennessee or Yukon where it was sold out
and there's this warm and welcoming feeling to it, but
(25:30):
then there was a lot that were also in gyms
where it wasn't the best environment to play. And so yeah,
it felt great to not lose any games. But that's
what it felt like. It felt like, Okay, we haven't
lost any games, more than it felt like, oh, you know,
we're this incredible team celebrating the fact that we've won
X number of games in a row.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Here's val again.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Plans for the WNBA were quietly in motion before that point.
While the national team was doing its thing. We were
in another room keeping an eye on that, but in
another room basically writing the business plan for the w NBA,
and I was chairing this internal committee that was pulling
this all together. David hired Gary Stevenson, now senior executive
(26:16):
at Major League Soccer to come in and help us
think out the television and the marketing and the approach
we use was somewhat innovative to bring that together. So
we were kind of it.
Speaker 6 (26:25):
Was a go.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
It was a go because we saw again the response
along the way with this tour. We thought there was
going to be interest.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
What was the conversation like when you were asked to
be a president of the w NBA.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
It was it was sort of sweet.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
I mean, I was, you know, I was the women's
basketball person. Everybody knew it. I was, you know, running
the national team pieces that we were involved in together
with you know, my good colleagues. But I was sort
of the day to day I think it was sort
of expected that I would be, you know, offered this opportunity.
I had to talk to my husband, is it was
(27:00):
becoming more evident. We had young kids at the time,
and my kids were four and two when the league launched,
So it was it was going to be a heavy lift.
But my husband was great about it, understood the opportunity,
and so it was. But it was an honor and
something I took very seriously handah as you might expect.
I mean, I felt like I'd been handed this, this precious,
(27:22):
incredible asset, and we all felt tremendous pressure because it
was very visible. There was going to be a lot
of scrutiny. There were naysayers around every corner who didn't
think a women's pro basketball league could be successful, and
as you know, it took a while. We're starting to
see now, I think what everybody hoped for. But I
felt just a tremendous sense of responsibility when I was
(27:43):
asked to do it, and very happy to lend my
expertise to it. And again, you couldn't look back, you
only could look ahead.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Adding to the pressure the creation of a rival league,
the American Basketball League, which began in nineteen ninety five
and poached more than half of that ninety six dream
team lineup, including Don Staley, Teresa Edwards, and Jennifer Azy.
Rebecca opted out.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
My feeling had always been it's not going to succeed
unless it's got David Stern behind it, unless it has
the money of NBA ownership behind it. But the ABL
was appealing to players because it was in the traditional
basketball season, you know, it was in the in the
winter time. It paid more than the WNBA. But it
lasted two years. Why because it didn't have the NBA
(28:33):
behind it, and it was an interesting model for the NBA.
But one at the time you were like, okay, this
makes sense. They have buildings that aren't full in the
summer that you know, there's less competition in the summer,
and David cern you know, you just he didn't let
a lot.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Of things fail.
Speaker 6 (28:47):
It's all right.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
I think players are like, all right, you know, this
is probably the one that has the best chance for
long term success.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Team USA's test balloon worked one two three. In April
of nineteen ninety six, three months before the Olympic Games began,
the NBA's Board of Governors announced the creation of the
Women's National Basketball Association, the w NBA.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
So it's nineteen ninety six and the WNBA.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Is actually approved by the Board of governors in April,
largely due to the success of this foreign storming tour.
The NBA was really watching, you know, are people going
to come out and play, what's going to happen with
these exhibition games and all of that. How much are
you aware of your success being monitored in that regard.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
I think we were aware to it to a slight degree.
I think it was more, oh, cool, Look, they're selling
a jersey with a USA jersey with my name on it.
I've never seen that before, because you know, we're coming
from college long before, so that didn't exist. Oh, there's
a poster and our picture is on it. Like those
were kind of the excited feelings we were having. I
don't think we really understood necessarily, sort of again the
(30:11):
test balloon nature of what we were doing. And then
you had the other dynamic, Hanna, where the ABL was
also starting. They were going to start in the fall
of ninety six, and every single one of my teammates
had signed a contract to play with the ABL. I
was the only one who had it, so there was
a little bit of pressure on me too. Like later on,
(30:31):
Cheryl and Lisa ended up saying, you know, we're also
not going to play in the ABL this year. We're
going to go on with the WNBA. But at that time,
maybe January, February March of nineteen ninety six, as we're
approaching the Olympics, I had a lot of pressure on
me because I was the one who had yet to sign.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Looking back, nineteen ninety six was a banner year for
women's sports. On the heels of their barnstorming tour, the
women's basketball team ended up on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Women's soccer and softball were added to the Olympics for
the first time ever. The Atlanta Olympics provided a massive
platform for a whole new generation of female athletes, and
(31:10):
they rose to the occasion. Women's soccer, softball, basketball, and
team gymnastics all took home goals. The biggest stars also
took home endorsements. Cheryl Swoops got a Nike shoe, Dot
Richardson a signature bat Mia Hamm deals with Pepsi and Gatorade.
(31:31):
You sign a deal with Reebok and historic deal with
Reeboch and I believe you're also, in addition, the first
Latina to get a shoe contract like that. How did
the Rebok deal come about?
Speaker 2 (31:48):
After the Olympics.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
What's funny because a historic deal then is like a
pittance of a deal now, especially when you talk about
the economics of what's going on in women's basketball.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
We'll put it in context because that's really interesting for
people today to hear what it was like back then.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
Like if you could get a low six figure, very low,
barely six figure shoe deal, that was huge. Only a
handful of people had them, like people on the Olympic team.
That was it, because you couldn't get them in college
and there was no professional basketball here, so nobody was
investing in footwear for somebody who's playing over in Italy
or Japan. But how it came to be for me,
it was my senior year we started wearing rebox at Yukon.
(32:28):
That was back in the day before universities did school
wide deals or athletic department deals. Like each coach had
their own deal. So my first three years at Yukon,
coach o AMA's deal was with A six and a
six made great running shoes and their basketball shoes were terrible,
but that's what we wore because that's what coach or
AMA's who Coach or Amma had his deal with. And
then my senior year went with Reebok and so as
(32:50):
I'm graduating, Reebok gets in touch with me. It was
the impetus for me getting an agent at the time,
and after some negotiating, we went from you know, I
think their initial offer was like twelve thousand dollars or
something like that, and like that was in the ballpark
for a shoe deal at that time, so it wasn't
like an insulting offer. Fortunately we were able to increase
(33:12):
that because that became my means of making money outside
of the fifty pre tax that USA Basketball was giving us.
But that's how that kind of came to be was
I was already associated with Reebok in some ways because
of my year at Yukon, and then you know, they
were willing to pay me a little bit to wear
their product.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
So it was a six figure deal.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
It ended up being a low six figure deal. I
think it was like maybe one hundred per year for
a couple of years. And again that was a really
really good deal for that time and way above like
what Nike or anybody else at least was offering me
at that time.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Back then, I was working at NBC covering all that
hype with my friend and producer Lisa Lax spent more
than a decade at NBC Sports and later ran it's
Olympic Features unit. One of the things that the NBA
was paying attention to was how how would the crowds
(34:12):
be all right? How marketable was this team?
Speaker 10 (34:15):
Like?
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Would people respond? Would they come to the games? And
an answer was a definitive yes, was it not?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 10 (34:23):
It was. I mean everywhere they went they were filling
stadiums for the first time ever. Really, you know, they would,
you know, play at local colleges. They went to Tennessee
and the place was packed. And at that time too,
you had Tennessee and Yukon of big, big rivals playing
against each other. So the basketball in general was becoming
a more notable sport whenen's basketball, and you know that
(34:48):
the NBA was curious, is their real talent? You know,
what is the level of basketball? What was you know,
there were so much at stake in ninety six. And
you know what's interesting that I haven't thought about in
a long time. Nike at that time in the mid
nineties never had a women's sports marketing department until they
saw something happening with women's basketball and women's soccer. So
(35:11):
in nineteen ninety five, they started a whole division at night,
the four women and women in team sports. They were
doing the three on three at Rucker Park, where you know,
the tagline was like basketball as basketball athletes or athletes.
It wasn't whether you're a man or a woman, but
you're if you're a basketball player, you're legit.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
You know.
Speaker 10 (35:30):
We see it today and we see Caitlin Clark's you know,
sponsorship deals and all of that, but that that kind
of momentum was started back in the nineties when this
was all kind of you know, brewing.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
I think of myself as an athlete and not as
a woman athlete.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I think the biggest experio type is that women cannot done.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
I think we were all kind of even going into
it aware that there was momentum around women's sports at
the time, in particular softball and soccer, as you mentioned.
And then we shared the venue with gymnastics, so we
were in the Georgia Dome and there's there's a separator
between both sides and on one side was where they
had the gymnastics set up and then the basketball course
(36:14):
on the other side. And one of my fondest memories
that still makes me laugh to this day is sometimes
we'd be walking out of our locker room to go
to our side, and we would pass the gymnasts as
they were coming back, kind of wind up and like
the two just different varieties of human species, of female
human species. Like we'd walk by and we'd give them
(36:35):
like low fives, and they're like giving us high fives
because you've got like, you know, six, four sixty five
whatever walking by these petite little gymnasts. And when we
were back at our hotel or whatever, I was watching
and invested because, like I just high five you know,
that gymnast and she's going to win a gold medal?
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Like how cool?
Speaker 5 (36:55):
How cool is this?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
The nineteen ninety six Olympic Women's Basketball Tournament began on
July twenty. First, your first game was against Cuba. There
were about forty one hundred people watching those first couple
of games, which were played at Morehouse College.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Do you recall the first game?
Speaker 5 (37:12):
I do. I actually do remember that game pretty well,
and I remember like it was packed. I'm assuming Morehouse's
capacity is forty eight hundred because it was packed. We
had played Cuba a number of times throughout the course
of our year long lead up to the Olympics, but
just kind of a sense of it's finally here. And
(37:33):
one of the strongest memories I have from the Olympics
is the opening ceremonies too. We walked out with the
men's team. I believe we were the last US team
to walk out, and it was like an overwhelming feeling
of Oh, I understand now why people play football.
Speaker 9 (37:48):
There's like one hundred thousand people cheering at the top
of their lungs.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
Is really cool. But yeah, I do certainly remember getting
on the bus going out and playing that first game.
I think we played the first couple of games at Morehouse.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Here's Lisa.
Speaker 8 (38:03):
I think that a lot of what happened in Atlanta
was directly these were the first generation of women to
really receive the benefits of Title nine, and it all
came together in Atlanta in terms of.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
The actual team sports.
Speaker 10 (38:19):
As you mentioned, like you had Julie Bowdie and Maya
Han who were really you know, the beneficiaries of Title
nine going to you know, Stamford and North Carolina and
receiving you know, scholarships, et cetera. Then you had Doc
Richardson and Lisa Fernandez from the softball team, and they
were huge names at the time, and they you know,
(38:41):
there were many other players on all those teams, and
then you have Lisa Leslie and you have Don Staley
and Rebecca Lobo and Cheryl Swoops and Ruthy Bolton and
all these amazing women coming together at the Atlanta Olympics,
you know, and really paying it forward all the way.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Team USA would also win gold, defeating Brazil one eleven
to eighty seven on August fourth, nineteen ninety six, in
front of thirty three thousand fans. There were nineteen and
a half million TV viewers at the time for that.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Seriously, yeah, wow.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Which is insane. The feeling of winning a gold medal.
You know, most people haven't experienced that. Can you share
what that was like? And just watching the flag and
hearing the playing of the national anthem for you personally,
what was that like?
Speaker 5 (39:37):
It's like everything you would expect it to be, you know,
like the hair standing up on the back of your
neck and just you know, we had had a moment
where running around the court and you change and go
get put your you know, your metal ceremony sweats on,
and just being up there listening to your national anthem,
because I'm sure I was like a lot of other kids,
Like when I was in college, you had the anthem
(39:59):
before everyone your games, and oftentime I would think about
one day representing my country in the Olympics as the
anthems being played, and so that played into it. And
plus it was like the culmination of a year of
really hard living in terms of, you know, we're playing
all the time, we're sacrificing, we're away from our families,
(40:20):
all of that. It was the culmination. So it was
not just all right, we just won gold. We're representing
our country, and that's one level of awesome, but also
all the sacrifices that were made to get there brought
it to a whole new level. It was that was incredible.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Those Olympics set into motion an incredible legacy. Every team
USA to place since then has one gold. Lisa Leslie
led Team USA with twenty nine points and six rebounds
in the gold medal game.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
We were all there at the games. I remember sitting
in the stands with Russ Granick and others, and they
won the gold medal. I don't if you remember. It was
one of the best basketball games ever. I mean, I
would tell your viewers, if you want to watch a
really good basketball game, go online and find NBC had it,
you know, and watch that game. It was USA women
versus Brazil. It was just one of the best basketball games,
(41:16):
not met or women I've ever watched. And then we won.
It was inspiring, and I remember bursting into tears at
the end of the game. I just sat there as
just sobbing because it had happened. We did it, and
then I think a few days later, I was announced
as the first president of the WNBA, and then we
were just rolling.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Nineteen ninety six marked a transition to a new era
for women's professional basketball, and I had just a few
months to get ready for prime time.
Speaker 7 (41:44):
What Night.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Next Time On NBA DNA, we go behind the scenes
of the inaugural season of the WNBA. NBA DNA with
Hannah Storm is a production of iHeart Podcasts, the NBA
(42:10):
and Brainstorm and Productions. The show is written and executive
produced by me Hannah Storm, along with Julia Weaver and
Alex French. Our lead producer and showrunner is Julia Weaver.
Our senior producers are Peter Kouder, Alex French, and Brandon Reese,
editing and sound design by Kurt Garrin and Julia Weaver.
(42:32):
The show's executive producers are Carmen Belmont, Jason English, Sean
ty Tone, Steve Weintraup, and Jason Weikelt
When I think about the future of basketball, I think
about women.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Whoa what a pass?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Now what I'm walking?
Speaker 4 (00:12):
Leslie with the bucket, the assistant.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Inn esco, a long three for the women's school, and
the buzzard.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I get asked all the time about the newest class
to enter the WNBA, megastars Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Camera
and break and what they mean for the future of
the sport.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
My answer is always the same.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
This is an era of unparalleled interest in women's basketball,
made possible by generations of players, coaches and pioneers.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Rossie, they don't look for it. Fee to Potter for
the finish. What a dish from Diana Tarossi. It's going
away by Rasatti, Come on, show, hustle down. Zatti's waiting
for it.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Gets the swoops, download Valdemoro.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
That's it, the our scores, it's a triple double first Slopes.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
In fact, what we're seeing today is actually over one
hundred years in the making.
Speaker 6 (01:18):
Did you know basketball is for gals too? That's right, folks.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
Just one year after the.
Speaker 6 (01:24):
Venerable doctor James Naysmith hung his first peach basket to
the wall at a Springfield, Massachusetts branch of the Young
Men's Christian Association. The fairer Sex began partaking in the
greatest game ever creator. The Dribbling Dames at Smith College
in Connecticut were the first to learn the rules and
play intramural contests. Then Iowa State, Vasa Wellesley and brynmar
(01:46):
caught bascat Freva. Of course, the rules of the game
were modified. The court was divided into three sections and
players were required to stay in the assigned areas. Snatching
the ball, holding it for more than three seconds, or
dribbling it more than three times were all forbidden, and
to keep the ladies well ladylike, men were barred from
(02:07):
attending games, and the ladies ran the floor in corsets,
floor length skirts, and long sleeved blouses. However, in eighteen
ninety six, after a number of tripping incidents, those skirts
were replaced with bloomers.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, enough of that, though all these things corsets included
are true.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
From the outset.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Men's basketball was a game, but women's hoofs was a revolution.
In the earliest days, it was actually scandalous. By the
late nineteen twenties it was niche. There were industrial leagues,
church leagues, and competitive tournaments, but they were all organized
by men. Some of those events even included beauty contests,
(02:52):
but the women kept playing.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Got ninety three points in her brief game in a
tournament this year for an Artimer.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
In the nineteen fifties, women's basketball became popular enough that the
Pan Am Games included the sport for the first time.
Team USA, led by future Hall of Famer Lomita Odum,
won the gold medal. In nineteen seventy two, Title nine
breathed new life into the sport. For a young val Ackerman.
It meant four more years playing the sport she loved.
(03:23):
Value played basketball for the University of Virginia. This was
seven years after UVA became co ed, which is just
hard to imagine. Yeah, and five years after Title nine
had passed. And I'm just wondering how those two things
affected your college experience.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
First, just financially, you know, the Title nine implementation in
seventy two opened up opportunities to get your play funded.
And so I was able to go to Virginia on
first to partial and then eventually a full scholarship. And
that was music to the ears of my family, my
parents that my education was essentially going to get paid
for that was a direct impact. And then number two,
(04:02):
it just experientially the chance to be on a team
at that time when the women's programs at UVA were
just getting off the ground.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Today, Val is one of the most influential people in
the sports world.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Hi everyone, I'm Val Ackerman, president of the WNBA.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
She's the commissioner of the Big East Conference and was
the first president of the WNBA.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Back in the mid seventies.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
She was a college freshman splitting the lone basketball scholarship
available for women at the University of Virginia.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
There was one scholarship for women's basketball, and my coach,
Debbie Ryan, who made an amazing career out of that
position at UBA thirty plus years, was very inventive. She
split it so I got half and another teammate who
came in at the same time, got half. And I
joke that I got tuition and fees and she got
(04:57):
room and board, got to go to class and she
got to eat. And that was our kind of our
sharing deal for at least that year, and then things
got better after that. By the time I left, all
of the team was getting fuller partial money to support
their education, so things definitely got better while I was there.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
On the global stage, times were changing too. In nineteen
seventy six, women's basketball was included for the first time
in the Summer Olympics in Montreal. Among the athletes on
that first team USA was my friend and future co
worker and Myers Drysday.
Speaker 7 (05:33):
Game against Sacramento where the Liberty won and overtime almost
a triple double with twelve points ten. They tried to
have women's basketball and the Olympics in nineteen seventy two,
but it fell through, and so seventy six was going
to be the year. So I'm a freshman nineteen seventy five,
and I go to the Pan Am Games, we go
to the World Championships, we go to the Taiwan for
the Jones Cup. So now I'm traveling the world.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
In nineteen seventy six, only six teams competed on the
women's side, the Soviet Union, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Canada, Japan, and
the United States. Annie was a college student at the time,
the first woman to receive a full athletic scholarship to UCLA,
where she played three sports.
Speaker 7 (06:18):
So we go to Montreal, the Soviets dominate, especially they
dominated US, but we had played a lot of friendly
games before and so forth, so you knew that they
had Uleana Semonova, the seven footer. Their frontline average sixty six.
They had guards that were like in their late twenties,
early thirties. And we were all high school kids or
college kids because you'd be an amateur. But we didn't
(06:40):
receive a lot of recognition. We weren't even supposed to
be there. The men received all the recognition because the
new team and the new you know it was fresh
Dean Smith. They had four North Carolina guys on the
team and so forth, so they received a lot of attention.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
But we were there.
Speaker 7 (06:55):
We were there, and we ended up winning silver.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
The growing interest in the women's game prompt I had
a sports entrepreneur named Bill Byrne to launch the first
professional league for women, the WBL Women's Basketball League in
nineteen seventy eight. Anne was the first pick of the draft.
She declined in order to play in the nineteen eighty
Olympics in Moscow, which the USA under President Jimmy Carter
(07:21):
boycotted over the USSRS invasion of Afghanistan.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
And I have notified the Olympic Committee that with Soviet
invading forces in Afghanistan, neither the American people nor I
will support sending an Olympic.
Speaker 7 (07:34):
You know, we knew that there was going to be
a team in nineteen eighty, but then all of a
sudden we boycott. And before we boycotted, though, I had
gotten a call after I'd got back from Russia the
Sparta Kid Games from the new owner of the Indiana Pacers.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
You heard that, right, the Indiana Pacers of the NBA.
Speaker 7 (07:54):
No sense saying that publicity was not involved. Of course
it was, but I never looked at it that way.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I just looked at it as an opportunity of a lifetime.
Speaker 7 (08:02):
But you know, most men don't get and I know
a lot of people were upset about it. A lot
of people did not think that I should have tried out.
They didn't want me to try out. As a matter
of fact, that coach Bob Leonard came out to California
several times to talk me out of it. And I
didn't want to look back. And this is one of
the things I tell people. I said, don't back and
say what it should have. Could you know when you
have an opportunity to do something at least try this.
(08:24):
Don't work out the way you want to, but it's
going to open up doors.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
And it was interesting.
Speaker 7 (08:28):
It was a free agent.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I was a free agent.
Speaker 7 (08:30):
And I was signed a personal service contract, so I
would be with the team whether it made it or
not as a player. And I never looked at it
like I'm going to do anything else. I'm going to
be on the team. It didn't work out that way,
but it was interesting that I was offered a fifty
thousand dollars contract. Where else was I going to make
that kind of money at that time. But if you
(08:51):
look back at that day, Hannah, the minimum salary for
a rookie was one hundred and forty five thousand, so
I was still getting underpaid. As much as it's change,
it hasn't. And so I went through the three day
client we had two practices a day. I did not
make it. I was not happy about it. I was
hurt and so forth. But I also knew too it
(09:11):
was an opportunity that I was working in the front office.
I was going out and speaking, and then it opened
the door to broadcast.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Also, change moves at a much slower pace than it
should like generations before her. Annie had an abundance of
talent and a shortage of opportunity. She wound up doing
color commentary for the Pacers, but the WBL was still calling,
so at age twenty four, she went pro. So you
(09:40):
go to the New Jersey Gems for one hundred and
forty five thousand dollars, but that was spread over three seasons.
Speaker 7 (09:46):
The first year was going to be forty thousand, right,
and then it would go up to the to equal
out to one hundred and forty thousand. So I was
playing in the second year of the league, which I
was MVP, but they didn't pay me all my money.
But while I with the Pacers had I was offered
a lot of different speaking things, and so I had
an obligation to fulfillos. And I also was offered to
(10:08):
compete in something called the Women's Superstars. And so when
I went to go play for the New Jersey Gyms,
there was a window. I went and competed in the
Women's Superstars down in the Bahamas. And like I said,
I was a pretty good athlete playing all the different sports.
I ended up coming in fourth and so I was
not very happy about it. But it's where I would
(10:29):
meet my future husband.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Her future husband was Dodger great Hall of Famer Don Drysdale.
Speaker 7 (10:36):
Oh, I know, Don's got a real good fastball.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
I moves in on you and also move.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Who, like Annie, would retire from the sport that made
him famous and then have a storied broadcasting career.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
Of basketball people. There's so much excitement, you almost feel
like you're playing. Everybody is so fired up about this game.
We talked about the nerves, the butter.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
In those years, there were really only two opportunities for
talent and basketball players play and oney of the many
US leagues to start up and then ultimately fold or
go overseas like so many, val Ackerman chose the latter.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
What really appealed to me was playing overseas, in part
because I had never had a chance to do my
semester abroad, given that basketball was the two semester sport,
So that was an impetus for me to seek out
a chance to play basketball overseas when I left UVA,
and I was able to get placed through a Virginia
connection with a team in central France where they were
(11:34):
looking for an American player to replace a woman who
had played for them. I think she had gone to
Drake and then she left, and so they wanted another
American because Americans knew how to play basketball. So I
ended up at this team in Constoli, France and the
Laire Valley.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Did you even speak French? At the time, I.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Was reading Berlitz. I bought Burlitz like phrases, and I
was reading that on the plane ride to Paris. It
was insane, and my parents, of course, were beside themselves
because there was no internet then there was no way
to reach me. I was promised a phone call home
a week, but that was that was my experience. I
kind of wish I'd done it longer because it was
(12:11):
such interesting looking back to have had that opportunity to
see another country and that through that lens. But I
did it for roughly a season, and then I came
back to the USA and went on with my life.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Over and over again, efforts to start a women's professional.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Basketball league failed.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
The WBL faced a lot of the same problems the
ABA faced, low attendance numbers, no TV deal. During its
three years of existence, the WBL generated more than fourteen
million dollars in losses, and yet a pattern emerged women's
pro basketball leagues kept popping up, even if they didn't
(12:51):
last the Ladies Professional Basketball Association, the Women's American Basketball Association,
the Women's Basketball Association. Finally, in April of nineteen ninety six,
Lightning struck.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I am pleased to announce that the Board of Governors
approves the concept of the NBA establishing the Women's National
Basketball Association.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
The NBA Board of Governors had approved a women's league
with its full backing for the first time. The money, infrastructure,
and TV contracts were all there, Houston.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Trailing by on twenty seconds, let's a play. It was
a watershed moment in my career. Cooper Cooper driving, dishing it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Up, and for a new generation of women who would
get the opportunity to do something so many had longed for,
make a career of the game they loved in the
United States. From the NBA and iHeart podcast This is
NBA DNA with me Hannah's Storm, Episode eight from Pipe
(14:05):
Dreams to Hoop.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Dreams fourteen point deficite four of the Storm comments had
been brilliant, shooting sixty three percent here smooths Itchingsworthy first
ever WNBA Playoff triple.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Level Having a successful sports league with sold out arenas,
merchandise deals, and TV contracts takes a level of investment
and fan engagement that for years women's basketball just didn't have.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Attempts to start.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Women's leagues had been undertaken by dreamers like Bill Burn,
founder of the WBL, whose most successful venture was a
men's slow pitch softball league. The point is women's basketball
in the US didn't really take off until the behemoth
of the NBA got involved in the mid nineties.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Group very Well Writer's Team everal Shovel.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
In nineteen ninety six, the NBA's popularity had reached new heights,
riding off the Jordan era the Men's Dream Team. The
NBA had clout, money, infrastructure, everything needed to start up
a new league. Even more importantly, it had Commissioner David Stern.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
He was the one that had to talk to the
owners to clear out the budgets so that there was
room to pay for this in the NBA's financials. He
was the one that had to go to sponsors and say, frankly,
if you want to support the NBA, if you want
to be in on that club, you got to you
got to have the WNBA two, and same with the
(15:45):
network discussions. I'm sure you know it starts with him.
The atmosphere was changing in a way that made it
easier for him to have those conversations with people. Because
this is now early nineties, We're starting to see the
rise of you. They're winning national titles. All of a sudden,
the Northeast media is noticing this. ESPN is noticing this.
(16:07):
The Yukon Tennessee rivalry that was.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Huge, was huge.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Interest in the NCAA tournament similar to today, was at
a fever pitch. Stearn's angle, the hook that would carry
fans of women's collegiate hoops over to the pros. Was
the US women's national team a dream team two point zero?
The NBA would fund it, promote it, use it as
a test balloon for how the public would receive a
(16:35):
women's pro league.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Was there a way that we could create a dream
team of women's players together with USA Basketball working in partnership,
Could we create a team that could get itself going
pre Atlanta, get itself readier for the gold medal chase there,
but at the same time test the waters a bit
on the interest of sponsors and networks and writers journalists
(17:01):
like yourself and most of all fans. And it did
coincide with sort of the back of the mind at
the time thinking about, well, maybe maybe a women's pro
basketball league fronted by the NBA. Maybe the time is
finally right for that. But we needed more than that
sort of supposition.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
At the time, val l Ackerman was in her second
act as Vice President of Business Affairs at the NBA.
Not only was she the brains behind the move, she
recruited the players.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
We came up with the idea to have the women's
team be together, not just for a few weeks before Atlanta.
That wasn't working. We weren't winning a gold medal that way.
And then we sort of put it on steroids and
had them be together for the better part of the
ten months or so leading into Atlanta. We would pay them,
they would do some US games, some international games, all
the while sort of spreading the word about the excitement
(17:54):
of the women's game. Tara Van Dervier agreed to take
a year off from her program at Stanford usaast All
had relations with all the good players, some of whom
had been in Barcelona, had been in Australia, had endured
the disappointment of not winning the gold medal or super
motivated to have their chance again, and then it all
sort of came together because we were able to bring
(18:14):
the NBA's might to this endeavor and then Atlanta came,
they won the gold, and the women's game really hasn't
looked back from that point.
Speaker 8 (18:24):
Lobo to turnaround n nice work, great combinations, great focused
by Rebecca Lovo.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Rebecca Lobo was on that ninety six team.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
She had just finished off a crazy senior year at
Yukon where she led Gino Oriema's Huskies to a thirty
five and oh season and that national championship. She capped
it off by winning the nineteen ninety five Nay Smith
College Player of the Year award.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Right after we won the national championship in nineteen ninety five,
everything was going so fast for me. There was a
lot going on. I was underslept, I was stretched thin
doing so many different things. It was just getting kind
of pulled in every direction, and that piece of it
was hard. And then trying out for the national team
(19:14):
that year. I had kind of always thought that two
thousand was the Olympics that I would be ready for,
because you know, in ninety six, I would just be
out of college. I wouldn't be a seasoned pro. But
how everything worked out. I went to those trials and
I made that national team, and then he had As
you know, we trained for a full year from basically
(19:34):
the early summer of nineteen ninety five, and then it
really got going in the fall of ninety five all
the way through to the following year. So it was
a lot of sacrifices, being away from family, being away
from friends, and for me, it was just like there
was no rest because we were trying to promote the Olympics,
promote the national team. We learned later that this was
(19:56):
also the test balloon for the WNBA, and it was
just a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
A lot of the players talk about how brutal it was.
And also, you know, you were coached by Tara van
der Vere, who she had taken a year off from
coaching at Stanford. We know now she is the winningest
coach of all time in college basketball, passing coach k
She was very tough. I've heard Cheryl Swoops and others
talk about it. Just describe how that kind of added
(20:21):
to the atmosphere as you're traveling around the world and
you're playing and you're doing all this for a year,
and you're playing for one of the toughest coaches out there.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Well, we did kind of a barnstorming tour across the
US first, and this was in the fall through the winter,
where we went all over the country and played against
a variety of college urned.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Around the unifide B poor three maybe four on that
one that a Reggy Miller shot. Oh.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Then we also went all over the world. We played
in China, we played in Siberia, we played in Australia.
And the funny part that a lot of people talk about,
in order to be named to the national team, we
all had to sign a contract and it was the
first time that they were doing a team like this,
so it was the first time that USA Basketball was
also paying. And the contract for each of us was
(21:10):
for fifty thousand dollars five zero for the year, which
you know, for somebody like me just out of college,
that was a lot of money. But it also basically
you signed away all of your rights and like you
could not sign a deal with somebody that was a
competitor of USA Basketball, you know, if they had a category,
(21:30):
you know, whoever was their drink sponsor. You could not
sign a deal with any competitor like you signed away
potential to make a lot of money in different areas.
But if you wanted to play in the Olympics and
wanted to play on this national team, that's that's what
you had to do. So you had that piece of it.
Speaker 7 (21:47):
We called Prollaly field for sacramentally the leaguet scoring, and
she also was a player of the very first player.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Players like Katweena McLain and Ruthie Bolton, who had spent
years playing overseas, took significant pay cuts play with the
national team.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
So you had players with varying levels of professional experience.
I had none because I was right out of college.
And then you go and are playing now for a
coach who's under a tremendous amount of pressure. Tara Vanderer
takes the year off from coaching at Stanford, a team
that had been in the final four to two years prior.
I guess one year prior, and she was really hard
(22:25):
on us. I was used to that because I played
for Gino Oriama and he could be, you know, really
tough on us. But she was a very different type
of coach, and so you know, challenging for me. I'm
sure she had to be challenging for some of the
players who'd been overseas kind of in a professional environment,
and this environment was very much more a college environment.
(22:46):
We were handed our itinerary for the week. You're going
to be here at this time, here at this time,
and it wasn't just going to practice. It was right
after practice, we're going to have it's an open practice,
so we're gonna have an autograph signing, and then later
in the day we're going to have an appearance. It's here, there,
and everywhere, and so there was just a lot riding
on this year, and therefore a lot expected of the players,
(23:10):
and at the same time, like everybody's competing because they
never told you that you're going to be on the
Olympic team. You were still in this year long tour
of the country and the world. You were fighting for
a spot on the Olympic team. So it was like
it was sort of a really high pressure environment for
(23:31):
everybody at that time.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
That is wild on so many levels, and some of
it is derivative of the success of the Dream Team
and the fact that USA Basketball had decided to bring
the pros in they wanted to get back to gold
medal status, they wanted to establish themselves as the best
basketball country in the world. And then four years later,
(23:56):
the women having not been as successful in Barcelona, they're like,
we're going to put together this women's version of the
Dream Team. But you know, there was no professional league
at the time to pull from. So, like you said,
they're pulling from college, they're pulling internationally, and you go
fifty two and oh, that's how many games we're played
(24:17):
in the runouf to the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
How how did that feel?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
I mean, because you had had an undefeated season obviously
at the college level in Yukon.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
It was interesting because there it was the expectation that
we were going to win every game and there's kind
of this weight on our shoulders. Again not only are
we representing the US and we're getting ready for the Olympics,
but you know, then we find out that there's talk
about starting a WNBA, a professional league in the US,
and so it's not like it was a celebratory environment.
Speaker 9 (24:46):
Oh we won game number fifty, like let's go out
and get a drink. It was more like sort of relief, Okay,
we just we just won another one, and that's what
we're expected to do. And you know, I mean, Hannah,
we're in Siberia and febus Ruary where when we're not players,
not in the game, they were wearing like perkas on
the bench because the arena was freezing cold.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
It was full. I've never seen so many like black
and gray jackets in my life. I was like, do
they not sell colored fabrics here? It was just sort
of like this this feeling of I don't know what,
but you know, so it wasn't even like, you know, yes,
we had a lot of games you know at the
University of Tennessee or Yukon where it was sold out
and there's this warm and welcoming feeling to it, but
(25:30):
then there was a lot that were also in gyms
where it wasn't the best environment to play. And so yeah,
it felt great to not lose any games. But that's
what it felt like. It felt like, Okay, we haven't
lost any games, more than it felt like, oh, you know,
we're this incredible team celebrating the fact that we've won
X number of games in a row.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Here's val again.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Plans for the WNBA were quietly in motion before that point.
While the national team was doing its thing. We were
in another room keeping an eye on that, but in
another room basically writing the business plan for the w NBA,
and I was chairing this internal committee that was pulling
this all together. David hired Gary Stevenson, now senior executive
(26:16):
at Major League Soccer to come in and help us
think out the television and the marketing and the approach
we use was somewhat innovative to bring that together. So
we were kind of it.
Speaker 6 (26:25):
Was a go.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
It was a go because we saw again the response
along the way with this tour. We thought there was
going to be interest.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
What was the conversation like when you were asked to
be a president of the w NBA.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
It was it was sort of sweet.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
I mean, I was, you know, I was the women's
basketball person. Everybody knew it. I was, you know, running
the national team pieces that we were involved in together
with you know, my good colleagues. But I was sort
of the day to day I think it was sort
of expected that I would be, you know, offered this opportunity.
I had to talk to my husband, is it was
(27:00):
becoming more evident. We had young kids at the time,
and my kids were four and two when the league launched,
So it was it was going to be a heavy lift.
But my husband was great about it, understood the opportunity,
and so it was. But it was an honor and
something I took very seriously handah as you might expect.
I mean, I felt like I'd been handed this, this precious,
(27:22):
incredible asset, and we all felt tremendous pressure because it
was very visible. There was going to be a lot
of scrutiny. There were naysayers around every corner who didn't
think a women's pro basketball league could be successful, and
as you know, it took a while. We're starting to
see now, I think what everybody hoped for. But I
felt just a tremendous sense of responsibility when I was
(27:43):
asked to do it, and very happy to lend my
expertise to it. And again, you couldn't look back, you
only could look ahead.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Adding to the pressure the creation of a rival league,
the American Basketball League, which began in nineteen ninety five
and poached more than half of that ninety six dream
team lineup, including Don Staley, Teresa Edwards, and Jennifer Azy.
Rebecca opted out.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
My feeling had always been it's not going to succeed
unless it's got David Stern behind it, unless it has
the money of NBA ownership behind it. But the ABL
was appealing to players because it was in the traditional
basketball season, you know, it was in the in the
winter time. It paid more than the WNBA. But it
lasted two years. Why because it didn't have the NBA
(28:33):
behind it, and it was an interesting model for the NBA.
But one at the time you were like, okay, this
makes sense. They have buildings that aren't full in the
summer that you know, there's less competition in the summer,
and David cern you know, you just he didn't let
a lot.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Of things fail.
Speaker 6 (28:47):
It's all right.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
I think players are like, all right, you know, this
is probably the one that has the best chance for
long term success.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Team USA's test balloon worked one two three. In April
of nineteen ninety six, three months before the Olympic Games began,
the NBA's Board of Governors announced the creation of the
Women's National Basketball Association, the w NBA.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
So it's nineteen ninety six and the WNBA.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Is actually approved by the Board of governors in April,
largely due to the success of this foreign storming tour.
The NBA was really watching, you know, are people going
to come out and play, what's going to happen with
these exhibition games and all of that. How much are
you aware of your success being monitored in that regard.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
I think we were aware to it to a slight degree.
I think it was more, oh, cool, Look, they're selling
a jersey with a USA jersey with my name on it.
I've never seen that before, because you know, we're coming
from college long before, so that didn't exist. Oh, there's
a poster and our picture is on it. Like those
were kind of the excited feelings we were having. I
don't think we really understood necessarily, sort of again the
(30:11):
test balloon nature of what we were doing. And then
you had the other dynamic, Hanna, where the ABL was
also starting. They were going to start in the fall
of ninety six, and every single one of my teammates
had signed a contract to play with the ABL. I
was the only one who had it, so there was
a little bit of pressure on me too. Like later on,
(30:31):
Cheryl and Lisa ended up saying, you know, we're also
not going to play in the ABL this year. We're
going to go on with the WNBA. But at that time,
maybe January, February March of nineteen ninety six, as we're
approaching the Olympics, I had a lot of pressure on
me because I was the one who had yet to sign.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Looking back, nineteen ninety six was a banner year for
women's sports. On the heels of their barnstorming tour, the
women's basketball team ended up on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Women's soccer and softball were added to the Olympics for
the first time ever. The Atlanta Olympics provided a massive
platform for a whole new generation of female athletes, and
(31:10):
they rose to the occasion. Women's soccer, softball, basketball, and
team gymnastics all took home goals. The biggest stars also
took home endorsements. Cheryl Swoops got a Nike shoe, Dot
Richardson a signature bat Mia Hamm deals with Pepsi and Gatorade.
(31:31):
You sign a deal with Reebok and historic deal with
Reeboch and I believe you're also, in addition, the first
Latina to get a shoe contract like that. How did
the Rebok deal come about?
Speaker 2 (31:48):
After the Olympics.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
What's funny because a historic deal then is like a
pittance of a deal now, especially when you talk about
the economics of what's going on in women's basketball.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
We'll put it in context because that's really interesting for
people today to hear what it was like back then.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
Like if you could get a low six figure, very low,
barely six figure shoe deal, that was huge. Only a
handful of people had them, like people on the Olympic team.
That was it, because you couldn't get them in college
and there was no professional basketball here, so nobody was
investing in footwear for somebody who's playing over in Italy
or Japan. But how it came to be for me,
it was my senior year we started wearing rebox at Yukon.
(32:28):
That was back in the day before universities did school
wide deals or athletic department deals. Like each coach had
their own deal. So my first three years at Yukon,
coach o AMA's deal was with A six and a
six made great running shoes and their basketball shoes were terrible,
but that's what we wore because that's what coach or
AMA's who Coach or Amma had his deal with. And
then my senior year went with Reebok and so as
(32:50):
I'm graduating, Reebok gets in touch with me. It was
the impetus for me getting an agent at the time,
and after some negotiating, we went from you know, I
think their initial offer was like twelve thousand dollars or
something like that, and like that was in the ballpark
for a shoe deal at that time, so it wasn't
like an insulting offer. Fortunately we were able to increase
(33:12):
that because that became my means of making money outside
of the fifty pre tax that USA Basketball was giving us.
But that's how that kind of came to be was
I was already associated with Reebok in some ways because
of my year at Yukon, and then you know, they
were willing to pay me a little bit to wear
their product.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
So it was a six figure deal.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
It ended up being a low six figure deal. I
think it was like maybe one hundred per year for
a couple of years. And again that was a really
really good deal for that time and way above like
what Nike or anybody else at least was offering me
at that time.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Back then, I was working at NBC covering all that
hype with my friend and producer Lisa Lax spent more
than a decade at NBC Sports and later ran it's
Olympic Features unit. One of the things that the NBA
was paying attention to was how how would the crowds
(34:12):
be all right? How marketable was this team?
Speaker 10 (34:15):
Like?
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Would people respond? Would they come to the games? And
an answer was a definitive yes, was it not?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 10 (34:23):
It was. I mean everywhere they went they were filling
stadiums for the first time ever. Really, you know, they would,
you know, play at local colleges. They went to Tennessee
and the place was packed. And at that time too,
you had Tennessee and Yukon of big, big rivals playing
against each other. So the basketball in general was becoming
a more notable sport whenen's basketball, and you know that
(34:48):
the NBA was curious, is their real talent? You know,
what is the level of basketball? What was you know,
there were so much at stake in ninety six. And
you know what's interesting that I haven't thought about in
a long time. Nike at that time in the mid
nineties never had a women's sports marketing department until they
saw something happening with women's basketball and women's soccer. So
(35:11):
in nineteen ninety five, they started a whole division at night,
the four women and women in team sports. They were
doing the three on three at Rucker Park, where you know,
the tagline was like basketball as basketball athletes or athletes.
It wasn't whether you're a man or a woman, but
you're if you're a basketball player, you're legit.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
You know.
Speaker 10 (35:30):
We see it today and we see Caitlin Clark's you know,
sponsorship deals and all of that, but that that kind
of momentum was started back in the nineties when this
was all kind of you know, brewing.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
I think of myself as an athlete and not as
a woman athlete.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I think the biggest experio type is that women cannot done.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
I think we were all kind of even going into
it aware that there was momentum around women's sports at
the time, in particular softball and soccer, as you mentioned.
And then we shared the venue with gymnastics, so we
were in the Georgia Dome and there's there's a separator
between both sides and on one side was where they
had the gymnastics set up and then the basketball course
(36:14):
on the other side. And one of my fondest memories
that still makes me laugh to this day is sometimes
we'd be walking out of our locker room to go
to our side, and we would pass the gymnasts as
they were coming back, kind of wind up and like
the two just different varieties of human species, of female
human species. Like we'd walk by and we'd give them
(36:35):
like low fives, and they're like giving us high fives
because you've got like, you know, six, four sixty five
whatever walking by these petite little gymnasts. And when we
were back at our hotel or whatever, I was watching
and invested because, like I just high five you know,
that gymnast and she's going to win a gold medal?
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Like how cool?
Speaker 5 (36:55):
How cool is this?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
The nineteen ninety six Olympic Women's Basketball Tournament began on
July twenty. First, your first game was against Cuba. There
were about forty one hundred people watching those first couple
of games, which were played at Morehouse College.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Do you recall the first game?
Speaker 5 (37:12):
I do. I actually do remember that game pretty well,
and I remember like it was packed. I'm assuming Morehouse's
capacity is forty eight hundred because it was packed. We
had played Cuba a number of times throughout the course
of our year long lead up to the Olympics, but
just kind of a sense of it's finally here. And
(37:33):
one of the strongest memories I have from the Olympics
is the opening ceremonies too. We walked out with the
men's team. I believe we were the last US team
to walk out, and it was like an overwhelming feeling
of Oh, I understand now why people play football.
Speaker 9 (37:48):
There's like one hundred thousand people cheering at the top
of their lungs.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
Is really cool. But yeah, I do certainly remember getting
on the bus going out and playing that first game.
I think we played the first couple of games at Morehouse.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Here's Lisa.
Speaker 8 (38:03):
I think that a lot of what happened in Atlanta
was directly these were the first generation of women to
really receive the benefits of Title nine, and it all
came together in Atlanta in terms of.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
The actual team sports.
Speaker 10 (38:19):
As you mentioned, like you had Julie Bowdie and Maya
Han who were really you know, the beneficiaries of Title
nine going to you know, Stamford and North Carolina and
receiving you know, scholarships, et cetera. Then you had Doc
Richardson and Lisa Fernandez from the softball team, and they
were huge names at the time, and they you know,
(38:41):
there were many other players on all those teams, and
then you have Lisa Leslie and you have Don Staley
and Rebecca Lobo and Cheryl Swoops and Ruthy Bolton and
all these amazing women coming together at the Atlanta Olympics,
you know, and really paying it forward all the way.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Team USA would also win gold, defeating Brazil one eleven
to eighty seven on August fourth, nineteen ninety six, in
front of thirty three thousand fans. There were nineteen and
a half million TV viewers at the time for that.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Seriously, yeah, wow.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Which is insane. The feeling of winning a gold medal.
You know, most people haven't experienced that. Can you share
what that was like? And just watching the flag and
hearing the playing of the national anthem for you personally,
what was that like?
Speaker 5 (39:37):
It's like everything you would expect it to be, you know,
like the hair standing up on the back of your
neck and just you know, we had had a moment
where running around the court and you change and go
get put your you know, your metal ceremony sweats on,
and just being up there listening to your national anthem,
because I'm sure I was like a lot of other kids,
Like when I was in college, you had the anthem
(39:59):
before everyone your games, and oftentime I would think about
one day representing my country in the Olympics as the
anthems being played, and so that played into it. And
plus it was like the culmination of a year of
really hard living in terms of, you know, we're playing
all the time, we're sacrificing, we're away from our families,
(40:20):
all of that. It was the culmination. So it was
not just all right, we just won gold. We're representing
our country, and that's one level of awesome, but also
all the sacrifices that were made to get there brought
it to a whole new level. It was that was incredible.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Those Olympics set into motion an incredible legacy. Every team
USA to place since then has one gold. Lisa Leslie
led Team USA with twenty nine points and six rebounds
in the gold medal game.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
We were all there at the games. I remember sitting
in the stands with Russ Granick and others, and they
won the gold medal. I don't if you remember. It was
one of the best basketball games ever. I mean, I
would tell your viewers, if you want to watch a
really good basketball game, go online and find NBC had it,
you know, and watch that game. It was USA women
versus Brazil. It was just one of the best basketball games,
(41:16):
not met or women I've ever watched. And then we won.
It was inspiring, and I remember bursting into tears at
the end of the game. I just sat there as
just sobbing because it had happened. We did it, and
then I think a few days later, I was announced
as the first president of the WNBA, and then we
were just rolling.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Nineteen ninety six marked a transition to a new era
for women's professional basketball, and I had just a few
months to get ready for prime time.
Speaker 7 (41:44):
What Night.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Next Time On NBA DNA, we go behind the scenes
of the inaugural season of the WNBA. NBA DNA with
Hannah Storm is a production of iHeart Podcasts, the NBA
(42:10):
and Brainstorm and Productions. The show is written and executive
produced by me Hannah Storm, along with Julia Weaver and
Alex French. Our lead producer and showrunner is Julia Weaver.
Our senior producers are Peter Kouder, Alex French, and Brandon Reese,
editing and sound design by Kurt Garrin and Julia Weaver.
(42:32):
The show's executive producers are Carmen Belmont, Jason English, Sean
ty Tone, Steve Weintraup, and Jason Weikelt
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