Locked on Women’s Basketball: Intersection of AIAW, Title IX and WBL Trailblazers with Elizabeth Galloway-McQuitter

Elizabeth Galloway-McQuitter talks about the history of the Legends of the Ball and the WBL Trailblazers:

“It’s called Legends of the Ball. And we promote the historic and social relevance of the WBL, the first women’s professional basketball league in the United States. So we actually promote Title IX, AIAW and WBL because the name of this session is multiple Trailblazers because we represent each one of those entities.

In 2018, the WBL was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame as Trailblazers of the game as the first women’s professional basketball league. One hundred of us showed up and probably had over 400 that played in the league over those three years. Proud, happy, excited. And we get on stage in the end, and nothing against the Hall of Fame. They’re great partners. We’re great partners with them right now.

They brought the person who was announcing and we got up there and they rushed us off stage. And we went up there, we like finally, and then we were rushed off stage. You know, like chattel and we’re like, wait a minute. We’re more than the three years that we’ve played. We’re so much more than three years. We are not a league that failed. We were a league that propelled the game forward. We never left the game. Our handprints are all over the game. And so that’s how Legends of the Ball started.”

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Elizabeth Galloway-McQuitter talks about the importance of telling the story of the Trailblazers:

“Whose responsibility is it to tell this history? We’re taking on that responsibility on our own. But it is also your responsibility as coaches. It’s the media, the places that house history. It’s the broadcaster we listen to broadcasters all the time, and we go nuts and they’ll talk about things, but you don’t know what you don’t know. So they don’t have the information to just parlay right into a story about somebody of our era.

Last session, we had Charlotte Smith in here. Anybody heard of Charlotte Smith? She played at the University of North Carolina and hit the winning shot and what was it? What year did she say was 97? I think she dunk too. Okay, that phenomenon is called the new forgotten because we, as women coaches and female athletes, don’t connect the dots the way the men do. Go to an all-star game and the late great Bill Russell, Dr. J and Mike; they’re all sitting there. This is just in the NBA; they are revered and honored. And they connect their past over their 75 years. Now everybody thinks pro basketball started with the WNBA; we don’t get invited, we’re not honored, we’re not there.”

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