WBL Books

This section lists books and documentaries about the WBL, about women's basketball history, and written by ex-WBL players. For a comprehensive list of books and other media relating to women's basketball more generally, see this site.

At last! "Mad Seasons: A History of the first Women's Professional Basketball League (1978-81)" (2006) is now available for purchase here from Amazon.com or here from Barnes & Noble.com. 354 pp., 22 photos, detailed source notes, and index.

In our first review, the Sioux City (IA) Journal says: "Looking for an interesting and entertaining read? Try 'Mad Seasons: The Story of the First Women's Professional Basketball League, 1978-1981.'" (Apr. 10, 2006)

f you like the book, please consider posting a review on Amazon.com or BN.com. Also, three chapters that did not make it into the book and an interview with yours truly are posted on Kim Callahan's womensbasketballonline.com.

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The book is the product of more than one hundred interviews with WBL players, coaches, and owners, and hundreds of hours poring through newspapers, records, programs, correspondence, and other material. E-mail me (Karra) for details.

Chapters and their general subject matter:

Prologue: Birth of a League -- Bill Byrne comes up with a crazy idea; brief history of prior efforts at a women's pro league in the U.S.

1. The Lights Go Up -- the first professional women's basketball game, Dec. 9, 1978

2. Chance of a Lifetime -- why women played, their backgrounds, recruiting, etc.

3. A Man's Game -- NBA coaches join the WBL, male vs. female coaches, perceptions of the women's game, WBL/NBA comparisons, etc.

4. In the Locker Room -- three months after a court allows women into male locker rooms, suddenly the roles are reversed...

5. Playing by the Rules -- the funky world of WBL officiating and scorekeeping; technical fouls; WBL rules

6. Working Hard for the Money -- working conditions, weather, travel, conditioning, fans, paycheck problems

7. Makeup Game -- marketing professional women's basketball, media reactions, the famed John Robert Powers charm school experiment, the controversial "Molly Dolly" poster

8. Ball Games -- development of the now standard women's (28 1/2") basketball, first used in the WBL

9. Color Commentary -- racial issues and the WBL

10. Changing the Lineups -- Doug Bruno 'kidnaps' a player; whirlwind roster changes and controversial trades in the WBL

11. Standards of Conduct -- WBL players drinking and swearing? Depended on the team; drugs and born-again Christians in the WBL

12. The Money Men -- Who were these guys and why in the world would they buy a WBL franchise? Also: the million dollar hoax; a WBL owner brought down by a Middle East coup

13. Wrong League -- Ann Meyers goes from the NBA to the WBL -- traitor or savior?

14. Out of Bounds -- the WBL's most volatile player (Liz Silcott) versus its most volatile coach (Larry Gillman)

15. Benched -- WBL owners stage a coup against Bill Byrne

16. The Super Rookies -- three widely anticipated rookies shake up the WBL (Nancy Lieberman, Carol Blazejowski, and Inge Nissen)

17. Foul Play -- tragedy strikes as the Nebraska Wranglers make a run for the title

18. Suspended -- unpaid Minnesota Fillies take drastic action; the New England Gulls and California Dreams hit hard times

19. Home Court Disadvantage -- "Machine Gun" Molly Bolin has her career as a professional athlete used against her in an historic custody battle

20. Final Buzzer -- the end of the league; why the WBL didn't last

21. Snapshots of the WBL -- snippets of life in the WBL, on and off the court (coach Butch van Breda Kolff fired for not wearing socks; Chicago Hustle's final regular-season game played under court order; Mary Jo Peppler makes colorful changes to her contract; Doug Bruno plays a joke on Larry Costello; too much partying almost costs Dallas a #1 pick, etc.)

22. Epilogue -- the WBL's place in history, its impact on players' lives

Thought-provoking documentary about the WBL's controversial Liz "the Whiz" Silcott (St. Louis Streak). Elitha Peterson Productions, Toronto, 2001. The producer is Sylvia Sweeney, a teammate of Silcott's on the Canadian National Team and member of Canada's 1976 Olympic basketball team.

Michael L. and Doreen L. Greenberg, 2000 (kid-oriented biography of key player in WBL and Women's American Basketball Association (WABA))

Play the Game Right, ca 2001, Paul A. Luscombe, a biography of Butch van Breda Kolff (New Orleans Pride). Unfortunately, the book devotes only a few sentences to Butch's time in the WBL.

Robert W. Ikard, University of Arkansas Press, March 2005. Any book that talks about the Flying Queens and Nera White gets my vote.

Julie Byrne, Columbia University Press, 2003. It's a published dissertation, which makes it a bit hard to read in places, but it's very informative about the Mighty Macs, the dominant team in college women's basketball in the early 1970s, even though the school had fewer than 1,000 students. They also played the first women's game at Madison Square Garden, and the first televised game. It's hard to overstate their impact on women's basketball in the pivotal 1970s.

Sandra Steen and Susan Steen, Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, March 2003. Not much new here, but any book about the history of women's basketball is worth having.

Linda Ford, Half Moon Books, 1999 (includes discussions of Redheads, WBL, and women drafted by or playing in men's leagues). Very interesting, unabashedly feminist analysis of the development of women's basketball.

Zenobia Press, 1994, ed. Ron Rapoport from the Chicago Sun-Times and NPR. This is the perfect book to take traveling. Not only are all the articles riveting, but in addition to several interesting articles about women's basketball in the 1970s and '80s, it also has two items of special interest to the WBL: A fun account of tryouts for Bill Byrne's Tampa Bay Sun (which never ended up playing in the WBL), and a chapter by New Jersey Gems player Mariah Burton Nelson.

ed. Joan Hult & Marianna Trekell, 1991. Lots of information; brief discussion of WBL. Out of print.

Fran Harris, iUniverse, 2001 (focuses on first year of WNBA, but also covers some mid 1980s college and international)

Sara Corbett, 1998 (excellent book following the 1996 Olympic gold medal team, with inside look at formation of ABL)

Shooting from the Outside: How a Coach and Her Olympic Team Transformed Women's Basketball

Tara Vanderveer, 1997 (1996 Olympic gold medal team; also includes background of ABL)

Professional Photography Division, Eastman Kodak Co. and Thomasson-Grant, Inc., 1991 (gorgeous photographs; interesting introduction by Patsy Neal about the history of women's collegiate basketball)

By Marguerite Keeley Crump (Milwaukee Does, Minnesota Fillies), Free Spirit Press, 2001

Foreword by Notre Dame Head Coach Muffet McGraw (California Dreams), Diamond Communications, 2002

Mariah Burton Nelson. Harcourt, 1994. THE groundbreaking work about the correlation between the American culture of sports and not only sexism but violence against women.

Are We Winning Yet? How Women are Changing Sports and Sports are Changing Women

Mary Jo Peppler (Chicago Hustle; New Jersey Gems), et al., publication date unknown

Brenda G. Pitts (Dayton Rockettes; Minnesota Fillies), New Strategist Publications, 2002

Brenda G. Pitts (Dayton Rockettes; Minnesota Fillies) and David K. Stotlar, rev. 2001

Faye Young Miller (New York Stars; New Jersey Gems) and Wayne Coffey, 3rd edition, October 2002. (1st edition 1984).