This week is the opening week of the WNBA. The league starts its 29th season and women’s pro basketball has never been hotter. But did you know that the very first ever professional women’s basketball game happened right here in Milwaukee?
While the WBL, Women’s Professional Basketball League, only lasted three years, the women from that time reshaped the sport — and what was possible for women’s basketball.
“I loved to jump out of the gym, I loved playing defense,” says Gerry Booker, Milwaukee Does original star player. “Defense was my thing. Offense could have been it too, but you know, I took what they gave me.”
Booker played in the inaugural game on Dec. 9, 1978. At close to six feet and a ferocious competitor, Booker played forward and at times center for the Does that first season. But it wasn’t a guarantee she would ever play basketball at all.
Title IX went into effect when she was in high school, which guaranteed athletic scholarships for girls and women for the first time. That’s when Booker changed her sport from softball to basketball.
While she wasn’t drafted in the original WBL draft, having just graduated from college, she knew she was good enough to play in the pros. So she hitched a ride to Milwaukee for an open practice tryout, and after almost dunking in that practice, she was on the team.
The challenge for the Does was that tryout, and putting together a team, happened in September, which left only a few months before opening tip.
“It was a hard process, but we did a good job coming together,” says Booker.
Tip Off
“The bus ride was lighthearted and excited, giddy just ready to get started, ready to play” Liz Galloway McQuitter says, forward for the Chicago Hustle, the Does' opponent that day. “Then when we saw the crowd and a little nervousness set in.”
Almost 8,000 people packed inside The Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center and Arena (MECCA), home of the world champion Milwaukee Bucks and national champs Marquette Warriors. The league had a huge marketing push in Milwaukee, reaching out to lawyers, doctors, politicians — anyone who might come out to support the burgeoning league.
“The introductions, I remember having chills, you know, standing there in line,” Galloway McQuitter says. “In junior college we won the first national championship, so we received a lot of accolades, but this was on a different level.”
A little piece of unknown history — this wasn’t just the first-ever women’s pro game, it was also the debut for the women’s ball, the same ball being shot and used today.
While Galloway McQuitter was introduced with the starting lineup for the Hustle, Gerry Booker found herself coming off the bench for the Does.
“I was mad that I didn't start, but it was about the process,” Booker says. “I know the journey that I took to get there [so] nobody would have thought I made it. So I took what I was given.”
At 1:44 p.m., referee Mark Mano, a car salesman from Racine, tossed up the opening tip. Twenty-six seconds later, Milwaukee Does' Joanie Smith hit the game’s first basket to open things up.
“The first half was back and forth,” says Booker.
“Nerves set in [and] up to halftime was kind of sloppy,” Galloway McQuitter remembers. “There was some very solid play by Waddy [teammate Debbie Waddy Rossow] and Joanie Smith, Cindy Ellis, Gerry Booker [from the Does].”
At halftime, Chicago was up by three, 54-51. Milwaukee was battling, but Chicago’s Debbie Waddy Rossow couldn’t be stopped. She already had 19 points and six rebounds. In the locker room, the Hustle were confident.
“We got this, you know, just talking about what we need to do better,” Galloway McQuitter says with a laugh. “But excited we got the jitters out and okay, we got this. This is our game.”
Starting the third quarter, Chicago started to take over. They were pushing the pace, hounding the Does on defense and hitting the glass. In the opening minute of the fourth quarter, they built the lead up to 13 points.
“We were feeling really good ... until we weren't,” Galloway McQuitter says. “Until they came back.”
The Does’ youngest player, “Baby J,” Joanie Smith, scored on four straight possessions — inside, outside, at the free-throw line — she was doing it all.
“She just had a great shot, a great offensive skill set and she got hot,” says Galloway McQuitter. “The tide and the momentum changed. Now we're in a dogfight.”
Gerry Booker didn’t start, but she was in there for the Does during crunch time. She tied the game at 81 with just over five minutes left on a baseline jumper. The crowd went wild. Reporters covering the game said it sounded like an NBA playoff game.
Thirty seconds later, Booker was called for a game-changing goaltending call. Pretty soon, the Hustle pulled away.
“Liz Galloway — she was controlling the game, getting Debbie Waddy Rossow that ball,” Booker says. “She was unbelievable in the post, shooting outside, whatever.”
“We made the plays down the stretch and they didn't,” Galloway McQuitter says. “They missed free throws, turnovers, and we hit our free throws. And when we needed a big bucket, it was Waddy.”
After two hours and two minutes of women’s pro basketball, the Hustle beat the Does, 92-87.
Debbie Waddy Rossow, Galloway McQuitter’s college teammate, was unstoppable with 30 points and 12 rebounds. But that first game was bigger than who won and lost. It was history. And the women knew it.
“What I was thinking of [after the game] is I was going to be a star,” Booker says. “The league was going to make it. I'm part of the beginning. It was just overwhelming.”
“We're here, the league is here and the sky's the limit,” Galloway McQuitter adds.
The Chicago Hustle celebrated in the locker room, Galloway McQuitter says. High-fives and hugs. After all, they did win.
“And then, we're coming out and we're signing autographs,” she says. “We're like, ‘You want my autograph?’ You know, somebody may have that and it might be worth something today.”
“We were the beginning, we were the pioneers,” Booker says. “It was like an overwhelming, tearful experience for me because a dream came true. I got tears talking about it now because a dream came true.”
'A generation of firsts'
“At the time, for a lot of the players in the WBL, they were sort of at the peak of their careers, but it wasn't something that they necessarily even imagined — that they would be able to play professional ball,” says journalist Maya Goldberg-Safir, and author of Rough Notes, which covers the women’s game.
Goldberg-Safir says a lot of these women had families, jobs or full-time work they sacrificed to make this dream come true. Booker says how lucky she was to have a college degree, after just retiring earlier this year from a career in historic preservation.
“This dream of being able to play professionally required them to take an incredible amount of risk to walk away from stability,” Goldberg-Safir says. “And I've heard so many of them say we were just lucky to play.”
Galloway McQuitter calls the players and everyone associated with the WBL a “generation of firsts.”
“In this league you have the first recipients of Title IX, eight members of the first women’s Olympic team, women who won the first championship in the AIAW,” she says. “This is why they were ready to try the league — because of what we had done in college. And so we’ll remain that generation of firsts, and everybody can’t lay claim to that.”
Telling the real story
While that first game was almost an unquestionable success, the league failed to take off. Media attention never followed up. Some of the players spoke out on the challenges of being taken seriously, especially after some of the more risqué uniforms or logos — such as the Milwaukee Does’ curvy female deer with tiny feet and long eyelashes.
There were other challenges, too.
“The money was funny,” Gerry Booker says. “I still have bounced checks from the [WBL].”
Some of the Black players in the league also felt like they didn’t get a shot at being marketed fairly. Booker pointed out how every team’s program and marketing material highlighted the white players — and usually blonde white players.
“When I was in San Francisco [playing for the Pioneers], what really turned me off from the marketing was in the local newspaper they had Molly Bolin [Pioneers player] in a damn bathing suit,” says Booker. “What does a bathing suit have to do with basketball?”
While Galloway McQuitter agrees that there was sexism and racism at play, she thinks the biggest travesty is that this history has been hidden for so long.
“It’s a shared responsibility to take ownership,” she says. “It’s the media, it’s the coaches, it’s the WNBA, it’s the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, it’s the places that house history. It is a shared responsibility to know, incorporate and reveal this history.”
Booker says she wasn’t even aware there was a Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame until she was inducted in 2018 with the rest of the WBL.
But those women — like Booker and Galloway McQuitter — paved the way for the next 40 years of professional women’s basketball excellence. Which all started in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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