Inaugural ballers The true story of the first U.S. Women's Olympic basketball team

Just in time to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX comes this inspiring, comprehensive look at the first U.S. women's Olympic basketball team. Heading into the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, no one had high hopes for the underdog team. To help set the scene, Maraniss, an award-winning sportswriter, takes readers back to the early days of sports for women, when female athletes were deemed too delicate to run a full court length. This history is explained within a broader context of cultural attitudes toward women and women's limited rights. After the 1972 passage of Title IX, which required equal opportunities for women and men in federally funded schools, the International Olympic Committee added women's basketball to the 1976 games. Through many first-person stories, Maraniss offers detailed profiles of the relatively unknown players and coaches who would go on to become the heroic faces of women's basketball and their training for the international stage, once again placing their feats in the context of systemic racism and sexism. Following exciting coverage of the Olympic competition, the author considers the team's legacy and how their silver medals paved the way for more success in all women's sports. Complementing the narrative nonfiction are period photos, extensive chapter notes, and a plethora of women's basketball statistics. A triumphant account for any sports fan.

Gr 8 Up--A winning look at the creation and legacy of a team that went from underdogs to unstoppable. Maraniss places the 1976 groundbreaking first American women's Olympic basketball team firmly in historical and political context, following the rise of basketball from its inception to the fluctuations of its popularity for women throughout the 1900s (corresponding to social norms about what was acceptably "ladylike") to the backlash, detractors, and misogyny that marked the Olympic team's rise to success. He keeps a close eye on the issues of politics and equity, the work and "whiteness" of second-wave feminism, Title IX, and important moments in civil rights movements. Interspersed throughout are biographies of pioneering women's players and visionary coaches working with no road map and big dreams. Most of these players, from small towns with struggling and underfunded basketball teams, faced seemingly insurmountable adversity, both as women and, for many of the players, as Black women. Perceptions and observations about their lives and their travels around the world illustrate these obstacles and the profound impact the players' tenacity would have on women's sports. Maraniss, a master of narrative nonfiction, creates an immersive and emotional story. The book is full of quotes from interviews and contains an abundance of black-and-white photographs. Back matter includes footnotes that add context and details, a list of interviews, bibliography, rosters, scores, a medal table, Olympic jersey numbers, and notable moments in U.S. women's sports history. VERDICT An inspirational look at remarkable athletes breaking boundaries. An exceptional read and an essential purchase.--Amanda MacGregor

The underdog story of America's first women's Olympic basketball team plays out in this thoughtful exploration of social change. Soon after James Naismith invented basketball in 1891, girls and women began enthusiastically playing the sport. However, it wasn't until the passage of Title IX in 1972 that American schools were required to provide equal opportunities, allowing female athletes to compete at the same level (though not with the same funding) as their male counterparts. In 1973, the International Olympic Committee added women's basketball to the 1976 Games in Montreal. Building the squad from the 1973 World University Games team and open tryouts, basketball pioneer Mildred Barnes enabled coaches Billie Moore and Sue Gunter to assemble a scrappy team capable of medaling when no one (not even USA Basketball executive director Bill Wall) thought it possible. Maraniss explores decades of misogyny and sexism, generations of systemic racism, and White feminists' shortcomings when it came to race that surrounded the humble beginnings of what became a true Olympic powerhouse: As of 2021, the U.S. women's team has won seven straight gold medals. Interviews with athletes from the 1976 Olympics enhance the invigorating narrative, enriching a book that will stick with readers long after they put it down. Weaving women's basketball into a textured account of a society in flux, Maraniss' latest will appeal to a broad audience. A winning story full of heart, camaraderie, and power. (photo credits, source notes, bibliography, rosters, statistics, box scores, timeline) (Nonfiction. 12-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

July 26, 1976 Montreal Forum, Quebec, Canada Summer Olympics The locker room shook with music, women singing along with the Natalie Cole tape blasting from the small speakers in the corner. THIS will be . . . an everlasting love THIS will be . . . the one I've waited for Someone turned off the tape player, and the room grew quieter. The only thing breaking the silence was the muffled murmur of thousands of spectators from around the world who had traveled to Canada for the eighteenth Olympic Games. American basketball coach Billie Moore stood before her players in the bowels of the famed Montreal Forum, just minutes before her team was to play Czechoslovakia in a game to determine the winner of the silver medal. The women in front of her would go on to become some of the most legendary names in the history of the sport, but at this moment they were still largely unknown.1 For people who paid attention to women's basketball, it was a surprise this team had even made it to Montreal, let alone that it was in position to earn medals in the first women's Olympic basketball tournament ever played. The United States had placed a dismal eighth at the World Championships in Colombia a year earlier, only qualifying for the Olympics in a last-­minute tournament for also-­rans just two weeks before the opening ceremony. Heading into the Olympics, one sportswriter declared that the only positive thing anyone could say about US women's basketball in the past was that it wasn't the most inept program in the world. "Maybe the second or third worst," he wrote, "but not the worst." A basketball coach must choose her words carefully in a pregame speech--­just enough motivation, not too much pressure. As she scanned the room, locking eyes with the veteran co-captain from rural Tennessee, the brash young redhead from Long Island, and the quietly determined Black center from the Mississippi Delta, Moore sensed her players could handle a message that had been on her mind ever since the team's training camp in Warrensburg, Missouri, six weeks earlier. The coach had confidence in this group, and though she didn't think much about politics, she understood the moment in time in which this team existed. In the summer of 1976, women were demanding rights and opportunities all over the world. The United States had just celebrated its bicentennial on July 4, a time for Americans to ponder whether all citizens were truly free. Moore knew this game was an important stepping-­stone on the journey to equality. Pat,Lusia, Annie, Nancy L., Nancy D., Mary Anne, Sue, Juliene, Charlotte, Cindy, Trish, and Gail wouldn't just be playing for themselves but also for the women before them who had been denied opportunities. They would be playing for the little girls who yearned to hoop, and generations of athletes yet to be born. Rather than calm her players' nerves by telling them to remember this was just another game, no different than any they'd played before, Billie Moore laid it all on the line. "Win this game," she told her team,"and it will change women's sports in this country for the next twenty-­five years." Excerpted from Inaugural Ballers: The True Story of the First US Women's Olympic Basketball Team by Andrew Maraniss All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.