Reflections of a Pre-Title IX Baby, 1970s, by Michelle
From MemoryArchive
Who: Michelle What:basketball When: 1970's Where: Eastborough, Kansas
At 13 I was afflicted with MTXE: Mental Toughness Extra Effort. This was the silly motto adopted by the coach of the Wichita State Shockers. In the 70’s the Shockers were a real basketball team. Coach Gene Smithson kidnapped young talented men from inner cities in large cosmopolitan areas on the east coast and brought them to our little segregated city on the prairie. I loved going to the games and watching them play. My parents had season tickets but it was my dad’s work ethic that provided me a nearly regular row twelve seat.
I shot baskets for hours in the driveway. I was two heads taller than most kids my age and fancied myself the young, white, female version of Bill Russell. I dreamed of playing in the games like the ones I watched on television or at the Shocker games. In my driveway, I nearly never missed when I shot. However, what I lacked was any experience playing with living, breathing people. There was no offense or defense in my driveway. Title IX was in its infancy; there certainly was no WNBA and girl’s basketball was light years away. There were no real female role models in sport. Basketball was a boy sport and girls got to chose between volleyball and aerobics.
I was determined to play. My mother, shocked that I loved and wanted to play such an unladylike sport immediately signed me up for more tennis lessons at the country club. Outraged that there simply was no option for me I decided to sign up for the intramural tryouts at Coleman Junior High School. From the look on Coach Grozek’s face, I was apparently the only girl that had ever voiced an interest in basketball. He must have either had a daughter, an unKansas like feminist sense of justice or the sadistic desire to see me fail but to his credit he signed me up when I went to visit him on the boys side of the gym. He made me a captain which meant that I could choose my players on the first day when we divided up into teams. My first pick was the amazingly tall, handsome, Nordic Prince, John Landsverk, who despite being born tall and good looking could not run or shoot. John’s friendship was to be the only bright spot in an otherwise miserable and ultimately humiliating exercise.
The first week I lost count of the nitwit variations on the shirts or skins quip. Despite a huge desire to excel I could not overcome a total lack of practical experience.
Parks in my neighborhood didn’t have hoops and there were no pick up games to observe there much less to participate in. However, my best friend Erin had a brother, Eric who would often play with his remarkably attractive friend. Erin and I watched them play from her bedroom window. Her brother was the Lebanese-American version of a nebbish, but his friend, well he could play. The problem was that even nebbishy Eric knew what I hadn’t ever had the opportunity to learn from gym class or in pick up games with buddies. In my daydreams I would boldly ask Eric and his friend to share with me the secrets revealed to them and all the other boys who were taught to play Saturday mornings at the YMCA. The YMCA in Wichita, Kansas was heavy on the C and athletically speaking, an absolute zero if you weren’t an M. My nascent feminist soul was too injured to subject myself to further mockery.
When I realized my lack of skill could not be overcome I was sustained briefly by my feminist in-your-face attitude. I lasted about 2 weeks.
