Women's Professional Basketball League
 |
|
| Sport | Basketball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1978 |
| Ceased | 1981 |
| No. of teams | 15 throughout league history |
| Country | United States |
| Last champion(s) |
Nebraska Wranglers (1st) |
| Most titles |
Houston Angels New York Stars Nebraska Wranglers (1 each) |
The Women's Professional Basketball League (abbreviated WBL) was a professional women's basketball league in the United States. The league played three seasons from the fall of 1978 to the spring of 1981. The league was the first professional women's basketball league in the United States.
The league began with a player draft held in Manhattan's Essex House in July 1978, with eight teams participating. While few of the teams had firm commitments on playing locations (or team names, for that matter), the league planned to play a 34-game season with teams in Chicago, Houston, Iowa, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Jersey, New York City and Washington, D.C. Houston drafted Ann Meyers from UCLA, while New Jersey's top choice Carol Blazejowski of Montclair State University said that she wanted to retain her amateur standing to be eligible to play in the 1980 Summer Olympics. Lusia Harris, a collegiate star at Delta State University, was selected by the Houston team, but was reluctant to commit to playing after hearing the $3,000 to $5,000 salaries estimated by the Minnesota franchise. With its last pick in the draft, the Cornets selected Uljana Semjonova, a 6-foot-11-inch player for the Soviet Union's national women's basketball team who would be inducted as an inaugural member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in the class of 1999, but would never play a game in the WBL. The New Jersey Gems selected Carol Blazejowski from Montclair State College, but she announced while on tour in Bulgaria with the U.S. national women's team through her coach Maureen Wendelken that she had no intention of playing professionally and that her goal was to retain her amateur standing to be able to play for the U.S. at the 1980 Summer Olympics.Molly Bolin, who grew up in Moravia, Iowa, became the first player signed by any team in the WBL when she was signed by the Iowa Cornets.
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