The Women's Professional Basketball League 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.
Harry Peter "Bud" Grant Jr. was an American professional football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL) and Canadian Football League (CFL). Grant was head coach of the NFL's Minnesota Vikings for 18 seasons; he was the team's second (1967–83) and fourth (1985) head coach, leading them to four Super Bowl appearances, 11 division titles, one league championship and three National Football Conference championships. Before coaching the Vikings, he was the head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for 10 seasons, winning the Grey Cup four times.
Lindsay Marie Whalen is an American former professional basketball player and coach. She most recently served as the head coach at Minnesota.
John Albert Kundla was an American college and professional basketball coach. He was the first head coach for the Minneapolis Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and its predecessors, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL), serving 12 seasons, from 1947 to 1959. His teams won six league championships, one in the NBL, one in the BAA, and four in the NBA. Kundla was the head basketball coach at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul for one season in 1946–47, and at the University of Minnesota for ten seasons, from 1959 to 1968. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995 and the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
Anita Ortega is an American-Puerto Rican former basketball player and law enforcement officer. She played college basketball at UCLA where she won the 1978 AIAW championship. She later played professionally in the Women's Professional Basketball League before starting a career as a law enforcement officer with the Los Angeles Police Department.
James Clifford Pollard was an American professional basketball player and coach. As a player in the National Basketball Association (NBA), Pollard was considered one of the best forwards in the 1950s and was known for his leaping ability, earning him the nickname "The Kangaroo Kid". A five-time NBA champion and four-time NBA All-Star, Pollard spent his entire eight-year professional career with the Minneapolis Lakers.
The Illinois State Redbirds are the athletic teams that represent Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. Teams play at the NCAA Division I level. The football team competes in the Missouri Valley Football Conference while most other teams compete in the Missouri Valley Conference. The fight song is Go, You Redbirds.
Ilana Sheryl Kloss is a South African former professional tennis player, tennis coach, and administrator. She was the World's No. 1 ranked doubles player in 1976, and World No. 19 in singles in 1979. She won the Wimbledon juniors singles title in 1972, the US Open juniors singles title in 1974, and the US Open Doubles and French Open Mixed Doubles titles in 1976. She won three gold medals at the 1973 Maccabiah Games in Israel. After her playing career, Kloss was the commissioner of World TeamTennis from 2001–2021.
Sports in Minnesota include professional teams in all major sports, Olympic Games contenders and medalists, especially in the Winter Olympics, collegiate teams in major and small-school conferences and associations and active amateur teams and individual sports. The State of Minnesota has a team in all five major professional leagues. Along with professional sports, there are numerous collegiate teams including the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers and St. Thomas Tommies in NCAA Division I, as well as many others across the Minnesota public and private colleges and universities.
The Milwaukee Does were an American professional basketball team that played in the Women's Professional Basketball League. Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, their name was a play on that of the NBA Milwaukee Bucks. The Does played in the first two of the WPBL's three seasons, 1978–1979 and 1979–1980, before disbanding. The team played its home games at the Milwaukee Arena and were coached for part of the 1979–1980 season by Larry Costello, who had coached the Bucks from their inception, including an NBA championship in 1971.
The Maryland Terrapins women's basketball are an American basketball team. The team represents the University of Maryland in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I competition. Maryland, a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), left the ACC in 2014 to join the Big Ten Conference. The program won the 2006 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament championship and has appeared in the NCAA Final Four five times ; Maryland also appeared once in the AIAW Final Four (1978). As members of the ACC, the Terrapins won regular season conference championships and an ACC-record ten conference tournament championships. The program won the Big Ten Conference regular season and tournament championships in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2020, and 2021.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball team represents the University of Minnesota in NCAA Division I college basketball competition. The Golden Gophers competes in the Big Ten Conference and play their home games at the Williams Arena.
The Chicago Hustle was a team in the Women's Professional Basketball League (WBL) from 1978 to 1981. The team's colors were red and blue.
Mary Joan "Mary Jo" Peppler is an American former volleyball player and coach. Peppler was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 1990. She also played professional basketball with the New Jersey Gems of the Women's Professional Basketball League for one season.
Terry Duane Kunze is an American basketball player and coach. Kunze played in the 1967 season with the American Basketball Association's Minnesota Muskies after playing collegiately for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Kunze attended Duluth Central High School in Duluth, Minnesota.
The Houston Angels was a team that played for two seasons in the Women's Professional Basketball League. The team won the league championship in the inaugural season defeating the Iowa Cornets three games to two in the best-of-five tournament. The team played their games at the Astro Arena.
The Iowa Cornets was a team that played for two seasons in the Women's Professional Basketball League. George Nissen purchased the first franchise in the fledgling league on March 21, 1978 for $50,000. Nissen, who had been a star gymnast at the University of Iowa in the 1930s, pioneered the manufacture and sale of the modern trampoline at his Griswold-Nissen Trampoline & Tumbling Co. in Cedar Rapids. The team made it to the league's championship series both seasons, falling to the Houston Angels in 1978-79 and to the New York Stars in 1979–80. The team played their games at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa and at the Five Seasons Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Patricia "Trish" Roberts is an American basketball coach and former player. She was most recently the head coach of the women's basketball team at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.
Connie Renea Kunzmann was a professional basketball player who was a member of the Iowa Cornets and the Nebraska Wranglers in the Women's Professional Basketball League (WBL) from 1978 to 1981. Kunzmann made the transition from halfcourt six-on-six basketball in high school to the traditional five-on-five full court game in college and the pros. She attended Wayne State College in Wayne, Nebraska, where she played on the school's basketball and softball teams. In 1978, she signed with the Iowa Cornets of the newly-formed WBL, which was the first women's professional basketball league in the United States.
The 1980–81 WBL season was the 3rd and final season of the Women's Professional Basketball League. The season ended with the Nebraska Wranglers winning the WBL Championship, beating the Dallas Diamonds 3 games to 2 in the WBL Finals.
