Iowa Cornets

Women’s Professional Basketball League (1978-1980)

The Farm Stand

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Iowa Cornets
Logo T-Shirt

It’s hard to find shirts honoring the WBL, America’s original women’s pro basketball league form 1978 through 1981. 

But our friends at Rebound Vintage Hoops have a nice line covering several of the WBL clubs. Shirts are available in a variety of cuts and styles, including the women’s cut shown here, along with unisex, long-sleeved and even hoodie sweatshirts!

 

When you make a purchase through an affiliate link like this one, Fun While It Lasted earns a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!

Background

They can rightfully claim to be the first women’s professional basketball team ever formed in the United States.  They travelled the small cities of Iowa and beyond in a custom 1964 Greyhound bus known as “The Corn Dog”.  Team members co-starred with Pistol Pete Maravich in a box-office flop from the auteur who brought you UFO: Target Earth and Bloodbath in Psychotown.  And they were pretty good too.  During their short two-year history, the Iowa Cornets appeared in two championship series and produced one of the earliest stars of the women’s game.

George Nissen purchased the first franchise in the fledgling Women’s Professional Basketball League on March 21st, 1978 for the sum of $50,000.  Nissen was a star gymnast at the University of Iowa in the 1930’s who pioneered the manufacture and sale of the modern trampoline at his Griswold-Nissen Trampoline & Tumbling Co. in Cedar Rapids.

Machine Gun Molly

The state of Iowa had a unique fervor for the sport of girls basketball in the 1970’s. Though not in a form that many 21st century fans would recognize or appreciate.  School girls in Iowa and a few other Midwestern states played a variation called “six-on-six”, with three forwards and three guards.  Forwards could not cross the half court line to defend and guards could not cross the boundary to participate in the offense.  Each player was limited to only two dribbles before they had to pass or shoot.  The Cornets and the WPBL, of course, would play the conventional five-on-five rules familiar to the rest of the nation.

“We didn’t really get negative reactions <to five-on-five>, but we did have to win <Iowa fans> over.  It helped that about half of the Cornets were from Iowa and our fans knew who we were,” recalled former Cornets All-Star Molly Bolin to FWiL in 2011.  “I’m sure the game was slower than they were used to but we still scored a lot of points.  I think we averaged closed to 100 per game and having a few home games televised and being in the papers made people curious to see us play.”

George Nissen wanted the club to represent the entire state.  The Cornets would split their 17-game home schedule among eight different communities across Iowa in 1978-79.  The Cornets primary homes would be the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines and the newly constructed Five Seasons Center in Cedar Rapids.  The team also scheduled one-off appearances in high school auditoriums in Bettendorf, Council Bluffs, Ottumwa, Sioux City and Spencer.

In June 1978, Moravia, Iowa native Molly Bolin inked the first Cornets player contract for $6,000 during a ceremony attended by Nissen, Cornets General Manager Rod Lein (Bolin’s former college coach) and Iowa Governor Robert Ray.   Bolin was an Iowa “six-on-six” high school legend who played just two seasons of college basketball at Grandview College in Des Moines. Cornets officials seemed confident that Bolin could adjust to the fluid five-on-five game. They were equally confident that a vivacious 21-year old blonde star would help to sell the new team across the state.

Dribble

Nissen had another idea to promote his newfound interest in women’s basketball.  As the WPBL formed in 1978, Nissen invested $1 million in Dribble, a basketball comedy about a women’s team called the Vixens playing against a men’s team led by NBA star Pete Maravich.  Cornets players appeared as the Vixens and the film was shot on location in Iowa.  The film’s screenwriter and director, Michael de Gaetano, had a pair of ultra low budget horror films to his credit.  Dribble proved to be an expensive flop for Nissen – it opened in Cedar Rapids for a screening in January 1979 and then vanished.  It was released on home video years later under the new title Scoring.  (Brief clips of a few scenes featuring Maravich are available on Youtube, but they are frankly too boring to post here.)

Debut

Women’s professional basketball debuted at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines with this game on December 17, 1978 against the visiting New York Stars.  The Cornets quickly established themselves as one of the best clubs in the new league, finishing tied with the Chicago Hustle atop the Midwest Division standings with a 21-13 record.  The team finished second in the league in scoring at 104.9 PPG, despite failing to place any players among the league’s top twelve scorers.  The offensive production was well distributed, with Bolin, Doris Draving, Denise Sharps, Debra Thomas and Joan Uhl all averaging in double figures.

The Cornets dispatched the Hustle in the semis before losing the inaugural WPBL championship series to the Houston Angels in the fifth and deciding match on May 1st, 1979 at Hofheinz Pavilion in Houston.

Return To Finals

Molly Bolin led the Cornets in scoring with 16.7 points per game during the debut season, but it was during the Cornets’ second season that she fully emerged as a scoring sensation and one of the early superstars of the women’s pro game.  During the 1979-80 season, Bolin led the WPBL in scoring with 32.8 points per game, including a record 54 during a televised contest against the Minnesota Fillies on January 13th, 1980.

The Cornets won the WPBL’s Midwest Division once again during the 1979-80 season with a 24-12 record.  They defeated the Fillies in the league semi-finals, only to lose once again in the league championship series, this time to the New York Stars who defeated the Cornets 3 games to 1 in April 1980.  Bolin was named the league’s co-MVP along with Ann Meyers of the New Jersey Gems.

Midway through the 1979-80 season, Cornets founder George Nissen attempted to sell the club to a Des Moines-area disc jockey named Dick Vance.

The sale fell through and left the Cornets in a state of suspended animation.  At league meetings in September 1980, WBL officials granted the Cornets’ request for a hiatus from the league to sell or re-capitalize the team. Effectively, the club ceased activity at this point. The Women’s Professional Basketball League itself would follow suit after a third and final season in the winter and spring of 1980-81.

Voices

“We all loved <George Nissen>, he was such a class act and it was a tragedy that we lost him as an owner. He had the team to his house for parties a couple of times and gave us all $100 cash in a card at his Christmas party which was really big bucks in 1978!  He always wanted to do things the right way and we felt he cared about us.

“<The sale> was a difficult time as we were all put in limbo.  We had our doubts about Vance at the press conference that introduced him and after that we finished the season with sack lunches and no hotel rooms on a trip to Chicago.”

– Molly Bolin, Guard 1978-1980 (2011 FWil Interview)

Iowa Cornets Shop

FWIL COFFEE SHOP

Order Today at Rebound Vintage Hoops

Iowa Cornets Ceramic mug

Available now from our friends at Rebound Vintage Hoops, this fully-insulated porcelain mug is ideal for your morning brew. 

• Ceramic | Capacity: 11 fl oz

• Dishwasher safe

• Lead and Cadmium free

• Imported; processed and printed in the U.S.A.

 

When you make a purchase through an affiliate link like this one, Fun While It Lasted earns a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!

Iowa Cornets Video

Molly Bolin sets a women’s professional basketball single-game points record in a game against the Minnesota Fillies on January 13th, 1980. Highlight reel posted by Molly herself on her personal YouTube channel.

1984 NBC Sportsworld interview with Molly Bolin on her trials and triumphs in the Women’s Professional Basketball League of 1978-1981.

In Memoriam

Former Cornet Connie Kunzmann was murdered in Omaha, Nebraska in February 1981 while playing for the WPBL’s Nebraska Wranglers club.  Lance Tibke, a 25-year old nuclear power plant security guard, was convicted of 2nd degree murder and served 9 years of a 40-year sentence before receiving parole in 1990.

Cornets founder George Nissen passed away in 2010 at age 96.

Downloads

1978-79 Iowa Cornets Season Ticket Brochure

11-27-1979 Cornets vs. Chicago Hustle Game Notes

1-7-1980 Cornets vs. New Orleans Pride Game Notes

4-9-1980 Cornets vs. New York Stars Championship Series Game Program

2011 FWIL Interview with Cornets star Molly Bolin

Links

Women’s Professional Basketball League Media Guides

Women’s Basketball League Programs

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