New York Stars (1978-1980)

Women’s Professional Basketball League (1978-1980)

Stars Stuff

Order at Rebound Vintage Hoops

N.Y. Stars Women's Cut
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!

 

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Background

The New York Stars were one of the earliest women’s professional basketball teams in the United States, formed in 1978 at the inception of the Women’s Professional Basketball League (1978-1981).  Although the Stars would exist for just two years, the team enjoyed a number of highlights. These included a league championship, doubleheaders with the New York Knicks in the Madison Square Garden, a dominant center from local Queens College, and a pair of striking identical twins who were cast in national advertising campaigns.

The Stars played their first season in the winter of 1978-79 on the campus of Iona College in New Rochelle, New York.  Iona’s Mulcahy Center (known today as the Hynes Athletic Center) was tiny, holding less than 3,000 fans.  But this was sufficient for the first year of the WPBL, where most clubs struggled to draw more than 1,500 fans per game.

The 1978-79 Stars were a strong club during their inaugural year, finishing 19-15.  Local product Althea Gwyn, a 6′ 2″ center out of Queens College, was New York’s best player. She lead the WBL in rebounding (17.3 boards per game) and finishing third in scoring (23.2 avg.). The Stars lost to the eventual champion Houston Angels in the playoff semi-finals, despite a dominant performance from Gwyn, who scored 73 points in the two-game series.

Kaye & Faye Young

To the extent that the media took an interest in the Women’s Basketball League, they largely ignored the league’s emerging black stars like Althea Gwyn, in favor of a handful of telegenic blonde players. These included Iowa’s Molly Bolin, Chicago’s Janie Fincher and, especially, Kaye and Faye Young of the Stars. The identical 5′ 11″ twins out of North Carolina State played for the Stars from 1978 to 1980.  Their 1980 Dannon Yogurt ad campaign was one of the earliest national endorsement deals in women’s pro basketball.

Championship Season

The Stars lost $350,000 playing in the obscurity of New Rochelle in 1978-79.  For the club’s second season, the Stars upped their profile by moving to Manhattan and signing former New York Knicks star Dean Meminger as Head Coach.

“With rental costs of $300,000, we don’t expect to make money,” Stars President Ed Reisdorf told Sports Illustrated in 1979.  “but the Garden is the sports Mecca of New York and the world.  We are no longer a secret.”

The Stars played all of their 1979-80 games in the Garden. They split time between the Main Arena (typically as the matinee half of doubleheaders with the Knicks) and the more appropriately sized Felt Forum for most stand alone contests.

The team was even stronger under Meminger, posting a league-best record of 28-7 in 1979-80.  The Stars defeated the Iowa Cornets in the WPBL championship series in April 1980, but these would prove to be the final games the Stars franchise ever played.  The club went shut down during the 1980 off-season and did not defend their title in the WPBL’s third and final season in the winter of 1980-81.

The WPBL itself folded in late 1981, unable to launch a fourth season.

Postscript

Kaye Young married her college sweetheart from North Carolina State University, NFL linebacker Bill Cowher, in 1981.  She was known as Kaye Cowher to Pittsburgh Steelers fans during her husband’s Super Bowl-winning tenure as Head Coach of the Black & Gold. She passed away in 2010.

Seventeen years after the demise of the New York Stars, women’s professional basketball returned to Madison Square Garden in the summer of 1997 with the formation of the NBA-backed Women’s National Basketball Association and the arrival of the New York Liberty franchise.

Voices

“Thea Gwyn and I were traveling roommates while with the Stars. It was a triple threat: Thea, Cheese and JT (Janice Thomas), the only New Yorkers on the team. It was my job to make sure we were always awake and headed for the airport and to answer the hotel room door to keep the ever increasing fans away from Thea!

“Thea and I went further back than just the WBL. We were both Harlem Rucker Park legends so we were friends. Thea was starring at Queens College and I was up the road a piece playing for St. John’s University. In 1977 we met each other in the finals of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust tournament. When I learned that we were playing Queens, I immediately asked Coach Kresse if I –   at 5′ 7″ – could check 6′ 2″ Thea. She was to be my assignment for the entire game.  And what a great game it was.  Queens won but they no longer turned their noses up at St. John’s University Women’s!”

– Carmen “Cheese” Fletcher, Forward 1978-79 (2022 FWiL Interview)

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mad seasons

The Story of the First Women’s Professional Basketball League, 1978-1981

by Karra Porter

As the popularity of women’s basketball burgeons, Karra Porter reminds us in Mad Seasons that today’s Women’s National Basketball Association, or WNBA, had its origins in a ragtag league twenty years earlier. Porter tells the story of the Women’s Professional Basketball League WBL, which pioneered a new era of women’s sports.

 

Karra Porter brings to life the pioneers of the WBL: “Machine Gun” Molly Bolin, who set lasting scoring records—then faced an historic custody battle because of her basketball career; Connie Kunzmann, a popular player whose murder rocked the league; Liz Silcott, whose remarkable talents masked deeper problems off the court; Ann Meyers, who went from an NBA tryout to the league she had rebuffed; Nancy Lieberman, whose flashy play and marketing savvy were unlike anything the women’s game had ever seen.

 

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In Memoriam

Forward Harriet Novarr (Stars ’78-’79), who joined the Stars early in their debut season, pass away on April 19, 2002 as a result of breast cancer. The former Syracuse University star was 45 years old.

Kaye Cowher (Young) died following a battle with skin cancer at age 54 on July 23, 2010. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette remembrance.

Head coach Dean Meminger (Stars ’79-’80) died on August 23rd, 2013. The former New York Knick was 65 years old. New York Times obituary.

Center Althea Gwyn (Stars ’78-’80) passed away on January 9th, 2022 at the age of 65.

Downloads

1979-80 New York Stars Ticket Brochure & Schedule

1978-79 Women’s Professional Basketball League Brochure

Links

Women’s Professional Basketball League Media Guides

Women’s Basketball League Programs

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