Minnesota Fillies

Women’s Professional Basketball League (1978-1981)

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Minnesota Fillies
1978-1981 Logo T-Shirt

The Minnesota Fillies were one of eight founding franchises in the Women’s Basketball League in 1978 and one of only three clubs that survived for all three seasons of the WBL’s existence. 

This eye-catching Fillies design is available in sizes Small through 3 XL today from Old School Shirts!

 

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Background

The Minnesota Fillies were one of eight founding franchises in the Women’s Professional Basketball League in 1978, which was the first pro hoops league for women in the United States.  Minnesota was one of only three clubs, along with the Chicago Hustle and New Jersey Gems, that managed to survive for all three seasons of the WPBL’s existence from 1978 to 1981.

On The Court

The Fillies made their debut on December 15, 1978 losing to the Iowa Cornets 103-81 at the Met Center in Bloomington before an announced crowd of 4,102.  The Fillies debut season was a study in chaos.  Three different women and two men coached the Fillies through training camp and a 34-game regular season schedule.  The coaches included team owner Gordon Nevers, a former mortician with no previous basketball experience. The Fillies finished the 1978-79 season with a 17-17 record and missed the playoffs.

The Fillies finest season was their second one.  Nevers hired former University of Minnesota star Terry Kunze to coach the team and the Fillies responded with a 22-12 record.  They defeated the New Orleans Pride in the playoff quarterfinals, setting up a best-of-three series with their arch rivals, the Iowa Cornets, in the semis in March 1980.  The Fillies blew out the Cornets in Game One by a 108-87 margin, but Iowa won the next two games and ended the Fillies’ run.

1981 Player Walk-Out

Nevers’ financial problems sank the Fillies third and final season in the winter of 1980-81.  The club left the Met Center in favor of the smaller Minneapolis Auditorium. It was cheaper and better suited to the typical Fillies’ crowd of around 1,000 people a night.  Missed payrolls culminated in a March 21, 1981 protest by Terry Kunze and eight Fillies players prior to a game in Chicago.  The disgruntled Fillies walked off the court just before tipoff and refused to return.  Officials awarded  the game to Chicago via forfeit, dropping the Fillies record to a league-worst 7-25.  WBL Commissioner Sherwin Fischer suspended Kunze and the eight players indefinitely.

Minnesota finished out the season using replacement players.  The Faux-Fillies lost their first game by 48 points and finished the season 7-28.

Whether or not Nevers and his partners could have or would have re-capitalized the team for another season will never be known. The rest of the Women’s Professional Basketball League folded before a fourth season could be staged.

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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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Downloads

1978-79 Women’s Professional Basketball League Brochure

Links

“Full of Heart in an Empty House“, Sarah Pileggi, Sports Illustrated, March 10, 1980

Women’s Professional Basketball League Media Guides

Women’s Basketball League Programs

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