Dayton Rockettes

Women’s Professional Basketball League (1978-1979)

Tombstone

Born: 1978 – WPBL founding franchise
Folded: Postseason 1979

First Game: December 15, 1978 (L 90-82 vs. Houston Angels)
Last Game: April 8, 1979 (L 114-111 vs. Chicago Hustle @ Indianapolis, IN)

WBL Championships: None

Arena

Hara Arena
Opened: 1964
Closed: 2016

Marketing

Team Colors: Kelly Green & Silver

Ownership

Owner:

1978-1979: Louis Deitelbaum
1979: Women’s Professional Basketball League

Best Seller

We earn commissions from purchases made through links in this post

Rockettes Women’s Cut Logo T from Rebound Vintage Hoops

Background

The Dayton Rockettes were one of eight original franchises in the Women’s Professional Basketball Leagu e (1978-1981). The WPBL, which debuted in December 1978, was the first professional basketball league for women, pre-dating the WNBA by nearly 20 years.

The Rockettes debuted in Dayton with a 90-82 loss to the eventual league champion Houston Angels at Hara Arena on December 15, 1978. Guard Vivian Greene scored a team high 20 points. Center Sheila Patterson, a product of Dayton’s Colonel White High School, added 15 points and 18 rebounds. Sadly, Patterson, the league’s tallest player at 6′ 4″ as the first season opened, tore a ligament in her knee on opening night and missed the rest of the season.

The Rockettes opener drew a paid crowd of 1,421 fans.¹

One & Done

The Rockettes were one of three teams in the eight-team WPBL to begin the season with a female Head Coach. Rockettes coach Linda Mann kept her day job as women’s athletic director and volleyball coach at Ohio’s Central State University. That turned out to be a wise move. Dayton General Manager Tim Koelble fired Mann after the Rockettes got off to an 0-2 start. Incredibly, two games was not the shortest tenure for the WPBL’s small cohort of female coaches. The Milwaukee Does fired Candace Klinzing after the team lost its opener. By two weeks into the WPBL’s inaugural season, Julia Yeater of the Minnesota Fillies was the only female head coach left standing.

23-year old Tom Griffey replaced Mann in mid-December 1978 and guided the Rockettes for the remaining 32 games of a chaotic season.

Team owner Lou Deitelbaum, a Chicago insurance executive, stopped paying the bills by January, causing the league to re-possess the Dayton franchise on February 8th, 1979. The orphaned Rockettes struggled to finish out the final two months of the 1978-79 season under league management.

Dayton’s final “home” game on April 8th, 1979 was moved to Market Square Arena in Indianapolis as showcase for potential new investors in the team. No buyers stepped forward and the Rockettes folded quietly shortly after the season.

The Dayton Rockettes were 12-22 in their only season of existence.