You Let Some Girl Beat You?

by Ann Meyers Drysdale

  Duke Snider, Don, holding Darren, Tommy Lasorda with DJ

  LA Olympic Luncheon 1995: Al Joyner, Sammy Lee, Muhammed Ali, Florence Griffith-Joyner, me and daughter, Drew

  Elton John, me, and Women’s Sports Foundation Founder, Billie Jean King circa 2009

  “Welcome to the White House” -- DJ, President Bush, and me

  Special Olympics with Maria Shriver and Rafer Johnson,

  Our wedding day picture with Don’s family (L to R) Kelly, Nancy, Ed, and Scott Fieux, me, Don, Don’s daughter, Kelly, and parents, Verna & Scotty

  High School – Freshman Year

  12

  The Right Strategy Equals Success

  “If you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be a part of someone else’s.

  ~ Anonymous

  My deal with the Gems was a three-year commitment for a total of $145,000—the equivalent of almost a half million dollars today. It was a considerable amount for a league that was paying salaries of on average $9,000 a year, and why, I later learned, the Houston Angels had given up my rights. It was simply too costly. But it was my agent at William Morris who was setting the price tag for me now. While nearly $50k a year was a good amount of money, especially for a female basketball player, it had been the price established by my brother, Mark, when he’d negotiated my contract with the Pacers, and what my new agent was using as the bottom line to get me out of the Pacers and into the WBL. His pitch was simple. “She’s the greatest female basketball player in the world.”

  Ultimately, I would only see about $60,000 of that contract. Looking back, it’s clear that the reason the Gems couldn’t create the #15 jersey was because his team, like so many in the league, was hemorrhaging cash right from the beginning. The high profile Stars team, which had been considered well-heeled and was playing in New York City, was initially approached by Houston for my trade, but ultimately even they decided they couldn’t afford to enter into a $145,000 agreement. Ironic, considering the owner of the team had accused the Pacers of trying to put the WBL out of business by signing me in the first place.

  In the league’s first year, the New York Stars had lost $350,000—well over a million dollar by today’s standards—because they simply overspent. The Stars were to play eleven games at Madison Square Garden, six of them WBL-NBA doubleheaders with the Knicks. They knew they couldn’t make money with $300,000 rental costs. “But the Garden is the sports Mecca of New York and the world,” the Stars owner, Ed Reisdorf, told the press. “We are no longer a secret.”

  The Stars’ primary concern was no different than that of the other teams, which was to get the word about the WBL out there, and he felt he could do that best by working with the NBA.

  In hoping to go big as quickly as possible, most of the teams were making the same over-reaching, overly enthusiastic mistakes by renting venues that were too expensive in the early formation of the league, trading players back and forth like baseball cards, and underestimating costs. Still, the league had high hopes for the second year. In addition to signing me, the prospects for the second season included a televised season opener All-Star game at the Superdome in New Orleans, which held 30,000 people. It was an ambitious goal considering the games were drawing an average of 3,000 spectators. The All-Star game was sold-out, but ended up being played in Chicago at DePaul. And while it was filmed, it was not broadcast. In spite of this, they booked other grand venues and continued to sign other players.

  Meanwhile, President Carter had made good on his threat to boycott the upcoming Soviet-hosted Olympic Games because the Soviet Union hadn’t retreated from Afghanistan. This brought other players on board with the WBL. Olympic teammates Nancy Dunkle, Gail Marquis, and Charlotte Lewis joined teams in California, New York, and Iowa, and played the first and second seasons. Eventually my friend, Carol Blazejowski, would sign on, but it would be too late.

  While the WBL had the most talented players coming out of college, it didn’t know how to market, and its attempts at getting the word out about the new professional women’s league were misguided and ineffective. The WBL was simply too new and untested. And unfortunately, the league’s rookie mistakes would continue throughout the ’79-’80 season.

  Team owners thought they could acquire dream teams overnight rather than trying to build great teams over time. With the talent they did acquire, the WBL didn’t consider the importance of capitalizing on the player’s existing fan base. Instead, they allowed franchises on the West Coast to sign players from East Coast schools, and permitted New Jersey to sign me, when I should have been playing in the West. A strong college player who might have developed a following in Florida had little chance of bringing those same fans to home games in California. As a result, ticket sales weren’t near what they needed to be.

  Now the League’s hopes were riding on me to come in and build momentum. “Meyers is the woman that the Women’s Professional Basketball League hopes will do for it what Joe Namath did for the American Football League,” a reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote.

  Others had more to say:

  “Meyers is a Renaissance Lady of Basketball.”

  “If the Women’s Basketball League is to survive its embryonic years, it is going to have to have more players like Ann Meyers.”

  While it was flattering, it was completely unrealistic to suggest that a league could be floated by one player. Even papers like the Chicago Tribune, which had sharply criticized my salary coming into the WBL wrote, “She’s worth every dollar of her salary package with the Gems,” after seeing me play an away game early in the season in Chicago where I’d scored thirty-four points, thirteen rebounds, and three assists. Good grief, even the organist for the home team played “Jesus Christ Superstar” upon my entering the arena, to which the entire crowd stood and cheered.

  The adulation was amazing, but I was conflicted. It was embarrassing to be singled out when the hard work of other team players was every bit as crucial to a win. I hoped they understood that much of the hoopla was about publicity—not me. And to that end, I was happy to do what I could by doing appearances for the Gems and for the entire League, regardless what the commissioner and some of the team owners had said in the press. I was raised to be a team player, and that wouldn’t change. Still, the Gems management and I never did seem to click.

  Howie Landa was our coach in New Jersey. He’s become a dear friend in the years since the Gems, but back then we didn’t see eye to eye. I admit that I came into the league with a chip on my shoulder because of the trade from Houston and what the WBL had said about me. I was guarded. It was in my DNA to be careful when it came to opening up to others, and Lord knows I was never good at small talk. Now I was doubly guarded because of all that had happened in the last few months over the bid with the Pacers.

  At UCLA, my brother, David, and I had only been celebrated in the press. The same was true for me at the Olympics and playing on the U.S. Team. I had no idea that sportswriters could be so fickle, or that the WBL would jump on the Ann-bashing bandwagon in order to tag along in the news with the Pacers story and, thereby, get some much-needed publicity. I felt blindsided, and I’m sure poor Howie got the brunt of my whiplash.

  There’s no doubt that another drawback was that I’d just come from the Pacers organization where I’d been playing with guys who performed at the very highest level, and now I was throwing the ball around with players who struggled to dribble, make lay-ups, and catch the ball. In my aggravation, I alienated people. I know there were more than a few days when I angered Howie.

  “You’re picking up your left foot, Meyers,” he kept saying one day when he had us doing a drill where we’d catch the ball on the wing and then ball-fake the defense, put the ball on the floor, take two dribbles and do a pull-up jumper or go in for a lay-up. I was doing what I did all the time, what the NBA guys did all the time. I would use my left foot to pivot, fake with my right, and then pick up my left foot and put the ball on the ground, which was a travel. Today
it’s called the Michael Jordan move, but Michael wasn’t around back then.

  Howie kept taking me back and teaching me the fundamentals, which I already knew. He made me do the move his way six times in a row, and the more I did it, the more frustrated I became. When I got back to the hotel, there was no one to call. Even with the Pacers, I always felt like I could pick up the phone and reach out to people within the camp who were supportive of me. I knew I had Sandy and Bill Knapp on my side. In New Jersey, it was looking as though I would have no one.

  I’d plopped myself down on the bed and turned on the TV, hoping to find something that would lighten my dark mood. Flipping through the channels, the phone rang. I figured it was housekeeping, wondering if I needed a change of sheets. “Hello,” I said, not bothering to hide the fact that I was dead-tired and in no mood for idle chit chat.

  “Hi Annie. It’s Don. I just wanted to make sure you got back safe and sound.”

  Don? Don Drysdale? I couldn’t believe he was calling me. It had only been a couple of days since I’d returned from the Superstars, but so much had happened it felt like years had passed since we’d had dinner together in the Bahamas and he’d casually asked me to marry him. Now, here he was again. All thoughts of Howie and my frustrations with the Gems vanished.

  I smiled into the phone. “What a wonderful surprise.”

  My heavy heart suddenly felt as light as air, like it wanted to sing. We spent at least a half hour on the phone talking about how much fun we’d had together at dinner, about Mom, Ueckie, the Gems, about everything and anything. I heard that same warning clanging in my head. Don’t get ahead of yourself there, Annie. He’s a married man. Even though the thought kept popping up, I felt a wave of joy travel all the way from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. It was the same tingling sensation I’d had as a child trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve, knowing that so many wonderful things lie in store for me.

  But this wonderful thing could be at the cost of someone else. He’s married. I really enjoy his friendship, though, especially now. We can be friends after all. Can’t we? I wondered when the cheesy cartoon characters, one with wings, the other with horns and red cape, would sit on either shoulder. I must have been silently wrestling with the voices in my head just a little too long because Donnie spoke up as though sensing my internal struggle.

  “Annie, my marriage was over a long, long time ago.”

  I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know him well enough to know when he was teasing or when he was serious. All I knew was that I’d watched my mother’s strong sense of herself, her confidence and wherewithal, dissolve little by little at the hands of a husband who would come and go. I would play no part in another’s pain. I would never be the other woman any more than I would ever let any man do that to me. Still, he seemed so sincere, so nice. I wanted to believe what he was saying was true. I wanted to believe that this whatever-this-was could work out with everyone walking away unhurt.

  That night I fell asleep thinking back on a Christmas morning when I was five or six and, as usual, I’d awaken to find a hundred presents magically appearing around our ten-foot tree. But this particular Christmas morning one of my little brothers told Dad that Santa left one less present for him than for the rest of us. About an hour later, another gift-wrapped box somehow showed up under the tree, making it an even count for everyone. I learned much later that Dad, who had spent hours on the road the previous night to be there with us on Christmas morning, had snuck out and searched all over Wheaton for a store opened on Christmas Day.

  The memory made me wonder if we were we all just Jeckylls and Hydes…some of us quiet and shy off the court and angrily kicking balls into the stands on the court, while others were sensitive and unselfish in some ways and exactly the opposite when it came to their wives. My final thought as I finally drifted off to sleep was that maybe this was simply part of being human.

  13

  Burning Up the Courts Like Lava

  “If you quell your own anger, your real enemy will be slain.”

  ~ Nagarjuna

  In January, 1980, we played a home game against the Iowa Cornets. Molly Bolin was one of the best shooters in the league, scoring an average 34 points per game, and this particular night she was on fire. It was going down to the wire with about a minute and thirty seconds left in the game when I went in for a lay-up and got knocked down hard. I’d been labeled the WBL’s best, so many of the other players felt compelled to knock me clean off the floor and into the next zip code. I’d get double-teamed and fouled on nearly every single shot and end up with a 35% shooting rate for the season.

  My nose started to bleed. Howie called a timeout, and helped me up. “Annie, I’m sorry but you got to come out.”

  “Get away from me.”

  “But Annie…”

  “Get away from me, Howie. I get paid to play!”

  I let our trainer, Ron Linfonte, clean me up and pack my nose with gauze to stem the blood flow before running back onto the court. I was painfully conscious of what it was costing the Gems to sign me, and I never wanted to let them down, especially after that first press conference debacle. The front of my jersey was stained pink, but I’d had my nose broken plenty of times, and I didn’t think it was broken now. We won that game. Afterward, I apologized to Howie. I wasn’t looking for absolution, I just needed him to know that he deserved better.

  “Honey, you don’t have to be sorry. You’re one hell of a competitor.” Even though we had our differences, Howie had this great Philly accent and kind face, which made him such a likeable guy. He was like a Jewish father calling us all “honey” and wanting to protect us. He never went by Howard, it was always Howie. He was also a terrific coach—he was the only coach to bring Trenton Community College to two men’s championships before coaching the Gems. As a tough player himself, Howie broke every record in the small Philadelphia school he attended, and his jersey was the first to go up in the rafters of the gym.

  Ultimately, Howie and I both just wanted the same thing—to win. Later, the N.J. Gems would fire him when he refused to let a player continue to play after suffering a concussion. Howie wanted to win, but not at the expense of his team’s health. The WBL, which was often criticized for firing coaches at breakneck speed, saw things differently. They needed return visitors, happy spectators, paying customers, and if it meant allowing those customers to watch the aftermath of a deadly crash, so be it. Soon, the league and I would be on a collision course of our own.

  But first the Gems were scheduled to play in California in February, and that was a ray of hope. I would finally see my family. The game was in San Francisco, and everyone drove up to see the game. We all went to dinner afterwards, and then my older sister, Cathy, walked me back to my hotel.

  “You’ve really changed.” The look on her face made it painfully clear this wasn’t meant as a compliment.

  I suddenly felt exposed. I’d been looking forward to seeing my family for weeks, but her observation made me fearful that my frustration with the Gems was seeping out through every pore and coming across…as what? A sense of entitlement? Was I suddenly acting too big for my britches? Cathy seemed to think so, and I worried that it was true. After all, we weren’t raised to think that way. I tried explaining that I was just aggravated by the level of some of the talent in the league and it was affecting me because, almost overnight, I’d gone from anticipating a career in the NBA to playing in the WBL.

  Cathy’s comment made me think. Yes, the adjustment had been tough. I felt like I’d packed for Harvard and ended up at Podunk U, and now I was acting like a spoiled brat because of it. Maybe I resented the fact that I wasn’t playing with the Pacers. I tried not to rehash it, but every now and then I thought about Slick and what I considered to be a raw deal. Whether I belonged with the Pacers or not, whether Slick was right or whether I was right, I had to face facts that it was what it was, and there was nothing to gain by dwelling on it—or acting like a little horror.<
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  I was playing for the Gems now. And every time I went out there I felt I needed to demonstrate to the world exactly why I’d been asked to try out for the Pacers, to prove that I was capable of playing as well as some of the NBA players, to dispel any suspicions that my bid was just a publicity stunt.

  I was upset with myself. Nothing had changed from that kid on the playground who spent her youth trying to prove that she could play with the big boys.

  But just as with every other situation in my life, God had closed a door only to open a window. Don appeared at our next game.

  We were playing at the convention center in Long Beach. I’m not sure if it was because Don was there, or Cathy’s comment weighed heavily on my mind, or the fact that my family had followed us down from San Francisco, but I wasn’t having a good game. I got a technical and picked up three quick fouls in the first two minutes.

  Mt. Vesuvius was threatening to blow again, and I took my frustration out on the official. “Cripes! That was a clean play. What do you need glasses?” I kicked my chair, growing hotter and hotter by the second. Ironically enough, we had been in Long Beach when Coach Kenny had first warned me about my temper and the importance of controlling it. I tried to contain myself outwardly. Inside, I seethed.

  When the game ended, everyone went to my brother, Mark, and sister-in-law, Frannie’s, house for a party, including Don. The moment I stepped through the door, I felt the tension melt away, and I started to relax. Here I was among my clan, feeling right at home, as though New Jersey were some distant planet.

  Some of the guests’ behavior around Don surprised me. My family wasn’t easily impressed, having been around their share of famous people, so I hadn’t expected the guests’ sense of awe. Many seemed stunned that Don would come to one of my games, let alone show up at the after-party. I wasn’t sure what the big deal was. I still didn’t comprehend the impact the Dodgers’ legacy had on Southern Californians, and maybe Don found my naiveté refreshing. I was too young to appreciate what he’d accomplished in baseball. Had he been a basketball player, it would have been a whole different story.