The year is 1976. Women’s Basketball is part of the Summer Olympics for the first time ever. The US women’s basketball team won’t bring home gold but if they play their cards right they could still see themselves on that podium.
What’s even more amazing is the journey the team took to get there.
Nationwide tryouts attracted known athletes and aspiring amateurs, college stars, and women who never had a chance to play on an international stage. Hardscrabble matches made it unclear if the team could even qualify for the Olympics and, when they did, the coaches realized that the US Olympic committee had so little faith in them that they hadn’t allotted beds for them at the Olympic pavillion.
In Canada things aren’t much better with the sixteen-woman team crammed into a two room flat filled with bunk beds and one bathroom for them to share.
Everyone knew that the 1972 passage of Title IX would change everything when it came to collegiate sports for women. Four years later, the US Women’s Basketball team has a chance to prove just how much. Getting to the Olympics is already going to change the landscape of women’s sports for years to come. But only one team will ever be the first in Inaugural Ballers: The True Story of the First US Women’s Olympic Basketball Team by Andrew Maraniss (2022).
Maraniss takes a holistic approach to this story offering backgroun on the sport and women’s role in basketball from its inception in Canada right up to the 1976 Olympics alongside chapters detailing the major players in the 1976 and the team’s journey to the Olympics. With a roster filled with women who go on to leave a lasting impact on basketball as both players and coaches, basketball fans will recognize many of the key figures including Billie Moore, Lusia Harris, Pat Head and so many more.
Inaugural Ballers does assume a basic knowledge of basketball for readers so some descriptions of game play might go over the heads of readers not well-versed in the game. That said, even with little to no understanding of basketball or the 1976 Olympics, Maraniss does an excellent job laying out the stakes for the Olympic game and also detailing the team’s lasting legacy on women’s sports to follow. Talking about the 1976 Olympics also goes hand in hand with detailing the impact of Title IX on school and collegiate athletics programs and the disparity the women’s team faced while being at the literal top of their game–feminist concerns that Maraniss unpacks throughout the story without ever bogging down the narrative.
Inaugural Ballers: The True Story of the First US Women’s Olympic Basketball Team is the best kind of narrative non-fiction filled with high stakes, memorable characters, and team you have to cheer on.
Possible Pairings: Courage to Soar by Simone Biles, No Stopping Us Now by Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Let Me Play by Karen Blumenthal, Pillow Talk by Stephanie Cooke and Mel Valentine Vargas, Belle of the Ball by Mari Costa, Gender Inequality in Sports by Kirstin Cronn-Mills, My Shot by Elena Delle Donne, Attucks! by Phillip M. Hoose, The Matchless Six by Ron Hotchkiss, One Life by Megan Rapinoe, Game Changers by Molly Schiot, Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team by Steve Sheinkin, Hoops by Matt Tavares, Play Like a Girl by Misty Wilson and David Wilson
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