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The Legend Continues: The early 80s
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It was during this second season that Molly became a crowd favorite around the league and a darling of the media. She was given endorsements and her photos, printed on posters, t-shirts and flyers were in demand throughout the league. What started as an idea to supplement her income turned into a successful promotion and marketing tool for the league.
In the summer of 1980, Molly was lured to Southern Calilfornia to play in a newly formed women's league, the Ladies Professional Basketball League (LPBA) She was without a team and the league was slow to decide how to disperse the players. The concept of the LPBA was to have a league that could survive by lowering expenses, with teams all based in the southwest region. However, lack of funding and quality players sunk the league after only seven games into the season. Molly averaged just over 40 ppg for the Southern California Breeze team and made a splash with the media with photos that were taken on the beach with her in a one piece swimsuit. She was looking for a different image than she had in Iowa and succeeded in shattering the stereotype the public had of a female basketball player.
In January 1981 Molly began fielding offers from every team in the WBL and soon agreed to play for the San Francisco Pioneers. It was not an easy transition as the WBL was already well into the season, but the Pioneers also signed Dean Meminger to coach and the team was being restructured to accomodate Molly. Several of the Iowa Cornets were also brought to the San Franciso team and it proved to be a winning combination.
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Molly was added to the roster of the third WBL All-Star game that also featured Nancy Lieberman and Carol Blazjowski.
Molly would help lead the West to a 125-92 win over the East by leading all scorer's with 29 points. NLC and Blaze would end up with 20 each.
Meminger had a plan to make Molly a more complete player by having her expend less energy on offense. After witnessing her performance in the 3rd All-Star game, he pulled her aside and gave her the green light to score at will. She responded by averaging over 33 ppg after the All-Star break to finish with a season average of 27...second only to Blazejowski. She was featured in the April 1981 issue of Sports Illustrated and was on her way to a great career. However, it was not to be. In the third season, the WBL underwent major changes and Commissioner Bill Byrne was replaced by Sherwin Fischer. The league was in need of corporate sponsorship and television contracts and exposure to survive. The owners were buried with the expenses of supporting teams that travelled coast to coast and their major source of revenue were the gate receipts. By the fall of 1981, it was obvious that all the re-organization efforts could not save the Women's Basketball League.
Machine Gun Molly may have been the biggest casualty of the collapse of the WBL. She was at the top of her game and was making huge strides in breaking into the sports marketing arena, where women athletes were just beginning to get endorsement opportunities. At the same time, her marriage ended and she was forced to turn down all offers to play professionally in Europe because of a custody dispute over her son, Damien, then only four years old. It was a very difficult time, as she initially lost custody in a small Iowa courtroom as her basketball career was used against her. However, she appealed to the Supreme Court and won unanimously in a precedent setting case. She moved permanently to Southern California and spent the next 2 1/2 years supporting herself by renovating homes.
Without a women's professional league, Molly soon found herself playing pick-up games in rec centers and regularly played in local men's leagues. She won more than a few bets in the rec centers going in as a ringer, before her reputation began to precede her. But her big break came in 1984 when she received an invitation to play in an Olympic Exhibition Series as a member of the USA All-Star team. The team was composed of many former Olympians, most of whom were on the 1980 Olympic Team that boycotted. Molly did not have the opportunity to play on a Olympic basketball team as she turned pro in 1978 and they did not allow pros to compete until 1988.
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This team was coached by Sun Gunter and assisted by Jody Conradt. Other players besides Molly (bottom row) were Nancy Lieberman, Carol Blazejowski, Holly Warlick (all Hall of Famers) along with Gail Marquis (previous WBL all star)
The coaches were looking for the best players they could find in order to tune up the 1984 Women' s Olympic Basketball Team that eventually went on to win the gold medal.
They played three exhibition games in July 1984, including doubleheaders with the USA men's team playing against NBA stars.
The last exhibition held in the Indianpolis Hoosierdome (with Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas on the roster) was touted as "The World's Largest Indoor Basketball Game" with over 67,500 in attendance.
In the fall of 1984, Bill Byrne launched his second Women's Pro Basketball League - this time called the WABA, (Women's American Basketball Association) with hopes of capitalizing on the success of the Women's Olympic Team.
Molly was thrilled to get a chance to resume her professional basketball career. Before the season began, she filmed a Spalding basketball commercial with Larry Bird and was featured in a story broadcast on NBC's Sportsworld, and in the LA Times.
However, Byrne did not have the league in full organization and Molly waited weeks to find out where she would be playing. She ended up in Columbus, Ohio to play for the Columbus Minks. By all accounts, it was a difficult situation, Byrne had gambled on securing his financing after showing investors he had a viable league, but it did not pay off and the players did not have their contracts honored.
The WABA struggled through a 17 game "season" and did not survive.
Molly gave it her best shot in hopes of keeping women's professional basketball alive. However, she was injured during the Olympic Exhibition Tour with a separated shoulder in a collision with Lynette Woodard. The injury had not healed before she began playing for the Minks and she reinjured her shoulder twice more before deciding to take a break to rehabilitate.
Molly played in only nine games for the Columbus Minks averaging 9 points in 17 minutes per game. However, she showed flashes from her days in the WBL, exciting the crowd with her long range jumpers and having another memorable match up with Nancy Lieberman, who played for Dallas.
Molly returned to California to begin rehabilitation on her shoulder, again facing the possibility that her pro career was over.
Note: Molly was nominated for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for consideration in 1999 and that nomination is still valid. She is soon to be nominated for the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. Please show your support of her nomination by sending an email to the links.
The Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville Tenn.
The Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield Mass.
Page 3 of Molly Bolin
Contact the Author, John Molina
Please visit John Molina's other web sites dedicated to the history of women's basketball listed below
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