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Anna Johnson at Oakland Tech\u2019s Hall of Honor ceremony in February. Credit: Maya Goldberg-Safir<\/p>\nNo one is more excited than Anna Johnson about the arrival in the Bay Area of the WNBA\u2019s newest expansion team, the Golden State Valkyries. \u201cOh, I wonder what it\u2019s gonna be like that first day!\u201d she said with a laugh a few months ago, referring to Tuesday\u2019s preseason home opener at San Francisco\u2019s Chase Center. \u201cI\u2019m already fussing at the people about my tickets on my phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Johnson, 70, who is both a Valkyries season ticket holder and a lifelong Oakland resident, is not just any eager fan. She is the first professional women\u2019s basketball player from the bay, having suited up for the San Francisco Pioneers of the short-lived Women\u2019s Professional Basketball League. This was 1979, long before the dawn of the WNBA in 1996.<\/p>\n
Her story is little known, as is that of the Pioneers. Her career and the team itself came to an abrupt close, the franchise shutting down so quickly that, to this day, Johnson and her teammates lament that they never got a chance to say goodbye to their fans. But maybe, they hope, they will receive some recognition amid the hoopla surrounding the Valkyries\u2019 inaugural season.<\/p>\n
Johnson, typically humble if not quiet about her achievements, has been energized to do a little more politicking on behalf of her old team\u2019s legacy. When she was purchasing season tickets, the Valkyries sales rep on the phone told Johnson he was new to the WNBA. She told him about the Pioneers, explaining that they were the first women\u2019s pro team in town. The young man seemed genuinely intrigued. So Johnson continued. \u201cWe\u2019re the unknown,\u201d she told him. \u201cLet me give you some knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s in Oakland was a \u201cunique and formative backdrop\u201d for her basketball journey, Johnson said. But the story really begins with her mother, Ruth.<\/p>\n
Ruth Johnson was a force. She raised her four children in North and East Oakland in the 1960s, telling them: \u201cTo make your mark on life, you have to have an education.\u201d So while Johnson\u2019s older brothers and cousin often left her out of pickup games at Bushrod Park, she became a dedicated student who learned the game while attending Claremont Middle School. These were the final years preceding Title IX, when girls were restricted to playing \u201crover ball,\u201d with three players from a team on offense and the other three across the court on defense.<\/p>\n
Anna Johnson at Oakland Tech\u2019s Hall of Honor ceremony in February. Credit: Maya Goldberg-Safir<\/p>\n
\u201cI was one of the few lucky ones who got to cross to the other side,\u201d Johnson said with a smile. \u201cOffense and defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rules around girls basketball were changing quickly. By the time Johnson was in 8th grade, Claremont\u2019s coach, Lola Smith, had players competing five-on-five. She\u2019d also found a way to hold practices twice a week inside the Mormon Temple, in the foothills of East Oakland. \u201cI don\u2019t know how,\u201d said Johnson, \u201cbut Coach had the hookup.\u201d Training was serious work. The girls practiced shooting from trampolines to stabilize their balance. \u201cI thought, this woman is trying to kill me,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
The truth is that her coach made Johnson fall in love with basketball. By high school, she fully committed to the game, becoming a star at Oakland Tech. There, she played under Marva Eickelberger, known as Coach E, a strict disciplinarian. Johnson developed a sweet turnaround jump shot, light and quick, and a knack for tenacious defense.<\/p>\n
In 1972, the same year Title IX was signed into law, prohibiting sex discrimination in education programs, Johnson took her skills to Cal State Hayward, but she was hungry for more. \u201cI always wanted to play against different competition, instead of playing against the same person,\u201d said Johnson. \u201cThere\u2019s always someone else that\u2019s better than you, playing harder than you. So you go out and play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson was relentless about getting out there. She drove around the bay searching for talent, playing in pickup games with women and men at Berkeley Rec Center, Merritt College, \u201cthe legendary Mosswood,\u201d Hamilton Park in San Francisco, the gym at San Francisco State University \u2014 anywhere she could find a run. \u201cI played everywhere,\u201d she said. At 5-foot-10, Johnson was known for her explosive first step, badgering slower defenders into fouling her on the way to the hoop. \u201cI kept coming at you because you were gonna foul me eventually,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s probably why my back and everything else hurts to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beset by a sleepy Bay Area basketball scene and a lack of women mentors, Johnson faced an uphill battle. But Los Angeles was different. \u201cDown there it was basketball,\u201d she recalled. Johnson met a pair of twins playing for San Francisco State who invited her to live at their family\u2019s home in Pasadena for summer basketball. She was elated.<\/p>\n
The only problem was that Johnson had no friends or family in LA. \u201cWhere you gonna stay? Who you know down there?\u201d her mother Ruth demanded to know. Finally Johnson got the twins\u2019 mother on the phone. \u201cThe mom-to-mom talk was what made it happen,\u201d she said. Eventually, Ruth flew south with her daughter for the AAU tryouts. \u201cThat\u2019s how I knew my mother loved me,\u201d said Johnson. Both mother and daughter could see the vision of Johnson playing ball at a higher level. What would\u2019ve been unthinkable just a few years earlier was now, in the explosion of opportunities afforded by Title IX, suddenly plausible.<\/p>\n
The LA scene was a new world. Johnson competed in AAU and pro-am leagues alongside some of the very best women\u2019s players of her generation: Ann Meyers, Cardte Hicks, Kim Bueltel, Anita Ortega, Musiette McKinney. She won back-to-back AAU national championships with a team called \u201cAnna\u2019s Bananas\u201d (named after the young daughter of their coach), which the New York Times referred to as \u201ca team of California women who look as if they just came in from surfing.\u201d Soon, Johnson earned a partial scholarship to play basketball at Long Beach State \u2014 not a lot of scholarships were given out in those early days of Title IX \u2014 and in 1978 she completed her degree.<\/p>\n
Despite a successful career at Long Beach, Johnson was running out of options to keep playing basketball competitively. She spent her days working at a mental health rehabilitation home in North Oakland. And yet she was determined to continue her career. \u201cI was trying to figure out: Who could I play for?\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cA team of California women who look as if they just came in from surfing,\u201d said New York Times. Credit: Courtesy Anna Johnson<\/p>\n
At that moment, San Francisco became the latest city to join the newly formed Women\u2019s Professional Basketball League. The WBL was an upstart league created by an Ohio man named Bill Byrne, a hustling entrepreneur chasing financial promise in the future of women\u2019s sports. The league, which lasted only three seasons between 1978-1981, was a rollercoaster of emotions for players who both achieved the dream of playing in a pro league while also enduring financial instability and at times prejudicial treatment.<\/p>\n
Some of Johnson\u2019s former teammates from LA were drafted, but not her, and neither did she get a call from the league. That didn\u2019t stop her. In the fall of 1979, Johnson drove over the Bay Bridge in her Chevy Mazda hatchback for the first tryout hosted by the Pioneers.<\/p>\n
At the tryout, Johnson recognized many of the players from the local basketball scene. But as the group kept scrimmaging, the number of women present kept dwindling. Johnson was determined to make her mark, who cared if her shot was off that day. She attacked the ball, getting even more physical, playing up her ferocious defensive style. \u201cMy defense was what kind of reeled them in,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n
It worked. Johnson was selected as a walk-on for the 1979-80 roster, besting at least 35 other women trying out for just two spots. She was the only member of the Pioneers born and raised in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n
For their first home game at San Francisco Civic Auditorium, the Pioneers lined up as their star center, Hicks, sang the national anthem.<\/p>\n
Then, under the bright lights, their names were called out one-by-one. As Johnson\u2019s name was announced, she waved proudly in her blue and yellow Pioneers uniform, rocking an afro that made her seem at least an inch taller. Johnson\u2019s friends and family from Oakland were scattered around the arena, hollering and cheering. \u201cMy P.E. teacher, a couple coaches, friends, neighborhood kids \u2014 they all came out,\u201d she said. That night, Johnson signed autographs with her teammates, blown away by the thousands of spectators.<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s time on the Pioneers may have been short lived that season, but even from the bench she embodied the mentality of \u201cdon\u2019t get ready, stay ready.\u201d She was constantly studying opponents\u2019 moves, analyzing the game, and impacting play any time she got the opportunity. Her teammates also remember Johnson as essential. \u201cWhen I think of Anna, I think of one of the leaders of the Pioneers game,\u201d said Hicks. \u201cShe was a strong presence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson became something of a local guide, too. She\u2019d send players down to Fisherman\u2019s Wharf for chowder. She took her best friend \u201cMoose\u201d McKinney to get Mrs. Fields cookies. \u201cWe met Debbi Fields!\u201d McKinney said, still swooning. The whole team got along superbly, trading off between barbecues together and brutal four-hour practices. One underappreciated aspect of women\u2019s professional basketball is that play can get rough when the roster spots are scarce. \u201cIt was like, I wasn\u2019t going to help you up,\u201d Johnson said. McKinney agreed \u201cWe were professional athletes,\u201d she said. \u201cSo you better be serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Credit: Courtesy Molly Kazmer<\/p>\n
Over two seasons, the Pioneers went 32-40, making it to the semifinals against the New York Stars in 1980, around the time that Johnson got cut from the team. McKinney would call her friend up, telling her, \u201cYou need to be here!\u201d But whatever sisterhood had developed among the Pioneers, their time together would soon be cut short.<\/p>\n
The WBL had struggled financially since its inception. At the end of the 1981 season, owner Marshall Geller gathered the Pioneers for a final dinner. There, he announced that this was the last time they\u2019d ever be together in one room. The team was folding. Soon, the league followed. Players scattered with the WBL\u2019s shuttering, unable to say farewell even to their loyal fans. Many of the players, like Johnson, Hicks, and McKinney, still mourn that fact to this day.<\/p>\n
Like many others in the WBL, Johnson reached both the pinnacle of her playing career in the league and its conclusion. While nearly all of her Pioneers teammates left the Bay Area, Johnson made the conscious decision to stay in Oakland. She would do for others what Coach Smith had done for her. She vowed to \u201cpay it forward\u201d by reinvesting her knowledge of the game in the next generations.<\/p>\n
On February 7, the atmosphere inside Oakland Tech\u2019s gymnasium was electric. It was the school\u2019s annual hall of fame ceremony, and girls varsity head coach Leroy Hurt had to quiet the crowd when he took the microphone. \u201cAll right,\u201d he said. \u201cPlease welcome a young lady named Anna Johnson!\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson strode to center court, at ease, while the crowded room burst into applause. The septuagenarian still carries herself with the energy of a former athlete, someone who wakes up at the crack of dawn to work out regularly. On this night, Johnson would become the newest member of Oakland Tech\u2019s Hall of Honor. Perhaps more importantly, her history with the school was being joined to the present-day success of Tech, a powerhouse in the girls high school basketball scene in part thanks to the work of Johnson herself.<\/p>\n
By the time the WBL collapsed in 1981, Johnson was working as a coach. Soon, she took over the team at Tech, where she led the program between 1982-88. Her goal was to fundamentally change the girls basketball program.<\/p>\n
As a head coach, Johnson shaped the program in her image. Tech\u2019s primary weapon was its quickness and tough-as-hell defense. She introduced a full-court press and delighted audiences with the fast pace. \u201cI was trying to bring it up and make it more innovative so people would come and watch,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cDid they watch? Yes. Did they like the game? Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s overall record improved, while at the same time, Johnson challenged her players personally. \u201cWe practice on all our weaknesses,\u201d she told them. She emphasized intentionality, camaraderie, and the importance of channeling anger into productive energy. Johnson could see the bigger picture for her players, and for the future of women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach Johnson, this is her house. I want everybody to know that she laid the foundation. \u2026 This is the house that she built.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cShe opened another door,\u201d said former player Yolanda Shavies, remembering how Johnson took Tech\u2019s players to travel across the state for competitive tournaments. \u201cBecause she played, she knew this world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson recruited boys as practice players. \u201cYou know the story, \u2018There\u2019s no crying in baseball\u2019? It was like, \u2018There\u2019s no crying in basketball!\u2019 You just get out there, suck it up and play.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no accident that two of those boys were future girls basketball head coaches, Leroy Hurt and his predecessor, Pico Wilburn. In Oakland Tech\u2019s modern era, Hurt and Wilburn combined have led the Bulldogs to five state championships since 2004. As teenagers, both men looked up to Johnson. \u201cI talked to her more than I talked to my own coach,\u201d Wilburn said matter-of-factly. \u201cShe brings something out of basketball that no one else does.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson has been a coach to many beyond the kids at Oakland Tech. After she left the program, she continued coaching girls basketball across the East Bay while juggling a job in management at FedEx. She formed her own AAU team between 2004-2007, which she named after her greatest strength, XTremeD. But it was Tech where she left the biggest mark.<\/p>\n
At the hall of fame ceremony in February, Hurt beamed to the crowd, as Johnson stood at center court. \u201cListen,\u201d he said. \u201cWithout Coach Johnson, there would be no Leroy Hurt. Without Coach Johnson, there would be no Coach Pico.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hurt pointed to Johnson. \u201cCoach Johnson, this is her house,\u201d he said. The crowd was silent, focused on Johnson. He continued: \u201cI want everybody to know that she laid the foundation. \u2026 This is the house that she built.\u201d The crowd roared in agreement.<\/p>\n
On a sunny day this past winter, Johnson set out for a walk wearing a purple and black Valkyries sweatshirt. She was in one of her favorite places: the Emeryville Marina. The jutting walkway, set alongside craggy rocks and the sparkling waters of the bay, are also where Johnson\u2019s father took her fishing as a young kid. And it\u2019s where she and her mother Ruth loved to go together. \u201cShe never used a wheelchair in her life,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cNever used a walker in her life. Never used a cane in her life. She always walked.\u201d<\/p>\n
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When Anna, right, was inducted into the Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame, her mother, Ruth, left, was lovingly brusque: \u201cIt\u2019s about damn time.\u201d Credit: Courtesy Anna Johnson<\/p>\n
For the last six years, Johnson set aside nearly everything to take care of her mother, who was still walking over a mile at the marina well into her 90s. In fact, Johnson retired early from her job at FedEx in 2020 to protect her mom from COVID-19. After that, they spent nearly all their time together. Mother and daughter delighted one another with their dry sense of humor, ate breakfast every day, went on long walks by the bay, reflecting on Johnson\u2019s remarkable time as a basketball player. Ruth knew better than anyone what her daughter had given the sport. When Johnson was inducted into the Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame alongside about 100 other former WBL players, Ruth\u2019s response was lovingly brusque: \u201cIt\u2019s about damn time.\u201d And now, near the end of her life, mom had one more vision for her daughter\u2019s career: that one day, she would tell her story. \u201cJust make sure you get it right,\u201d Ruth told her.<\/p>\n
In November of 2024, Ruth Johnson passed away at the age of 98. Johnson goes to the marina to feel her mother\u2019s spirit. \u201cIt gives me peace and it relaxes me,\u201d she said. And it\u2019s here in Emeryville that Johnson also feels a sense of purpose, inspired by her mom. Now more than ever is the time to tell her own story. \u201cIt is kind of like therapy to be able to talk about it at this point,\u201d Johnson reflected, watching the sun flickering across the water. Perhaps that\u2019s why she first spoke up when talking to the Valkyries sales rep.<\/p>\n
These days, Johnson is in close touch with former Pioneers teammates like McKinney and Hicks. They call each other up to fantasize about the potential of a reunion. \u201cYou better be ready,\u201d McKinney recently told Johnson. And Johnson, who plans to attend every Valkyries home game this season, certainly will be ready. All the Pioneers want, she said, is a simple thank you. Done the right way, of course: by honoring the entire team, together, at the same time.<\/p>\n
But Johnson is elated to be a ride-or-die Valkyries supporter. \u201cI was a player, and now I\u2019m a fan,\u201d she said, pushing the pace as she rounded the corner toward her mother\u2019s favorite bench at the edge of the marina. From here she\u2019d look out at San Francisco, where the Johnson family first lived after migrating from the South in the 1950s. Standing there, by the water, Johnson smiled. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to know that women\u2019s basketball was here before,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd now that it\u2019s back, let\u2019s keep it here. Let\u2019s not falter again. \u2026 We wanna move forward, we wanna keep on pushing.\u201d<\/p>\n