{"id":456227,"date":"2026-02-08T10:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T10:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/456227\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T10:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T10:56:20","slug":"for-the-first-time-wbls-pioneers-will-reunite-in-the-bay-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/456227\/","title":{"rendered":"For the first time, WBL’s Pioneers will reunite in the Bay Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former members of the Pioneers (an expansion team in the Women\u2019s Professional Basketball League, or WBL) will receive long overdue recognition while being honored as part of the Golden State Valkyries History of Bay Area Women\u2019s Basketball<\/a> Theme Night. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a massive moment,\u201d Golden State\u2019s senior vice president of marketing and communications, Kimberly Veale, told The Next. \u201cThere\u2019s just this joy and pride exuding from these women, and we just want to give them their due.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Pioneers\u2019 journey to being honored has been a lengthy and winding tale. It\u2019s a story of success and disappointment, of solidarity and heartfelt organizing. And it all started decades before the creation of the WNBA, during the early 1980\u2019s, in the San Francisco Bay Area.<\/p>\n

\"SanA 1979 advertisement for the San Francisco Pioneers, featuring the original players from their inaugural 1979-80 season. (Photo courtesy of Anna Johnson)<\/p>\n

In March of 1981, Roberta Williams\u2019 rookie season as a pro women\u2019s basketball player was taking off. Nicknamed \u201cSweetness\u201d by her San Francisco Pioneers teammate Cardtie Hicks, Williams was known in the WBL for her silky smooth jump shot and instant offensive spark. Her on-court progress mirrored the momentum of the San Francisco Pioneers, whose rocky start to the 1980-81 season was reignited midway through the season with the arrival of controversial new head coach, Dean Meminger, and the addition of WBL All-Star Molly \u201cMachine Gun\u201d Bolin<\/a> (who now goes by Molly Kazmer).<\/p>\n

Meminger made harsh changes and shook up the team. \u201cDean came in and started running a whole different system,\u201d Kazmer told The Next.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He gave Kazmer, already a league-wide star, the \u201cgreen light\u201d as a shooter. She led the Pioneers with over 26 points per game. And in early spring of 1981, everything started clicking into place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started winning,\u201d Williams told The Next. \u201cWe were upsetting teams that were number one, number two in the league.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That March, the Pioneers finished with a 6-6 record, winning as many games that month as the team had won previously throughout the entire 1980-81 season. For her part, Williams averaged nearly 13 points per contest. And she was hungry for more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was a dream come true,\u201d said Williams, who won the 1979 AIAW National Small College Basketball Championship<\/a> with South Carolina State before being selected by the Pioneers in the second round of the 1980 WBL draft. A Charleston native, Williams left South Carolina for the first time to join the Pioneers, where she loved the Bay Area immediately for its familiar proximity to water, its vibrant culture and her team\u2019s camaraderie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought that I would meet another set of females that loved the game of basketball the way I did, but oh man!\u201d remembered Williams. \u201cWe was balling. I was looking forward to just the idea that we were gonna go to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the women of the Pioneers never got that opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The end of the WBL was less a sudden disbanding and more of a slow crumbling. Though San Francisco\u2019s franchise remained one of the strongest in the country, financial instability and mismanagement plagued the first-ever U.S. professional women\u2019s league.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pioneers\u2019 players were always paid, and had their travel taken care of, but they were keenly aware of the struggles that women on other teams faced. \u201cThere were players that weren\u2019t paid,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThere were players that lost their apartment, everybody had to move into one house and live together. The sacrifices were unmeasured.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fighting for a greater good was commonplace in the WBL. \u201cFrom the very start we all knew it was an uphill climb,\u201d said Kazmer.\u00a0 \u201cWe had to battle and do everything we could to get it to stick.\u201d<\/p>\n

But despite the efforts of players, the league was spiraling. During the final 1980-81 season, the New England Gulls franchise folded halfway through, players on the Minnesota Fillies staged a walk off to protest unpaid wages, and the St. Louis Streak refused to pay for the team\u2019s airfare to a road game in San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, at the end of their season, Pioneers teammates remained hopeful. \u201cWe definitely thought we were coming back,\u201d said Kazmer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey waited to the last minute,\u201d starting center Cardtie Hicks told The Next. \u201cWhen all the teams folded, it was the Pioneers left standing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Williams and Kazmer, official notices from the Pioneers\u2019 front office came sometime in late summer. This was the final decree: owner Marshall Geller would not field another team in San Francisco. It wasn\u2019t a reflection of his own finances, Geller insisted, but because the WBL as a whole was too unstable. \u201cI don\u2019t want to have the best house in the worst neighborhood,\u201d Geller told the San Francisco Chronicle.<\/p>\n

The players were heartbroken. \u201cIt was devastating,\u201d Hicks said. \u201cDevastating watching some of the players, how they just took it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kazmer agreed: \u201cWe\u2019re a league that got caught off at the height of our success.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pioneers scattered from San Francisco and dispersed across the country. Many, like Williams, never got the chance to play professionally again. They scraped together odd jobs \u2014 working in private security, postal delivery and commercial construction while maintaining connections to basketball. Some began coaching girls basketball, others sought to continue their professional careers. Hicks returned to play pro ball in Europe, while Kazmer repeatedly supported other efforts to launch professional women\u2019s leagues in the United States. First year Pioneers player Anna Johnson<\/a> built a legacy coaching at Oakland Tech, while Pam Martin led Cal Poly Humboldt as head coach for decades. No matter what, former Pioneers players stayed dedicated to growing the sport they loved. As Hicks told The Next: \u201cWe handed down the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the team never came back to San Francisco together. They never had a final chance to express their gratitude toward the city or their fans. Pioneers guard Musiette McKinney said it best when she told The Next: \u201cWe never said goodbye to our city, where it all started.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Musiette McKinney has always been a community-builder at the heart of the San Francisco Pioneers.<\/p>\n

When the original Pioneers team formed during the 1979-80 season, a core group of players quickly emerged: All-Star center Hicks, who at 5\u20199 was capable of dunking the basketball; All-Star guard Anita Ortega \u2014 called \u201cThoroughbred\u201d by head coach Frank LaPorte \u2014 who played nearly every minute of the season; steely and consistent point guard Debbie Ricketts, who sometimes had her teammates run five miles after practice; and McKinney, affectionately called \u201cMoose,\u201d who was known as the glue of the team.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201c[Musiette] would hug us, you know, she was just that motherly,\u201d said Hicks. \u201cShe could have been a captain, but she was definitely our leader.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ortega, McKinney and Hicks had the longest-running tenures on the Pioneers; all three women played for the franchise during both seasons of its existence. They are also all Black women, and were often overlooked for major endorsements and marketing campaigns. While Ortega led the Pioneers with 867 points during the team\u2019s first season, outscoring No. 1 draft pick Pat Mayo by nearly 300 points, this fact was never widely publicized by the team. And according to the San Francisco Pioneers 1980-81 yearbook, four out of five of the \u201cPlayers to Watch\u201d in the WBL were white women, despite the fact that the majority of women who played in all three of the league\u2019s All-Star Games were Black.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a white girls\u2019 league, and it\u2019s run by white men,\u201d an anonymous player said in Lacy Banks\u2019 April 1980 Ebony feature on the WBL. White players like Ann Meyers, Nancy Lieberman and Molly Kazmer earned well-deserved praise, but systemic biases meant that equally skilled Black players were often overlooked by both team owners and the press. All too often, this same coverage gets recycled now in retellings of the WBL\u2019s historical significance, failing to celebrate the achievement of all the league\u2019s deserving players.<\/p>\n

\"SanMolly Bolin (now Molly Kazmer) takes a jump shot during the Pioneers\u2019 upset over the Nebraska Wranglers on March 23, 1981. (Photo courtesy of Molly Kazmer)<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, all players on the Pioneers continued to foster a culture of care. \u201cWe were good friends and we really became tight,\u201d McKinney said. \u201cYou have to build in a support system.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As two-year \u201cveterans,\u201d McKinney and Hicks recalled bonding with Pioneers teammates off the court as well. They spent late nights at a classic local bar called Tommy\u2019s Joynt, introduced rookie Roberta Williams to her first burrito (\u201cshe took me under her wing,\u201d Williams says of Hicks), and drove around exploring the Bay Area together. McKinney and Ortega were especially close, living as roommates in Daly City. \u201cWe loved certain songs and we would sing \u2018em as we were coming home from the game,\u201d McKinney said. \u201cWe\u2019d cha-cha on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever had a team that was so into each other,\u201d Hicks told The Next. \u201cWe collaborated on every level.\u201d She credited her teammates for coming together as a cohesive unit. \u201cWe had some good athletes, white, Black, all kinds, we didn\u2019t care. We were all family.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to many former women\u2019s basketball players, the WNBA has not yet properly honored the sport\u2019s history before the league\u2019s inception in 1996. Liz Galloway-McQuitter is the founder of Legends of the Ball<\/a>, an advocacy organization made up of former WBL players, and passionate about spreading awareness of her generation\u2019s accomplishments .\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course you are \u2018growing the game,\u2019 but growing it from where?\u201d Galloway McQuitter told The Next. \u201cWhat is the measuring point? [The WBL] grew the game too, and so did the players in the 80\u2019s and in the 90\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Former Pioneer Molly Kazmer, also a board member of Legends of the Ball, pointed out a number of the league\u2019s innovations: introducing the smaller ball now universally used in the women\u2019s game, created by trailblazer Karen Logan<\/a>, and the addition of the 3-point line.\u00a0 \u201cThe WBL incorporated the 3-point line the second season,\u201d said Kazmer. \u201cAt a time when the men often weren\u2019t even incorporating it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the NBA, recognition for the sport\u2019s long-term growth is not only symbolic, but material. In the 2022, the NBA responded to advocacy efforts by former American Basketball Association (ABA) players, who broke barriers as part of the upstart league in the 1960\u2019s and 70\u2019s. The historic decision included \u201crecognition payments<\/a>\u201d averaging $3,828 per year for former ABA players. \u201cI can\u2019t overstate how much it means to them to have the NBA and NBPA recognize their tremendous contributions to today\u2019s NBA game,\u201d Scott Tarter, director of Dropping Dimes Foundation<\/a>, told USA Today at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe men go in and out of their history with ease,\u201d Galloway-McQuitter said. \u201cBut women\u2019s basketball doesn\u2019t connect the dots.\u201d In 2023, she told The Next, \u201cWe are confronted time and time again with the omissions and inaccuracies \u2026 each time adding to the agony of a pioneering group of women whose accomplishments deserve so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a first year franchise in the WNBA, the Golden State Valkyries\u2019 invitation to reunite the San Francisco Pioneers sets a different tone. Could this be a chance for other franchises and the league itself to better contextualize its history within the framework of professional leagues that came before?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we set out to build the franchise, it was really important to us and quickly became obvious that there were some incredible stories and reasons why women\u2019s basketball has been so successful in this market,\u201d said Golden State\u2019s Kimberly Veale, in conversation with The Next. \u201cWe\u2019re not here in totality without the Pioneers, the Lasers and all the people who have been involved in the women\u2019s game at a professional level here.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Valkyries\u2019 intention to honor the careers of past professional women\u2019s basketball players is woven into their inaugural season. At the Sephora Performance Center in downtown Oakland, where the Valkyries practice, Golden State worked with local artist Allison Hueman to design a custom mural that nods to Bay Area women\u2019s basketball history. A player near the center of the mural wears a jersey with the same basketball from the San Francisco Pioneers uniform, and a laser nodding to the namesake of San Jose\u2019s ABL team slices through the image.<\/p>\n

\"GoldenA mural at the Valkyries\u2019 downtown Oakland practice center, designed in collaboration with artist Allison Hueman, features a women\u2019s basketball player in a jersey inspired by the San Francisco Pioneers uniform. (Photo credit: Allison Hueman\u2019s artist webpage<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Multiple Pioneers players, in turn, are excited to support the Valkyries. They remain passionate about the evolutions of women\u2019s basketball and proud to have been part of laying the foundation for the WNBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so proud that what we did did not go in vain,\u201d said Williams. \u201cOur innovation laid the foundation, even though it was short-lived,\u201d Johnson added. \u201cIt\u2019s invigorating to see qualified women who have earned the right to open doors through women\u2019s basketball.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For years, the women of the Pioneers fell out of touch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then came 2018, when the Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville inducted all former WBL players as \u201cTrailblazers of the Game.\u201d Unsurprisingly, it was the Pioneers\u2019 connective leader, McKinney, who searched for a number of her former teammates. \u201cShe found me,\u201d said 1979-80 Pioneers reserve Anna Johnson. \u201cAnd I hadn\u2019t heard from her since the day she drove off saying \u2018bye!\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Together in Tennessee that July, the women started a text message thread that\u2019s continued, on and off, over the years since. But the announcement of an expansion franchise awarded to the Golden State Warriors in fall of 2023 sparked something new.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I cried,\u201d said Hicks, recalling the day she heard the announcement of a new WNBA team in San Francisco. \u201cThat\u2019s where I played first,\u201d she told her wife, who looked stunned as Hicks burst into tears. \u201cI said, \u2018because that\u2019s where I played first.\u2019 We were the pioneers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

McKinney spoke out passionately. \u201cWe are waiting on some type of reunion in San Francisco,\u201d she told The Next\u2019s Tee Baker in October of 2023. \u201cWe want to be introduced to the city before the Golden State team.\u201d McKinney also delivered that same message directly to the Valkyries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I even had a [marketing] team, when it was just me,\u201d remembered Veale, \u201cMusiette McKinney was blowing me up. Just wanting to be part of it. Molly [Kazmer] and Musiette were the two that were just so excited and wanted to touch base and share stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rumors about a possible Pioneers reunion began swirling this past winter, before the Valkyries inaugural season even started. McKinney continued to make her rounds, calling up former teammates and asking \u201care you ready?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The IX Basketball, a 24\/7\/365 women\u2019s basketball newsroom powered by The Next
The IX Basketball<\/a>: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX Sports<\/a>. 24\/7\/365 women\u2019s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.<\/p>\n

Kazmer was also quick to organize with her former teammates, including reaching out to former Iowa Cornets teammates who joined the Pioneers after the midwestern franchise folded. She also worked closely with Galloway-McQuitter to bring Legends of the Ball into the event and to propose the inclusion of a documentary film crew. Their project tells the story not only of the Pioneers, but of the WBL as a whole, and Kazmer\u2019s own historic career and complex custody battle in which her success as a professional women\u2019s basketball player was weaponized against her.<\/a><\/p>\n

And on the ground, an unlikely organizer emerged: Anna Johnson, a lifelong Oakland resident and Pioneers reserve player during the 1979-80 season. The only member of the team born and raised in the Bay Area, Johnson is a proud Valkyries season ticket holder and has worked closely with team representatives to get in touch with former Pioneers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, plans for a formal reunion began taking shape. In May, the Valkyries officially invited the Pioneers to be honored at the July 14th matchup against the Phoenix Mercury. As part of the evening, the Valkyries will also recognize the American Basketball League\u2019s (ABL) San Jose Lasers, a team whose primary backer was Golden State majority owner Joe Lacob. Kimberly Veale of Golden State says that the evening will focus on individual stories of players, woven together to create a whole picture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SanFormer San Francisco Pioneers teammates Anna Johnson (left) and Gerry Booker (right) at a Golden State Valkyries game on June 19, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Anna Johnson) <\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus on the Valkyries purely being here and ushering this new era of professional women\u2019s basketball in the Bay Area has been very loud,\u201d said Veale. \u201cSo at this point, midway through the season, we felt it was important to just take a pause and circle back to how we got here.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s just the beginning. \u201cThis isn\u2019t a one and done moment in terms of us celebrating this history,\u201d Veale added.<\/p>\n

In just a few weeks, an impressive group of Pioneers will reunite in San Francisco, traveling in from across California and as far as Michigan and South Carolina. \u201cAnita Ortega. Jan Ternyik. Pam Martin. Gerry Booker. Roberta Williams. Cindy Haugejorde. Molly Kazmer. We\u2019re hoping for Musiette McKinney. And me, Anna Johnson,\u201d Johnson said, reading aloud the names of confirmed attendees in early June. \u201cThis really is Musiette\u2019s dream coming true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not all of the Pioneers can attend the reunion, or witness the incredible transformation of women\u2019s basketball. Some players worry about their friends\u2019 health and wellbeing, and the WBL has already lost some of its greatest stars. \u201cUnfortunately some of the ladies that even were at the Hall of Fame induction [in 2018], they transitioned and passed on,\u201d Williams told The Next. \u201cThey\u2019re not as fortunate as we are because we are still alive to see what\u2019s happening in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know how long we have on this earth,\u201d Hicks told The Next. \u201cBut this, this is a gift.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former members of the Pioneers (an expansion team in the Women\u2019s Professional Basketball League, or WBL) will receive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[213265,4804,213266,213267,99,213268,213269,434],"class_list":["post-456227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-elizabeth-galloway-mcquitter","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-legends-of-the-ball","tag-molly-bolin","tag-sports","tag-wbl","tag-wbl-draft","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}