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Worst
To
First
Or A ‘Shock’ing Tale
of Women’s Basketball
in Motown




Vince Prygoski





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Denver, Colorado



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Worst to First, Or A ‘Shock’ing Tale of Women’s Basketball in Motown

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Copyright © 2006 Vince Prygoski


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Dedication




To Ellen Bergstrom


In 1963, Bob Dylan wrote and released his song “The
Times They Are a-Changin’” which heralded the great social
and cultural changes that were coming down the pike during
the decade known as “the Sixties.” I very much doubt that he

was thinking about professional women’s basketball when he
wrote that tune. Heck, the Women’s National Basketball
Association would not even exist until three decades later.
Nevertheless, that song was among the first things to come to
the mind of this fan of both Dylan’s music and of women’s
sports as the story of the 2003 Detroit Shock unfolded. The
times they were a-changin’ indeed.
A well known quote, this one from the world of sports, also
seems to resonate with
what happened here. That would be
“Do you believe in miracles?” which was said by ABC
sportscaster Al Michaels at the end of the United States hockey
team’s upset of the previously unbeatable Soviet Union in the
1980 Olympics. The Detroit Shock needed a miracle just to
remain in the Motor City as the 2002 season ended. Despite a
late season turnaround led by new coach Bill Laimbeer, there
were rumors that the Shock would move to San Antonio,
Texas. In October of 2002 the decision was made to keep the
Shock in Detroit for at least one more season.
And what a season it would turn out to be! The Shock lived
up to their nickname in 2003, shocking the sports world with a
turnaround that only a visionary of the Bob Dylan type could
have im
agined. The groundwork had been laid at the end of
2002 with the hiring of Laimbeer, who was no stranger to the
sports fans of Detroit due to his being part of the Pistons teams
that won back to back championships in the Men’s NBA.
The player talent was also upgraded with the addition of
several key people. Sw
in Cash came from the perennial

powerhouse college program at the University of Connecticut.
Ruth Riley was a leader of the Notre Dame team that won the
collegiate national championship in 2001. And then there was
Cheryl Ford, daughter of Men’s NBA star Karl Malone and
every bit as tough and talented as her dad. These women would
be three fifths of the starting lineup in 2003, joining Flint, MI
native Deanna Nolan and Elaine Powell of Louisiana. Together
with a capable group of substitutes and a first rate coaching
staff, they were about to make sports history.
The Detroit Shock are, of course, part of a bigger story of
professional women’s basketball in the United States. It has
been a long hard road for women to have the opportunities they
have today, and we are still far from true equality in terms of
such things as salaries, media coverage, and fan interest. While
women basketball players and their supporters advocate for
further progress, we can also celebrate the gains that have
already been made. And, of course, extraordinary
achievements such as that of the 2003 Detroit Shock!

Part 1
Before the Shock and the WNBA




efore we turn to the specific story of the Detroit Shock,
a brief review of the history of the game they play
might be useful. Basketball as we know it today traces
its origins to 1891, when James Naismith put up peach baskets
at the Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA. The game was originally
played with a soccer ball and nine players on each side. Although
the original players were men, it was not long until the women of
Springfield began to play Naismith’s game. Merely a year after
basketball was invented, Senda Berenson taught the game to the
students at Smith College. Contests between the frosh and
sophomores quickly became a tradition at Smith and several
other East Coast women’s colleges.
B
Just a few years later, there was documented evidence that
women’s basketball had reached the West Coast. The University
of California (Berkeley) and Stanford played what is considered to
be the first intercollegiate women’s basketball game. The final
score of 2-1 certainly looks odd by today’s standards, where 60
or 70 points for each team tends to be the norm.

For many years, women played a version of basketball that
differed from that played by men. This would change with the
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Vince Prygoski
coming of the feminist (also known as women’s liberation)
movement which began in the late 1960s. Until then, female
athletes all too often had to be overly concerned with appearing
“ladylike.” One consequence of this was a distinct set of
basketball rules for women which limited physical contact and
movement on the court. While all players in the men’s version of
the game were allowed to run the length of the court, the
women’s rules divided the court into sections. Each player was
assigned to a certain section and could not move to the others.
These rules were gradually liberalized over the years, but it was
not until the 1970s that full-court, five player to a side basketball
became the norm for women as it long had been for men.
High school girl’s basketball enjoyed some regional popularity
as early as the 1920s, with Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas all having
statewide competition. At the college level, games between
schools were relatively rare with the notable exception of some of
the historically African-American colleges in the south. Some of
the best basketball being played by women prior to the 1970s
could be found in industrial leagues, where corporations
sponsored teams of women employees. The Amateur Athletic
Union (AAU) held tournaments which featured the top industrial
teams. One such team was the Golden Cyclones of Dallas
featuring Babe Didrikson, who is generally considered to be
among the greatest all around woman athletes of all time. Hanes
Hosiery was another of the premier teams in the AAU era, as were
the Wayland Baptist Flying Queens and Nashville Business

College. As was the case with men’s major league sports, it was
not until the 1950s that the AAU tournaments were open to
African American women. And, just as men’s pro baseball had
separate “Negro Leagues,” black women had to organize their
own teams. The Philadelphia Tribune Girls, led by Ora
Washington, were one particular example.
The United States began to enter international competition in
1953, when a team made up of the best players from the AAU
teams defeated Chile to win the women’s world championship.
Four years later, the United States repeated as world champions
with a victory over the Soviet Union. It was not until 1976 that the
Olympics added women’s basketball to its schedule of events.
The United States was among the first participants, and had
played exhibition games against the Soviet Union in 1972 and
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Worst to First
1974. If any proof was needed that women were indeed wanting
to play basketball at the most competitive levels, the 250 or so
women who showed up to try for a spot on the American Olympic
team provided it. The group who made the final cut included Ann
Meyers, a college standout at UCLA who had a tryout with the
Indiana Pacers of the men’s NBA and Nancy Lieberman, a recent
high school graduate who would go on to collegiate stardom at
Old Dominion. Two decades later, Lieberman would play a leading
role with the Detroit Shock as their first head coach. The
Americans fell short of the gold in 1976, and did not get the
chance to compete in 1980 due to a U.S. boycott of the games
which were hosted by the USSR. The Soviets responded by
boycotting the 1984 games in Los Angeles, and the United States
won the gold. They would do so again in 1988, 1996, and 2000.

College basketball for women in the U.S. had long been a low-
key affair, with intramural contests generally the norm and high
levels of competition discouraged. This began to change with the
late 1960s/early 1970s feminist movement, which helped pave
the way for federal legislation known as Title IX. This law required
that all schools receiving funding from the federal government
provide equal opportunities for female and male students. This
includes colleges and universities as well as high schools and
elementary schools. Although athletics was not mentioned in the
original statute, advocates of women’s sports have used Title IX to
bring about greater gender equality in school sports at all levels.
Intercollegiate, varsity athletics for women began to develop
as early as the 1950s and 1960s, but were not very well
organized on the national level until 1971. It was then that the
AIAW (Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) was
created to administer nationwide championships. At this point,
the male-dominated NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic
Association) had little interest in women’s sports. This would
change as the 1970s progressed and women’s college sports
gained in popularity and profitability. All of a sudden, women’s
sports looked more attractive to the NCAA. In addition, the NCAA
was able to offer levels of financial support and political power
that the AIAW was not. And so, by the early 1980s the exodus of
women’s programs from the AIAW to the NCAA was swift. A group
of AIAW members brought suit against the NCAA, but it was not
successful and by 1982 the AIAW no longer existed.
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Vince Prygoski
Professional basketball had long been an option in the United
States for men, with the first known league forming in 1898, just

seven years after Naismith invented the game. This league lasted
until the 1930s under various names and with many different
teams. There were also a number of professional “barnstorming”
teams, with the New York “Original” Celtics and the Harlem
Renaissance Big Five among the most famous. The Harlem
Globetrotters also got started during this era. In 1937, the
National Basketball League was founded, followed almost ten
years later by the Basketball Association of America. By the end
of the 1940s, the two leagues had merged into the men’s
National Basketball Association (NBA) that exists to this day as
the major league of men’s basketball in the USA.
It was not until 1978 that anything similar would exist for
women in the United States, with the founding of the Women’s
Basketball League (WBL). The original eight WBL teams included
the Iowa Cornets, New Jersey Gems, Milwaukee Does, Chicago
Hustle, Minnesota Fillies, Dayton Rockettes, New York Stars, and
Houston Angels. Houston finished with the best regular season
record in 1978-79, and then went on to win the playoffs. Ann
Meyers was among the stars of the league’s first season, and
others included Rita Easterling and Molly “Machine Gun” Bolin.
The WBL added seven teams for 1979-80: the Washington
Metros, Philadelphia Fox, St. Louis Streak, Dallas Diamonds,
California Dreams, San Francisco Pioneers, and New Orleans Pride.
Dayton dropped out, so the number of teams was now 14. Nancy
Lieberman, Lynette Woodard, and Valerie Still all joined the league
as rookies in 1979-80. Woodard would later make history as the
first woman to play for the Harlem Globetrotters. When the Detroit
Shock joined the WNBA in 1998, Woodard was one of the original
players and Lieberman coached the team until 2000.
The 1979-80 WBL playoffs included six teams, with the top

two regular season clubs earning first round byes. San Francisco
defeated defending champ Houston and Minnesota knocked out
New Orleans in the opening round. The second round saw both of
the top seeded teams, New York and Iowa, advance to the final
series which was best of five. New York took the first two games
at home, Iowa stayed alive with a game three win but then fell to
the New Yorkers in game four. All of the games were high scoring,
with 100 plus points the norm for both teams.
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Worst to First
Which brings us to the third, and unfortunately final, WBL
season of 1980-81. The expansion of the league’s second
season proved to be premature, and the number of teams
decreased dramatically by season three. Washington and
Philadelphia had folded during the 1979-80 season. Houston,
New York, Iowa, and Milwaukee all disbanded prior to the start of
the 1980-81 campaign. Two new teams were added: the New
England Gulls and the Nebraska Wranglers. New England would
not make it to the end of the season
Nebraska won the last WBL championship with a 3 games to
2 record in the finals against Dallas. Rosie Walker, Nancy
Lieberman, Carol Blazejowski, and Molly Bolin were among the
standouts of 1980-81.
The WBL was not the only attempt to establish women’s
professional basketball in the United States. There were a
number of others prior to the WNBA. Three years prior to the
WBL’s first season (1975), a Women’s Professional Basketball
Association granted franchises to six cities, but no games were
ever played.
As the WBL began to experience problems, a rival league

known as the Ladies Professional Basketball Association formed
in 1980. This league included six teams, of which only three ever
actually played any games. In less than a month, the LPBA was
history.
Bill Byrne, who founded the WBL, was apparently ready to try
again by 1984. A six team Women’s American Basketball
Association was organized. Many great players were on its teams,
including Lieberman, Bolin, and Pam and Paula McGee. Once
again, financial difficulties surfaced and most of the teams had to
shut down before the end of the season. After Dallas defeated
Chicago for the championship, the league itself ceased to exist. A
brief three paragraph article in the New York Times announced
the premature ending of the WABA’s one and only season.
Two years later, an eight team National Women’s Basketball
Association existed on paper, but never played any games. The
1991 Liberty Basketball Association fared slightly better, with one
exhibition game in the books before the league went under. Said
game was in fact played at the Palace of Auburn Hills, Michigan
and featured the Detroit Dazzlers versus all stars from the other
teams. The Palace is the present day home of the Detroit Shock.
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Vince Prygoski
The Women’s Basketball Association was founded in 1992,
and lasted three seasons (1993-1995). Nebraska posted the
best regular season record in 1993, but Kansas won the
championship series three games to one. In 1994, the Kansas
City Mustangs posted a perfect 15-0 regular season mark. They
would not survive the second round of the playoffs, falling to
Memphis. The championship final went the full five games, with
Nebraska rallying to take the title from Memphis.

1995 would be the final season for the WBA, as Chicago won
the championship in a one game playoff against St. Louis. The
championship game took place on July 29, 1995.
Even before the WBA ended its final season, the seeds were
being planted for the next women’s pro basketball league. In
February of 1995, Steve Hams, Anne Cribbs, and Gary Cavalli met
for the first time. These three would be the founders of the
American Basketball League. The formal announcement of the
ABL’s founding took place in San Jose, California on September
26, 1995. This was less than two months after the WBA went out
of business.
Eight teams made up the ABL in its initial season of 1996-97.
These were the Atlanta Glory, the Colorado Explosion, the
Columbus Quest, the New England Blizzard, the Portland Power,
the Richmond Rage, the San Jose Lasers, and the Seattle Reign.
Columbus posted a 31-9 record which was best in the 1996-
97 regular season. In the best of three first round playoffs,
Richmond defeated Colorado and Columbus eliminated San Jose.
The best of five finals went the distance, with Columbus winning
the opener, Richmond taking the next two, and Columbus the
final two games and the inaugural ABL title. First team all league
honors went to the following players: Teresa Edwards, Dawn
Staley, Natalie Williams, Nikki McCray, and Adrienne Goodson.
1997-98 brought two franchise changes to the ABL. The Long
Beach Stingrays were added as an expansion team, while the
Richmond Rage moved to Philadelphia and retained their
nickname.
Once again, it was the Columbus Quest who did the best in
the regular season, finishing with 36 wins and eight losses. An
additional round was added to the playoffs. In this opening round,

San Jose and Long Beach advanced at the expense of New
England and Colorado. Columbus had little trouble with San Jose
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Worst to First
in one semifinal, while Long Beach knocked off Portland in the
other. Long Beach continued to play well as the finals began,
winning the first two games over the powerful Quest. Just when
the championship appeared in the Stingrays’ grasp, the
defending champs from Ohio came roaring back with three
straight wins to repeat as ABL champs.
Teresa Edwards and Natalie Williams once again made the all
league first team, joined this time around by Yolanda Griffith,
Carolyn Jones, and Katie Smith.
As was the case with the 1993-1995 WBA, the ABL ran into
trouble in its third season. Before the 1998-99 season got
started, Atlanta and Long Beach dropped out and were replaced
by the Chicago Condors and the Nashville Noise. As 1998 drew to
a close, the teams had played 14 or 15 games each when on
December 22 the league suspended operations. Among the
reasons for this was $25 million in debts. The demise of the ABL
was in no small measure due to the founding of another pro
league for women, that one being today’s Women’s National
Basketball Association (WNBA).
The WNBA had and continues to have the backing of the long
established Men’s NBA. The financial and promotional resources
that the MNBA offers made it difficult for the ABL to survive for
long. In some ways the ABL/WNBA story is similar to what
happened in collegiate women’s sports in the 1970s, when the
established NCAA gradually took over control from the AIAW. In
both cases, there were at least some trade-offs and

compromises. The separate women’s organizations (ABL and
AIAW) tended to be more “for us, by us” with the “us” being
women. By contrast, the NCAA and WNBA have tended to have
more men in positions of power. On the other hand, the greater
resources of the NCAA and NBA have probably brought about
greater public awareness of women athletes than the AIAW or
ABL could have. Sara Gogol, in a 1999 Z Magazine article,
contends that the triumph of the WNBA over the ABL was not a
very good thing for women’s basketball: “The American
Basketball League (ABL), a more grass roots, democratically run,
feminist inspired venture was recently driven out of business by
the stranglehold big business has over the sports world.” (p. 55)
Clay Kallam, in the online women’s basketball journal Full Court
Press, seems to offer a somewhat different take. While he
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admires the ABL for its idealism, he points out that this idealism
is likely what led to the ABL’s downfall. In any case, the WNBA
has survived and appears to have a successful future ahead of it.
We will turn now to a discussion of the first season of the WNBA,
before the Detroit Shock joined the league.
8




Part 2
WNBA Before the Shock

he Women’s National Basketball Association first tipped
off on June 21, 1997, with eight teams in two
conferences. In the Eastern Conference, there were the
Houston Comets, the New York Liberty, the Charlotte Sting, and
the Cleveland Rockers. The Western Conference consisted of the
Phoenix Mercury, the Los Angeles Sparks, the Sacramento
Monarchs, and the Utah Starzz. While the Starzz may have had
the most interesting nickname, they struggled on the basketball
court and ended up with a league worst 7-21 record.
T
Perhaps not surprisingly, the first ever WNBA game featured
teams from two of the most famous American cities-New York
and Los Angeles. Penny Toler of the Sparks had the honor of
scoring the first points in league history, on an 11 foot jump shot.
A crowd of 14,284 jammed the Los Angeles Forum, where the
Magic Johnson-led Lakers of the Men’s NBA had won several
championships. The attendance set a new record for professional
women’s basketball in the United States. New York posted a 67-
57 victory led by Rebecca Lobo. Los Angeles had their own rising
star in Lisa Leslie. And so, the WNBA was up and running.
Attendance at the other openers was good, as were the
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television ratings for the Los Angeles-New York game.
On June 25, 1997, Sheryl Swoopes of the Houston Comets
gave birth to a son. Just a month later, she was back at practice
with the team, and on August 7 she began to play in games
again. This was definite proof of just how tough and resilient

modern day female athletes can be. And to think that not too long
ago, girls and women were cautioned against playing sports too
intensely!
July 8 saw an extraordinary streak come to an end. Rebecca
Lobo of the New York Liberty had played in 102 straight games in
which her team had won. The string of victories stretched back to
her senior year in college at Connecticut, then ran through her
time with the U.S. National and Olympic team and then to her first
few pro games.
As the season progressed, new attendance records were set.
Phoenix and New York drew 17,780 fans on June 29, and on
August 16 the Charlotte vs. Houston game was seen in person by
18,937. This was the largest crowd ever for professional women’s
basketball in the United States.
Both conference races were close. In the East, Houston
finished with an 18-10 record, just one game ahead of New York.
Charlotte and Cleveland tied for third, and they were only three
games out of first. Phoenix edged Los Angeles by two games in
the West, with Sacramento and Utah bringing up the rear of not
only the Western Conference but also the league.
The top four teams would qualify for the playoffs in the
WNBA’s inaugural season. Since the East had more teams with
better records, three of the four teams in the East made it as
opposed to only one from the West. There would be three playoff
games, two semifinals and the championship game. First round
matchups included Houston vs. Charlotte and New York vs.
Phoenix.
At Houston, the Charlotte Sting led at halftime and had high
hopes of pulling off an upset. It was not to be, as the Houston
Comets stormed back to post a 70-54 win and advance to the

title game. Cynthia Cooper led the way for the Comets, showing
why she had been named the WNBA’s first ever most valuable
player.
Rebecca Lobo and Kym Hampton were the stars of the other
semifinal, in which New York downed Phoenix 59-41. The Liberty
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Worst to First
were aided in winning this game by some dreadful shooting by
the Mercury. Or maybe it was just really good defense on the part
of New York.
And so it would be Houston and New York, the teams with the
two best regular season records, who would meet in the WNBA’s
first championship final. The Liberty had won the first three
games between the teams, but had struggled late in the season
as the Comets took the final regular season meeting. In a one
game playoff, who could say what might happen? Houston coach
Van Chancellor brought up one of the oldest clichés in sports
when he said “Everything that transpired before now you can
throw out the window.” (Lutz, “Comets hope to reverse…” 1997)
As for New York, they seemed most concerned about league MVP
Cooper and what she was capable of doing. Regarding the task of
slowing Cooper down, Rebecca Lobo noted that “We’ll just have
to go and do the best we can. It will have to be a team effort
against her.” (Ibid.)
The Liberty did indeed try their best to hold Cooper in check,
but she still ended up leading the way with 25 points as Houston
beat New York 65-51. In addition to the expected excitement of a
championship game, the Comets drew further inspiration from
injured teammate Wanda Guyton, who suffered a concussion in
the semifinal.

It had been a successful first season for the WNBA, and no
sooner had the season ended than talk of expansion began. On
November 11, 1997, the announcement was made. Detroit and
Washington were granted franchises which would begin play in
1998. The story of the Detroit Shock had begun, although the
nickname would not be revealed until two months later. At that
time, the team’s first head coach would also be introduced. Her
name would be a familiar one to fans of women’s basketball.
11





Part 3
Promising Start With
“Lady Magic”




s a collegiate player, she led Old Dominion University to
back to back national championships, earning All
America honors three times. She competed at the
international level as a member of the United States Pan-
American and Olympic teams. She played professionally in
several different leagues throughout the 1980s and was inducted
into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996. The following season,
she played with the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA’s opening
season. Tennis great Martina Navratilova called her “the Billie

Jean King of women’s basketball.” (Lieberman-Cline, p. x) Her
nickname, “Lady Magic,” very accurately describes the kind of
energy and excitement she brought to the game. These are the
impressive credentials of the first head coach of the Detroit
Shock, Nancy Lieberman-Cline.
A
Lieberman-Cline would be filling many roles for the Shock
besides coaching. These included hiring team personnel, scouting
and drafting players, and promoting the team in the community.
She applied herself to these tasks in the same manner that she
approached playing the game, with lots of hard work and
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determination. Team president Tom Wilson (also president of
Detroit’s entry in the Men’s NBA, the Pistons) had this to say of
the coach: “Because she is one of the most well known women to
ever play the game, she brings us instant name recognition and
credibility, which was important, but not nearly as important as
finding someone we believed could build a winner from the
ground up.” (Sipple, “Shock’s coach…” p. 1D)
The January 13, 1998 Detroit Free Press, from which Wilson’s
quote comes, also carried a full page ad for Shock tickets with
the WNBA slogan “Now, We Get Next!” According to the ad, over
5,000 season tickets had been sold.
One of the promotional efforts undertaken by Lieberman-
Cline and the team was a basketball clinic for girls aged 8-18.
This sort of encouragement of young female athletes is very
important, especially for women like Lieberman-Cline who recall
times when such efforts were very rare. The coach commented to
the youngsters that “This (the Shock) is your team, ladies. I

started out just where you are and basketball changed my life.”
(Siegel, “Female hoop hopefuls…” p. 3B) One of the clinic
attendees, eight year old Nicole Yancy, asserted that “We can be
as good as the boys. We practice just as hard as they do.” (Ibid.) It
is exactly this kind of confidence that has propelled women and
girls to ever greater heights of athletic achievement over the
years, and will continue to do so in the future.
Lieberman-Cline’s assistant coaches also had a wealth of
experience. Greg Williams coached the Dallas Diamonds of the
WABA and also led teams in other women’s pro leagues. Among
the players he coached was none other than Nancy Lieberman
(before the –Cline was added to her name). Williams also had
several years of college coaching under his belt. He would
eventually take over as head coach, but that is getting a bit
ahead of the story.
Sonny Allen coached both men’s and women’s basketball at
the collegiate and pro levels. Chris Collins was a four year letter
winner with the highly successful program at Duke University.
The players that these coaches would lead in the team’s first
season were from diverse backgrounds, including several from
other countries. Korie Hlede’s story is particularly compelling.
Hlede (pronounced Huh-lay-day) grew up with war and poverty in
Croatia. She turned to basketball as an escape from the dreadful
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Worst to First
conditions of her life, and eventually the game became a way to a
better life. Hlede attended Duquesne University where she was
twice named player of the year in the Atlantic 10 conference. The
Shock selected her in the first round of the 1998 WNBA draft,
and what had once been a hard luck life became much brighter

indeed.
Sandy Brondello was one of three Australians on the original
Shock squad. A 1990 graduate of the University of Western
Sydney in the “Land Down Under,” Brondello represented her
nation in several international competitions including the 1996
Olympics and the 1998 world championships.
Carla Porter had been a teammate of Brondello’s on the
1998 Aussie national team, leading the team in scoring and
tallying 26 points in the bronze medal game. Porter also had eight
years of professional experience to her credit.
Rachael Sporn arrived in Detroit already a Hall of Famer,
having been inducted into Australia’s Sporting Hall of Fame in
1996. She was also a member of both the 1996 Olympic team
and the 1998 world championship squad.
From Bulgaria via Florida came Gergana Branzova, all six foot
four of her. She played for the national team in her native land,
then at the American collegiate level for Florida International
University. While at FIU she compiled impressive scoring and
shooting numbers and was named a second team All American.
Standing four inches taller than Branzova was Razija
Mujanovic of Bosnia. Her resume included eleven seasons of pro
basketball in Europe and Brazil. Mujanovic earned “best foreign
player” honors while in Brazil and won multiple MVP awards in
Europe.
The final member of the Shock’s International Brigade was
Aneta Kausaite, who hailed from Lithuania. She represented her
country at the 1997 European championship, and also played
college ball in the United States at Emporia State.
With all these different nationalities, Coach Lieberman-Cline
joked that “We need the U.N. for this team!” (Saylor, “Draft turns

Shock into melting pot” p. 5D) But any concerns about language
barriers and so on were laid to rest as the coaches and players
found common ground in the game they all love to play.
As for domestically grown talent, the Shock had plenty of that
as well. Rhonda Blades had played for the New York Liberty in the
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inaugural WNBA season and was acquired by the Shock in the
expansion draft. She attended Vanderbilt University, playing
basketball and earning a degree in nursing.
Cindy Brown, a 1987 graduate of Long Beach State, brought
eleven years of professional experience in the United States and
overseas to the table. She was an All Star while playing for the
Seattle Reign in the ABL.
Mfon Udoka starred as a collegian at DePaul University, while
DeAngela Minter did the same at the University of Arizona.
Finally, last but most certainly not least, was one of the true
pioneers and all time greats of women’s basketball. Although
somewhat past her prime as a player, Lynette Woodard brought a
great deal of basketball knowledge and prestige to the newly
minted Detroit franchise. She played for Cleveland in the first
WNBA season, was the first woman to play for the legendary
Harlem Globetrotters, and generally proved her excellence at the
college, Olympic, and professional levels.
These were the players who made the final cut for the
opening season roster. Many more gave it a shot, including 351
women who turned out for open tryouts prior to the season.
Among these hopefuls was 41 year old Lydia Johnson, who had
played against Lieberman-Cline (then just Lieberman) in the
1980 Women’s Basketball League. Johnson would not end up

making the Shock, but was nevertheless glad that she and other
women would now have a team of their own.
And so, the roster was set and it was time for the Detroit
Shock to take to the floor and see what they were capable of. The
regular season schedule would consist of 30 games, 15 at the
Palace of Auburn Hills and 15 on the road. The Shock opener was
scheduled for Saturday June 13, at home vs. the Charlotte Sting.
All 22,076 available tickets were sold, but due to weather
problems and a Detroit Red Wings playoff game, actual
attendance was 15,574. All in all, not bad considering that this
was the first ever regular season game for the Shock and that the
Red Wings had a long established following in Detroit.
Razija Mujanovic used her 6 foot 8 height to her advantage,
leading the Shock to an eleven point lead in the opening minutes.
She had to leave the game momentarily due to injury, and the
Sting swung the momentum in their favor. In the end it was
Charlotte 78-Detroit 69, a valiant effort by the newcomers from
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Worst to First
Detroit but not quite enough to beat the more established
opponents. Mujanovic finished with 22 points and 13 rebounds
for the Shock.
Two days later the Cleveland Rockers came a-knockin’ on the
Palace doors. This would end up being a high scoring affair, with
the first half establishing a new record for most combined points
in a half. The teams went to the locker rooms with 53 points
each. Detroit took a one point lead in the second half, but
Cleveland responded and ended up with a 96-85 win. Korie Hlede
and Carla Porter topped the Motor City scoring chart, and Detroit
held an edge in rebounding.

The Shock’s next two games would be against the same
teams as the first two, only at their arenas. First up was a trip to
North Carolina for a rematch with the Charlotte Sting. Charlotte
had trouble stopping Mujanovic in the opener, and were
determined to hold Detroit’s big center in check this time. This
goal was accomplished as Mujanovic was limited to eight points.
Also accomplished was another win for Charlotte, and loss
number three for Detroit. Cleveland would not be any kinder to
the Shock than Carolina, as the Rockers pulled off a narrow two
point win to leave the heartbroken Detroiters still looking for their
first victory.
Their next chance would come one day after the loss at
Cleveland, as they journeyed to the nation’s capital to face the
Washington Mystics. Sandy Brondello and Rachel Sporn got the
Shock off to a great start, and Korie Hlede led the team with 20
points. As the final seconds ticked away and the scoreboard read
“Detroit 70-Washington 57,” the Shock had finally gotten the
monkey off their backs. The always important first win was in the
books, and now it was time to focus on getting some more.
The home crowd at the Palace got their first two tastes of
success as the Shock knocked off Sacramento and Washington.
A road win over Cleveland drew the team even at four wins and
four losses. Hlede and Brondello were the top scorers, while
Cindy Brown emerged as a rebounding force to be reckoned with.
The Shock’s final June game would be back in Auburn Hills,
against the same Charlotte Sting they faced in the opener.
Strong defense helped the Shock to a 31-21 halftime
advantage. Charlotte fought back, and with Hlede struggling on
offense someone else needed to step up. That someone would
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