March Madness--Not Just for Guys

By Patricia Michaelis, for Hers Kansas

"March madness" generally refers to all of the excitement surrounding the men's NCAA basketball tournament but in recent years it could also apply to women's basketball in Kansas. The women's team at Kansas State University is among the top programs in the country. The Kansas State High School Activities Association has held girls' state basketball tournaments since 1973 and Kansans are among the record holders in women's college basketball. Jackie Stiles from Claflin and Lynette Woodard from Wichita North hold several state high school tournament records for their class of schools including the most individual points scored in one game and the most individual points scored in one tournament. Jackie has the NCAA record for the most points scored during her college career--3,393--at Southwest Missouri State University. Jackie also has NCAA records for the most field goals, the most 3-point shots, and the most free throws. Amazingly, Lynette Woodard is also the college career points leader.

Her record of 3,649 points is from the time period when women's college athletics were under the auspices of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. This point total was accomplished before the 3-point shot was instituted.

Many younger women probably believe that girls could not participate in school sports prior to the passage of Title IX-legislation passed in 1972 that banned sex discrimination in schools in academics and athletics. Title IX has had a significant impact on high school and college athletics and it still is controversial.

However, women's basketball in Kansas has a much longer but also obscure history. A number of years ago, a neighbor showed me a picture of her girls' basketball team from 1908. Ever since then I have wondered why girls' basketball disappeared except for intramural and gym class games. This article has given me an excuse to pursue this "mystery." So far, my research has raised more questions than answers but I have learned that women's/girls' basketball existed in Kansas in the early 1900s.

Washburn University's girls' basketball team won the Kansas women's championship on January 29, 1904, defeating Haskell Institute 26 to 16. The game was played at the Y.W.C.A. gymnasium. In 1905, the Washburn girls' basketball won seven games and lost one to the State Normal School at Emporia (now Emporia State University). They played Baker University, Haskell, Campbell College, and the Y.W.C.A., in addition to the Normal School. The Washburn yearbook for 1905 identified the team members as Miss Burdge, Miss Markham, Miss Wood, Miss Payne, and Miss Heiddleston.

The first statewide championship for high school boys' basketball was an invitational tournament at Kansas University, beginning in 1908. In 1909, this tournament included four girls' teams and the winning team was Beloit High School, defeating Chanute 15 to 8. The March 18, 1909 Lawrence Daily Journal-World stated that the purpose of the tournament was to attract "the High school people to Lawrence and to show them what kind of a school Kansas University is." The Beloit Daily Call described the team's return as follows: "THE CONQUERING HEROINES CAME: B.H.S. Girls' Basket Ball Team Met at Trains by Band, and About 1,000 Citizens . . . Probably the largest demonstration and ovation ever given an athletic body in Beloit was the one accorded to the girls' basket ball team of the Beloit High school last night when the team returned home from Lawrence, bringing with it the large silver loving cup, emblematic of the championship of the state of Kansas in that class of athletics."

Chanute won the girls' tournament at Lawrence in 1910 by defeating Reno County High School from Nickerson 28 to 15. Six schools participated in the girls' bracket. Information on girls' teams winning the state basketball tournaments is available sporadically through the early 1920s. Numerous photos of girl's teams can be found, including some from Topeka High School, but it is much harder to find information on participants and records.

The Topeka Daily Capital on January 21, 1922, wrote that the Kansas High School Athletics Association, organized in 1910, voted to eliminate girl's basketball from all district and state tournaments. An article in the September 1928 issue of the Kansas State High School Athletics Association (predecessor to the Kansas State High School Activities Association) Bulletin indicated that the elimination of girls basketball was at the request of the Association of the Deans of Women in high schools and colleges, but the reason for that request was not offered. Over the next few years, the high school association did develop a program for girls sports called the Girls Athletic Association.

So, my research still hasn't solved the "mystery" of why girls' inter-school basketball teams disappeared, but at least we can document that girls' teams existed in Kansas in the first decades after the game was invented and brought to the state by James Naismith.