Today, it’s episode seven of our basketball podcast, Bounce. It's our second season and it's all about the Golden State Valkyries' first year in the Bay.
While the WNBA is having a real heyday, they aren’t the first women’s basketball league to sweep the nation. And as beloved as the Valks are fast becoming, they’re following in the footsteps of another team… the San Francisco Pioneers.
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Intro:
HOST ERIN LIM: Well, we tried to avoid this story but we just can’t here at Bounce. Dildo gate has landed…
Like a neon green sex toy tossed onto the basketball court. It happened while the Golden State Valkyries were playing an intense game against the Atlanta Dream.
ANNOUNCER: ...Something flies on the court. I think there was something that flew from a fan onto the court. Ceci fires a three that's short out of bounds and Salaun saying that there was something on the court. Chaos, absolute chaos. Things flying everywhere. People getting blocked. Ceci thinking she got fouled on that three. It's still tied at 75 Jacob, and we got the object off the floor…
ERIN: Since I watch every game, the moment this happened, my husband and I had to rewind to make sure we were watching the same thing.
That couldn’t be what we thought it was. Could it? Yep, it was a dildo just laying there, on its side, flaccid by the feet of officials and players. What the WHAT?! This is BONKERS.
Valkyries players Ceci Zandalisini and Tip Hayes had a little something to say about the incident after the game.
REPORTER: Did you guys notice when something was thrown on the court? Like, what was, what happens like when something like that happens that like super distracting?
ZANDALINSINI: I mean, first of all, it was super dangerous and then we find out what it was. Uh. I guess we just started laughing. Never seen anything like that, but yeah, I'm just glad we got through that. Even with that situation, we stayed up again. We say concentrate, we gotta stop on the other end. So it was big.
REPORTER: Do you know what it was?
HAYES: Yeah. One of our players almost got hit with it, so that's very dangerous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We persevered.
ERIN: Turned out, this wasn’t the last we’d see of the green dildo. No m’aam. Another one was thrown at the Valkyries game against the Chicago Sky. Ultimately, dildos rained down from the stands at more than half a dozen WNBA games. Obviously there was something more to this pop-culture phenomenon. What is going on here?
What I thought was subversive commentary about sex... and queerness… and that intersection with the W… was the total opposite. It turns out that the stunts were tied to a crypto group marketing their product. Children. Please.
So not the cool artsy story I imagined at all. But enough of that. It's the home stretch of the season, and playoff vibes have arrived. The valks are in the mix for the final spot. So let's go!
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The Valks aren’t the first professional basketball team around here. The Sacramento Monarchs helped launch the WNBA in 1997, and won a championship in 2005. But they folded a few years later.
Before them, in 1996 the San Jose Lasers were a founding team in the short-lived American Basketball League.
But the very first were the San Francisco Pioneers. They were part of the first women’s professional basketball league, which was called the Women’s Professional Basketball League.
Today we’re sharing the story of the Pioneers. It'll be told by reporter Maya Goldberg-Safir who writes about women’s hoops in the substack Rough Notes. Settle in. This is a good one…
Story Transcript: Reuniting the Women of the Pioneers
REPORTER: It’s a Monday morning at Chase Center, and I’m standing with a group of women in the media room.
CARDTE HICKS: When I finally woke up, I was like, ‘I’m still here.’
REPORTER: Over 40 years ago, these women played basketball together.
HICKS: I’m here, I’m gonna see my girls, I’m gonna see them again! You know, it’s a blessing.
REPORTER: And even today they’re full of energy, talking about their days on the court.
HICKS: So the defense would say, ‘get out of the way, get out of the way, let her go!’ But that’s how she was, that’s my Anna.
REPORTER: That’s Cardte Hicks describing her former teammate, Anna Johnson. Both look like basketball coaches, which they are. Cardte’s even wearing a matching Adidas set and a customized lanyard around her neck. These two have known each other since they were teens, playing basketball in Los Angeles in the 1970s.
HICKS: And so when she’d drive to the hole, they opened the lane. Because she ain’t gone stop.
REPORTER: The reason that Anna, Cardte, and the others are here this morning is that they’ve been invited to the Valkyries shoot around. When we enter the gym, another former teammate, Roberta Williams, is giddy seeing a current player.
ROBERTA WILLIAMS: I just waved to Tiffany Hayes and they waved back, you know?
REPORTER: The women join a big circle in the middle of the arena alongside the Valkyries’ players and coaching staff. They start introducing themselves one by one.
ANITA ORTEGA: I’m Anita Ortega.
ANNA JOHNSON: I’m Anna Johnson. I’m a Bay Area kid.
WILLIAMS: I’m Roberta Williams, better known as Bert.
REPORTER: It’s a special moment. These women were all part of the first pro women’s league in the US: the Women’s Professional Basketball League (or WBL).
GERRY BOOKER: Gerry Booker, I was blessed to play in the first inaugural game in the WBL, December ‘78!
REPORTER: And at some point between 1979 and 1981, each of these women played right here in the Bay Area, for a franchise aptly called the San Francisco Pioneers.
BOOKER: And I was traded here to the San Francisco Pioneers in 1980.
REPORTER: For two short seasons, the Pioneers competed in San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium and in arenas across the country.
WILLIAMS: I played for the Pioneers in 1980, I’m all the way from the dirty South, South Carolina State University. HBCU in the house! And I made it all the way here.
REPORTER: Today is the first time since the WBL folded in 1981 that the women of the Pioneers are returning to the Bay together.
WILLIAMS: And listen, I love the Valkyries, okay!
REPORTER: After introductions, the Valkyries invite the Pioneers into their final huddle.
Sounds from the huddle.
REPORTER: And it’s beautiful, having all the generations together. There is a deeper story here. About what the Pioneers went through, about revisiting the past, and about why women’s basketball history still matters.
Sounds from the huddle.
REPORTER: I’ve been reporting on the San Francisco Pioneers for nearly a year now. It started when I cold emailed one of the former players, and she connected me to Anna Johnson. Anna also grew up in Oakland. Back in 1980, she was kind of a local tour guide for her teammates.
JOHNSON: You know, if they wanted good things like, uh, BBQ, Mrs. Field’s cookies: Oakland. Come to the town! I’m like, ‘let’s go.’
REPORTER: When Anna walked on to the Pioneers original team in 1979, she became the first pro women’s basketball player from the Bay. It’s something only Anna’s family and friends knew until she agreed to let me share her story. And that caught the Valkyries attention.
MC ARI: Let me tell you again, she’s right here from the Bay.
REPORTER: Before the first regular season home game in Ballhalla, they honored Anna by having her bang the big GSV drum before tip off.
MC ARI: Tonight, we are proud to recognize Anna Johnson!
REPORTER: Anna and I started working on tracking down her teammates for the reunion, which is how I got in touch with the rest of the players, like Cardte Hicks. Here’s us taking a walk by the Bay.
REPORTER IN FIELD: Alright, let’s go cross over there.
REPORTER: Crossing the street to Bayside Park by Chase Center.
REPORTER IN FIELD: Look, it says “The Bay.”
REPORTER: Where we take a seat, and start talking basketball.
HICKS: I mean I could still see it, going backdoor, holding it up high, and if I don’t get it, I slap the backboard and put it back in.
REPORTER: Cardte was so dominant in the late 1970s, Pioneers owner Marshall Geller actually sent scouts to San Pedro California, to the park by her house, to recruit her.
HICKS: He had heard from someone else about, you gotta see this girl, she is ballin’ at Pecks Park. They couldn’t believe how high I could jump, how I could play defense, shooting ability, how I was shaking them.
REPORTER: And soon, Cardte became the first player to sign with the Pioneers.
HICKS: And my mom asked me, well is this what you wanna do? And I said yes, it’s my dream. And she said well do it! Do it.
REPORTER: On that original Pioneers team, Cardte was close to everyone, especially a core group of starters, like dynamic scorer Anita Ortega, fresh out of UCLA.
HICKS: Oh my god, Anita could pass, Anita could shoot. If you didn’t see her play at UCLA, you missed a lot! She was devastating. Her and Ann Meyers, please.
REPORTER: Ann Meyers is probably the most famous women’s basketball player from that generation.
1978 BROADCASTER: This is Pauley Pavilion, on the campus of UCLA where today they will decide the Women’s intercollegiate basketball championship.
REPORTER: But it was Anita who outscored everybody at that 1978 national championship game. And that was just the start.
BEN TREFNY: Out of Los Angeles, she was a national champion with the UCLA Bruins and the Pioneers leading scorer during their inaugural season, in addition to being named to the WBL All Star and All Pro Teams. At Guard, it’s #11, Anita ‘Thoroughbred’ Ortega!
REPORTER: This tape comes from a live event at KALW, where Bounce podcast house Erin Lim & I interviewed Anita, and three of her teammates.
TREFNY: At forward, #25: Anna ‘AJ’ Johnson! At center, #22: Jan Ternyik! At forward, #51, Gerry ‘Book’ Booker! Welcome! Your San Francisco Pioneers!
REPORTER: That night, in front of a live audience, all of us chopped it up, listening to the Pioneers stories of falling in love with basketball. Like most of her teammates, Anita Ortega started playing before Title IX, when girls were often discouraged from getting on the court.
ORTEGA: And I was intrigued, in junior high school I used to watch the guys play and I was like, “I wouldn’t mind trying that out.” But before I could play I had to convince my parents that it was okay for girls to play sports. “Aren’t you supposed to be sewing, knitting, crocheting?” I was like “no, I want to play basketball.”
REPORTER: Before the early 1970’s, if you wanted to play five on five, full court basketball, you likely had to play with the guys.
ORTEGA: So I would continue to hang out with these guys at this park, I was the only female, in fact I thought was the only woman in the world who played basketball.
REPORTER: Because for decades, most girls were taught a more restrictive form of the game, just for women, called rover ball. Here’s Jan Ternyik, remembering those times.
JAN TERNYIK: And I too started out with this six player women’s ball, where you could only go half court, they thought the tall girls had to stay back because we didn’t have the stamina to run baseline to baseline.
REPORTER: The women of the Pioneers were part of the first generation that were really taught basketball as we know it, starting in high school.
TERNYIK: My coach had me rebound against her 6’4” husband and said, anything goes, bite him, scratch him, anything. So it developed this tenacity in me.
REPORTER: When the first pro women’s basketball league in the U.S. began in 1978, few thought it would last. But players like Anita Ortega were willing to give it a shot.
ORTEGA: I was like, I was in heaven. I was like, “I don’t have to get a real job, I can get paid to play basketball? Sign me up!”
REPORTER: The thing was, this meant signing up for a dream… that was flawed. Where women got paid very little, without much support and often with poor facilities.
ORTEGA: There was no airline ticket, there was no accommodations, nothing! You had to, you had to figure it out your own self.
REPORTER: Going pro was on the one hand an amazing opportunity, and on the other, it was layered with hardship.
Music.
REPORTER: To really understand the Pioneers’ experiences, we should talk about the origin of their league, the WBL. It was started by a slick-talking salesman from Ohio named Bill Byrne.
BROADCASTER: Bill I’d like to get a reading from you: what are your impressions of the WBL, and how are things going, are things progressing?
BILL BYRNE: Well I’ll tell you we’re about 25% ahead of what we expected and so to answer your question, quite well, and it will get bigger.
REPORTER: When the WBL began, Bill went on a publicity spree, flying to games in different cities to do a series of televised interviews. A big question was whether the league would actually be financially viable.
Bill had to convince a number of businessmen across the country to take a chance on owning a women’s team: an insurance agent in Dayton, Ohio, a tax attorney in Los Angeles, and a former tennis pro in Houston, all intrigued by enticing revenue projections and low franchise fees.
BYRNE: But what we’re really doing at this point is talking to people, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Seattle, Portland, New Orleans and out of those cities we’re dealing with is add four expansion clubs. I might add that Boston has already been sold for the 1979-80 season.
REPORTER: But while the league grew quickly, owners varied wildly in their approaches, and their ability to actually pay players.
In Portland, Maine, women from the New England Gulls could not afford meals, and a local waitress felt so bad for them she invited them over to her house for sandwiches. In Washington D.C., the Metros played for months without being paid, and practiced on an outdoor tennis court in winter.
BROADCASTER: One of the things I’d like to ask you: two teams have dropped out, did you expand too soon, as far as 8 from last year to 14 this year.
BYRNE: I don’t think we expanded too soon, there’s plenty of talent to supply the teams but we have to be very careful in the people we select to come in the league on the finance side.
REPORTER: Even in San Francisco, which had one of the most reliable ownership groups, most players didn’t make enough money to pay for their own apartments. But at least their checks didn’t bounce. And primary owner Marshall Geller, an investment banker, could fund Pioneers' travel across the country.
Plus, the team was proud to play in San Francisco. It was a city full of adventure. Here’s Cardte Hicks again, out by the bay, remembering those times.
HICKS: My hang out was Castro Street, I used to love going to Castro Street, you can bet money all the time that that music would be loud, you’d be shaking it when you get out of your car, that bump bump, you feeling it wherever you are, you can’t stop moving.
REPORTER: But the Pioneers weren’t just hanging out. These were professional ballers. They practiced for hours at a gym in Potrero Hill under the guidance of head coach Frank Laporte.
HICKS: Girl we got so tired, I’ll tell you, he wanted us to run another line, and I went straight out and ran to my car. I said “hell no.” They started running to free-throw and back, I was gone.
REPORTER: And the team had thousands of fans supporting them at San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium, where they’d run out in warmups striped with yellow and blue.
HICKS: Oh yeah girl, it made us feel good, we felt special. Coming out in our uniforms, the way we were. I had a big old afro, shoot, girl.
REPORTER: That first season, the Pioneers made a playoff run, losing in the semi finals to the New York Stars. Anita Ortega was a leader, on and off the court.
HICKS: For us it was Anita Ortega, we always had a lot of respect for her. And she’d go over and say, you did good, just a little bit more effort.
REPORTER: Going into the second season, as she told the live KALW audience, Anita had even higher hopes. And that included her salary.
ORTEGA: I heard rumors through the league that there were women making far more than what I was making. My first year I made 15K.
REPORTER: While the average salary in the WBL was around $10,000, some superstars made more, like Nancy Lieberman, who received 65K up front. The top contract ever signed went to Ann Meyers, Anita’s teammate at UCLA, for $145,000. Both Nancy and Ann are white. Anita is Black and Puerto Rican. And even though she was a star in her own right, her salary didn’t compare.
ORTEGA: I felt that I had really worked hard and actually deserved a better contract. And I’m a person of principle. I believe that if you work hard, you should get what you deserve, right, and I thought that we should be paid fairly, treated fairly.
REPORTER: As one unnamed player told Ebony Magazine in 1980: This is a White girls’ league, and it’s run by White men… Owners feel that because pro women’s basketball is a new product, they can’t afford to have it dominated by the Black girls, and that’s why they’re trying to play up the White stars.” Meanwhile, Anita brought her concerns to the Pioneers.
ORTEGA: Well that created tension in the front office.
REPORTER: At that very same time, the Pioneers second season was getting tumultuous. Owner Marshall Geller actually fired coach Frank Laporte, and that’s when things came to a head for Anita.
ORTEGA: So I want to say January of the second season and honestly, I don’t even know how I found out I got traded. I have no idea, I don’t know if it was a phone call, or if someone said it.
REPORTER: She was being traded to the Minnesota Fillies. And it hurt. Not just Anita, but the rest of the team.
HICKS: I went to practice and said, “where’s Anita at!”
REPORTER: Again, Cardte Hicks.
HICKS: I wanted to quit. It was so devastating for us.
GOLDBERG-SAFIR: When was the next time you talked to her?
HICKS: It was a long time until I talked to her again. I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I was so upset. I didn’t have her number or anything like that.
REPORTER: After Anita Ortega was traded, the Pioneers ended up recalibrating, signing another star from the league, Molly Bolin out of Iowa, on a big contract. They won seven of their last eight games. The team was finally surging. But Anita was discovering how much of the WBL, outside of San Francisco, was falling apart. In Minnesota, she and her teammates - slash roommates - weren’t getting paid.
ORTEGA: We stayed in a two bedroom apartment for the few months that I was there and we were struggling. We were making rice, just to survive. And I realized at that point, the league was really in bad shape, that’s when it really dawned on me.
REPORTER: That’s when Anita and her teammates decided to take matters into their own hands.
ORTEGA: The final game we were going to play Chicago. And we decided before the game that we were not going play. We’d been asking for some kind of payment, and we were being totally ignored and treated like less than human. And the referees were there, they go up, getting ready to toss the ball, but there are no players there. And we ended up walking out of the arena, and the owner said, “come back and play.” The coach said, “come back and play!” But that was it. The end of my WBL career. In fact, I don’t even know if I had enough money. I had to call my mom and dad to get a one-way ticket back to LA.
REPORTER: Back in the Bay, the end was coming, too. Despite the franchise being stable enough, the team folded alongside the WBL in the summer of 1981. Cardte Hicks says it was devastating.
HICKS: It was the best feeling in my life to know we were gonna go play pro. I just never thought it would end the way it had.
REPORTER: All of this hits on a theme that keeps coming up throughout my reporting on the Pioneers. The WBL was the first viable pro women’s league, and its existence was the first triumph of its kind. But it also contained the first heartbreaks. There are so many stories, just like this, lurking beneath the surface of these trailblazing women’s memories.
REPORTER: On July 14th, 2025, over 40 years after they last played together, the San Francisco Pioneers were honored in Ballhalla. 18,000 FANS rose for a standing ovation.
PA ANNOUNCER: and San Francisco Pioneers!
REPORTER: For 27 seconds, the jumbotron showed nine Pioneers waving from their seats. But what happened earlier, when those players from the WBL met the Valkyries at practice, perhaps mattered even more.
NATALIE NAKASE: Yeah, it’s huge, because they were the first.
REPORTER: Valkyries head coach, Natalie Nakase.
NAKASE: So, for them, going through the struggles of being the first, trying to hold a statement of what women’s basketball should look like, what I saw was a lot of energy, a lot of confident women and I saw a lot of women for what we’ve created so far, but we’re only here because of them.
REPORTER: The Valks actually lost the game that night. It came down to the wire, decided by a free throw at the end. Afterwards, players Tiffany Hayes and Veronica Burton faced the press corps, hammered by questions, looking kind of down. Until they were asked about meeting the Pioneers - that’s when Tip immediately lit up.
TIFFANY HAYES: I mean I think it’s pretty cool that they honored them, it’s definitely something that we cherish because I mean one day that’s gonna be us and I think for them to lay the foundation that they laid for us to be here today is a special thing, so we got to spend some time with them today and got to hear their stories, so that was dope, that was a highlight for today.
REPORTER: Stories about women’s basketball are never uncomplicated. That’s what makes the Pioneers’ experience so powerful: their dualities of accomplishment and of defeat, of solidarity and of unequal treatment between players. This reality is embedded into women’s basketball’s DNA. Which means the San Francisco Pioneers are not a team of the past. Hearing their stories helps Bay Area women’s basketball fans make history present … right now.