Ann Meyers Drysdale’s legacy: A basketball trailblazer driven by competition

Ann Meyers Drysdale still remembers making her way to Hinkle Fieldhouse at Butler University. The car consisted of Drysdale and three male basketball players.

This wasn’t an ordinary car ride. Drysdale felt intimidated. This was new territory for the young American.

The Indiana Pacers were holding three-day tryouts to fill roster spots. Drysdale made history simply with her presence, as she was the first woman chosen to participate in tryouts for an NBA team. In 1979, she signed a $50,000, no-cut contract (an agreement that allows for opportunities within the organization for a specified period of time) with the Pacers — another first for a woman.

Drysdale believed she belonged, that she could make the team. When the Pacers informed Drysdale she didn’t make the final roster, she was upset.

As she reminisces more than 40 years later about what happened, Drysdale isn’t one to gloat about accomplishments. She doesn’t like the attention. Drysdale does, however, recognize her place in women’s basketball. She was the first player to make the U.S. national team while still in high school. She was a gold medalist at the 1975 Pan American Games and the 1979 FIBA World Championship, and she helped Team USA win silver at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Drysdale attended UCLA and became the first American woman with a four-year athletic scholarship.

Off the court, Drysdale is an accomplished broadcaster, calling the WNBA, NBA and Olympics as a color analyst. She served as the general manager of the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury before becoming vice president, a role she still holds.

Ann Meyers Drysdale speaking during a July rally supporting the release of Brittney Griner, who was detained in Russia for nearly 10 months. (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)

The success of today’s mainstays in American women’s basketball — Dawn Staley, Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, A’ja Wilson — was made possible by the pioneers who came before them. Chief among those trailblazers is Drysdale.

“Doors opened for a reason for me,” Drysdale said. “I’ve been in the right place at the right time.”

Drysdale grew up in a sports family. Her father, Bob, was a shooting guard at Marquette before playing professionally for the Milwaukee Shooting Stars, an independent team from the 1940s. Sports was the language that bonded Bob, his wife, Patricia, and their 11 children.

Drysdale was the sixth child born into the family, often going to her siblings’ sports competitions and sitting around the TV to watch the Olympics. She recalls watching track and field champions Wilma Rudolph and Wyomia Tyus, and reading a book in fourth grade on multi-sport athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Drysdale’s dream was to become an Olympian like them.

“Those were the first days of TV and showing the Olympics,” Drysdale said. “The only women who really were shown as athletes were the Olympians.”

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