We're right in the middle of the basketball season. Both Iowa State and the State University of Iowa women's teams are highly-ranked nationally while Drake and the University of Northern Iowa also boast very competitive teams. So let's talk about women's basketball in Iowa. There's really some fascinating history here, some, perhaps, long forgotten and......for the younger folks......not even realized.
While watching the current Hawkeye team play, Molly Davis sees action off the bench for the Hawks and I couldn't help but think of another Molly, Molly (Machine Gun) Bolin, a player who set the state on fire several years ago. And, there were others as well.......Denise Long, Lynne Lorenzen. Anybody remember them? I guess you could say they were forerunners of today's stars like Caitlin Clark at Iowa and Ashley Jones at ISU.
Let's barely touch the astounding basketball careers of this triumvirate group, one by one.
Denise Long Rife became the most widely known girls basketball player in history. Coming out of Whitten, Union-Whitten HS, the 5-11 Long, in closing her high school career, scored 79 points in a consolation game loss to Woodbine in 1969 Iowa state tournament play. That concluded her prep career with a state record 1,986 points for the season and a remarkable 6,250 for her career, nearly 1,450 points more than any player had recorded previously.
Yes, hard to believe, but Denise became the first woman ever drafted by a National Basketball Association (NBA) team. San Francisco Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli picked her in the 13th round of the 1969 NBA draft. However, NBA commissioner Walter Kennedy would have none of it. He vetoed that pick because, at that time, the league did not draft players straight out of high school, nor did they draft any women.
Long then did play for a women's team, in the Warriors Girls Basketball League that the Warriors sponsored for one season. As an aside, Long was selected in that NBA draft BEFORE USC men's star, Mack Calvin, who went in the 14th round to the Los Angeles Lakers. He shunned the NBA and went to the American Basketball Association, instead, where he became a five-time all-star.
Despite her height, Denise was at her best shooting from the deep perimeter (before the 3-pointer became part of the game). In the six-on-six game of that day, she repeatedly scored over 100 points in a single game. Her highly publicized career drew attention from Sports Illustrated, which described her as "all swiftness and grace." The Johnny Carson TV show and the Wall Street Journal publication all took notice. She was offered college scholarships but this was before Title IX and those didn't appeal to her.
After basketball, Denise did earn degrees in physical education, Bible theology and became a Drake pharmacist graduate until retirement.
Monna Lea Van Benthuysen, who became known as "Machine Gun" Molly Bolin, was raised in Moravia. The nickname was tabbed due to her rapid fire shot making ability. At 5-9, she was a high school star from 1978-80.
As a junior, she averaged 50 points per game and boosted that to 54.8 her senior season while setting the school's single game record for most points by one player, 83. At season's end, at age 17, she was selected to participate in tryouts for the 1976 Summer Olympic' women's team and was voted an All-American.
In 1975, Bolin began attending Grand View University and found that an adjustment to the five-player style of play was much different than her six-on-six high school format. She sat out one year for marriage and had a child. She returned to the court in 1978, set university scoring records, averaging 24.6 points per game and earned a degree in telecommunications.
Molly entered professional play, becoming the first player to sign to the newly-formed Women's Professional Basketball League, when she signed a one year contract with the Iowa Cornets for $6,000. The newly formed league realized her scoring ability but also took advantage of her blondish good looks and she appeared in several photo shoots, features in Sports Illustrated and Sports World and commercials with Larry Bird and other NBA stars. She was affectionately dubbed, "the Blonde Bombshell" in an effort to spur more notice for the new league.
Bolin averaged 16.7 points per game and the Cornets advanced to the league championship game. During the 1979-80 season, she set 12 WBL records, including most points scored in a single game, 55, and the highest single season scoring average, 32.8. She was also named co-MVP of the league along with Ann Meyers of UCLA who became a participant on U.S. teams that played in the Pam Am games and the Olympic games.
The WBL had financial problems, faced long road trips and low pay so Bolin joined the Ladies Professional Basketball Association, a southwestern based league. However, that league disbanded and, as a free agent, she signed with the San Francisco Pioneers. She finished the 1980-81 season second in the league in scoring, 26.8, and and competed in her third all-star game.
Her final season was 1984 when she played with the Columbus Minks of the short-lived Women's American Basketball Association.
On February 16, 1987, Ventura's Lynne Lorenzen became the state and national career scoring leader in girls basketball, breaking the record held by Denise Long. Lorenzen scored 54 points in an 87-51 sectional tournament victory over Meservey-Thornton to run her career total to 6,266. Long's previous record was 6,250. That game had been moved from its original site to the larger gym at Mason City because of the huge fan and media interest, even nationally, in pursuit of this national record.
A month later, Lynne capped her career by scoring 59 points to lead Ventura to the six-player state championship with a 90-69 victory over Southeast Polk. That lifted her career total to 6,736 points, a record that remains unbroken. In that game, she made 28 of 32 shots and added the assist on 14 of her teams other 15 field goals. Ventura finished with a perfect 31-0 record.
In 1987, Lorenzen, who had scored 100 points in a game in 1986, was named to seven national All-America teams and was named Miss Iowa Basketball.
At Iowa State University, Lynne played under scholarship from 1987-91, toured then Czechoslovakia as part of the Big Eight select team and led the Cyclones in scoring her senior season. Married, her family lives near Coos Bay, Ore.
A big part of the story of Lorenzen, as well as Long and Bolin, was the tremendous national exposure their feats resulted in. In Lynn's case, Ventura gymnasium became a standing-room only event, occupied by numerous national television crews. The sidelines full of television cameras and crews became standard fare and there were autograph seekers in abundance.
And to just think, these three Iowa women's basketball icons came from what many consider the "best of Iowa"......our small communities, Whitten, population 100, Moravia 642 and Ventura 701.
Their stories remain amazing thanks to the three players who authored them and to the fans who still remember them these many years later.
P.S. In case you wondered, the final Iowa six-on-six girls basketball championship game closed the 1984-85 season. After that, for a period of time, measures were taken to ease the schools from six-on-six to the five player game. All schools in Iowa were required to play the five player version only after conclusion of the 1993-94 season.
K-----K
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