Girls Six-on-Six Basketball in Iowa

A unique game once graced the basketball courts of Iowa's high schools. It was played by ordinary girls, some of whom became extraordinary athletes. It captured the hearts of an entire state. The game was girls' six-on-six basketball, and it was experienced in Iowa like nowhere else in the country. Six-on-six basketball became one of the most acclaimed sports in Iowa history-proving it was more than okay to “play like a girl.”

The Basics

Basketball has been around since 1892. Invented for boys by Dr. James Naismith at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, it was quickly adapted for girls. Young women were playing the game in Iowa by the early 1900s. Rules evolved and in 1934, girls started playing a two-court, six-on-six game that put three forwards and three guards on each side of a center line neither were allowed to cross.

Six-Player Rules

The rules:

  • Players were allowed two dribbles.
  • No tieups outside of the lane.
  • The court was split in half, like a pair of three-on-three games.
  • No crossing the center-court line. After made baskets, a referee would bring the ball up the floor and inbound it to a forward at midcourt.

Some courts were not regulation size and were so small the circles on the floor overlapped. The out-of-bounds area was where the crowd sat and the were smack up against the wall, making it very difficult and dangerous for players to drive to the basket. For example in the 1950s, Tingley’s basketball squad often was referred to as the “Tingley tourists” because it's basketball floor was so tiny the team never played a “home” game at home. Instead, it always played on the opposing team’s floor.

Why not the full-court, five-player game the boys played? Early on, the boys' game was considered just too strenuous for the so-called "weaker sex."

A Community Event

The distinctive thing about girls’ basketball was where it flourished—small town Iowa. It was there that young women became queens of the court, where communities rallied behind their daughters, and where school leaders, mostly male, fought for girls’ equality. Eventually, girls from big cities would play the game. But decades before Title IX brought six-on-six to Des Moines and Fort Dodge, the spotlight was on teams from rural Iowa like Garnavillo and Wiota, Gladbrook and Wellsburg. Towns like these were the soul of six-on-six.

Players who came from farm families remember game days when their parents took over the chores to keep their girls fresh for competition. Mom and dad milked the cows and then the whole family would head in for the game together. They often practiced in old corn cribs or barn haylofts at hoops their fathers would mount.

I have a lot of fond memories of six-on-six. Some of them are on the farm with my dad. We would be playing and he would be guarding me. Of course, being the farmer that he was, he'd use cattle calls to try to disrupt my attention.
-Jeanette (Olson) Lietz, Everly H.S. (1964 - 1968)

The Formation of the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union

In 1925, Iowa State Teachers’ Convention held at the Central Presbyterian Church in Des Moines. The annual meeting of superintendents and principals decided that competitive sports before paying crowds was good only for boys activities in Iowa, but not for girls. Girls basketball would no longer be a state-sponsored interscholastic activity.

When this decision threatened girls' basketball, a group of school administrators, all men and mostly from small schools, stood up for the Iowa girl. They broke away from the boys' association and formed the Iowa Girls' High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU).

A four-man committee representing the northeast, northwest, southwest and southeast sections of the state oversaw the IGHSAU in its early stages. The four-man committee rotated as the IGHSAU’s part time secretary until 1947 when Rod Chisholm of Exira was employed as the organization’s first full-time executive secretary.

When E. Wayne Cooley became executive secretary of the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union in 1954, he turned what was already a solid one-of-a-kind organization into a national leader by creating an atmosphere of excitement around the state championships for girls basketball.

The genius of Wayne Cooley, he couldn't guarantee a great basketball game. He couldn't guarantee that this favorite team would be in the finals—they may get bumped off—but he could guarantee a good time. This is a celebration. Wayne Cooley and his staff are saying a celebration of women's basketball, come on down and experience it.
-Mike Newell, play-by-play reporter

For decades, six-on-six was the breadwinner for the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union. In 1975, girls’ basketball brought in nearly 80 percent of the union’s total gross income. A few years later, the sport made enough revenue to support fifteen others.

When E. Wayne Cooley retired in 2002, Troy Dannen would take his place as executive director of the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union.

The “Big Show”: State Championships

Without a doubt, the crown jewel of the Union was the annual girls’ state basketball tournament. While always a favorite pastime of Iowans, under Cooley’s reign, the finals became not only a night of basketball, but a really good show. Players and fans alike relished the fanfare, from the flashy half-time shows to the pride-filled Parade of Champions. The week in Des Moines for the state tournament was packed with festivities in honor of the young female athletes.

When a school earned a spot at state, the whole community came come along for the wild ride. The towns were empty during the week of competition. Afterwards, every team was treated to a homecoming fit for royalty, whether they won the championship, or were eliminated in the first round.

The state tournament was held at the Drake Fieldhouse until 1955. In 1955, the girls' basketball tournament moved to Veterans Memorial Auditorium, affectionately known as “The Barn”.

Out of several hundred teams statewide, just 16 made the trek to the state tournament in Des Moines. Before classification based on school size came along in the 1990s, there was only one championship game.

In the News

The popularity of six-on-six was aided by the Des Moines Register and the Des Moines Tribune. Practically from the birth of the girls’ game, reporter Jack North promoted basketball. He established his own all-state selections and followed the careers of players with great enthusiasm.

Not all reporters were as big a fan as Jack North. Beginning in 1965, Donald Kaul frequently poked fun at the six-player game in his “Over the Coffee” column for the Des Moines Register. His job was to be controversial and what better way than to mock Iowa’s beloved game? He thought six-on-six was slow and often made comments like, “watching a girls’ game is like watching paint dry” or “Why do Iowans like watching girls’ basketball? Because it feels so good when they stop.”

Regardless of what Kaul wrote, for decades, more favorable media eyes were on Iowa and girls’ six-on-six. Making the trip to Des Moines were CBS, ESPN, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, and Sports Illustrated. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the six-on-six finals were drawing an estimated five million viewers in nine Midwestern states.

The End of an Era

In the small schools, girls played on equal terms with boys. But when it came to the big schools, girls weren’t so lucky. For decades, young women in Iowa’s urban areas had watched with envy as their small town counterparts were literally having a ball. Title IX would change that. In 1972, Congress passed Title IX, legislation requiring equal treatment for women and men in schools. It took awhile for the ruling to be applied to sports, but finally in 1975, girls everywhere were allowed to participate in athletics.

Ironically, Title IX would ultimately bring about the demise of six-on-six basketball in Iowa. In 1983, three high school girls filed a lawsuit against the girls’ athletic union claiming the girls’ six-on-six was not equal to the boys’ five-on-five game.

In what many consider an ingenious move, the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union and its board of directors decided to offer both options, allowing schools to decide which game their female athletes would play. In 1985, the first five-on-five state championship was held, along with a separate tournament for the six-player games.

For a few seasons, six-on-six girls’ basketball continued strong while the five-player game was played to smaller crowds. Eventually though, there began to be a shift. More schools were choosing five-on-five, as girls felt their chances for playing college ball would be greater. Finally in 1993, the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union voted unanimously to end six-on-six once and for all.

Iowa can be proud of its girls' basketball tradition. After all, no other state can boast that for over a century, young women have had the opportunity to play the game. Six-on-six was a significant part of this history. Its legacy began in rural Iowa, where the young women who played it and the small-town communities that loved it were part of an experience that may never again be replicated in any sport, by either gender.

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