Iowa Girls 6-on-6 Basketball State Tournament Highlights: The Championship Game of 1968

Perhaps more than any other, the championship game of 1968 might have solidified the popularity of six-on-six basketball in Iowa. This segment from Iowa PBS’s More Than a Game: 6-on-6 Basketball in Iowa documentary includes interviews from a reporter and players at the game.

Announcer: a sellout crowd of 15,000 is on hand to watch the two top teams in Iowa girls' basketball battle it out for the state championship. And what a battle it promises to be. They're calling it the dream game.
 
Narrator: Perhaps more than any other, the championship game of 1968 might have solidified the popularity of six-on-six.
 
Mike Newell, Play-by-Play Reporter: Everybody, and I mean everybody, remembers the 1968 game: Jeanette Olson, the Everly Cattlefeeders; and Denise Long, Union-Whitten. Nobody forgets that. I did that on radio. You knew at the time that history was being made. Denise long was a junior, averaging so many points, you didn't have a piece of paper large enough to write down the number. Olson right behind her.
 
Jeanette (Olson) Lietz, Everly H.S. (1964 - 1968): It was filled with excitement. Of course we thought we could win.
 
Denise (Long) Rife Union-Whitten H.S., 1965-1969: More than any other game that I ever played, I never, ever got relaxed.
 
Announcer: There's Denise Long one-on-one with Linda Norstrom. And it's no good. Second effort, it's good.
 
Jeanette (Olson) Lietz, Everly H.S. (1964 - 1968): It is a team sport. If it weren't for the wonderful efforts of our guards and efforts of our forwards -- I can't do it by myself. It was a team effort.
 
Narrator: While Denise Long was the state's leading scorer, it was her teammate and cousin, Cindy Long, who decided the game.
 
Denise (Long) Rife Union-Whitten H.S., 1965-1969: Coach Larry Johnson had really coached his guards pretty well as far as double and triple teaming me. But the thing they overlooked was Cindy. She scored 41 points that game and just sat out there and pumped one in after another.
Narrator: It was a hard-fought battle of the state's best, but in the end union-whitten would prevail, winning 113 to 107 in a nail biter of an overtime. While Denise Long and her team won the game, Jeanette Olson outscored her rival 76 to 64. The two standout scorers had a combined total of 140 points.
 
Denise (Long) Rife Union-Whitten H.S., 1965-1969: I ran out and hugged her in the middle of the floor. I think that surprised her, but I just thought in my mind, her team won too. She won too, in my mind, because she -- they gave such a valiant effort. It was such a wonderful game.
 
Narrator: Denise Long ended her high school basketball career with 6,250 points, a record that wouldn't be broken until Lynne Lorenzen's 1987 season. After high school, Long was the 13th draft pick of the NBA's San Francisco Warriors. While she never actually played, for a woman to be drafted by the men's league in 1969 was history making. It was validation of Iowa's dedicated leadership in women's athletics since the turn of the 20th century.