+                                               

          Women in Sports: From the Tunnel to the Clubhouse

       During the 1974-75 basketball season, the Kentucky Colonels ranked among the elite teams in the American Basketball Association. The Colonels had one Brown, a woman named Ellie, as the owner and another Brown, the unrelated Hubie, as coach. Sparked by guard Louie Dampier, the best three-point shooter in the league, the Colonels won twenty-two of their last twenty-five games and beat the Indiana Pacers for the league championship. The Colonels played a stifling defense, anchored by 7'2'' center Artis Gilmore, and featured consistent scoring from Dampier and Dan Issel. After Kentucky beat the Pacers for the ABA title, Ellie Brown came to the Colonels' locker room to join in the celebration. Immediately, the players faced a quandary. By tradition, the team's owner was supposed to get thrown in the shower. The players were unsure, however, as to what tradition required when the owner was a woman. The players resolved the dilemma by resorting to the principle of equal opportunity: they threw Ellie Brown in the shower. Colonels guard Gene Littles explained, "After all, she was the owner, and owners get thrown in the shower."

      Gene Littles and his teammates were entering uncharted waters when they threw Ellie Brown in the shower. It was a dilemma no other professional team had ever faced. The Colonels were the first championship-caliber pro team to be headed by a female; precedents were in short supply. Ironically, a couple of years before the Colonels' title season, the U.S. Supreme Court had issued a decision dealing with gender discrimination that seemed relevant. In that case, Reed v. Reed, the Court declared, "All persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike." "Precisely," Gene Littles and his teammates might have responded. With or without knowledge of Reed v. Reed, they got it right--and Ellie Brown got tossed into the shower.