Cassville Basketball Queens make history and entertain millions
June 27, 2018
Prix Gautney
At a time when American women had barely earned the right to vote, and society insisted that women’s place was in the home, Cassville’s All American Red Heads broke barriers and made history as the first professional women’s basketball team in the nation.
In 1936, while America was navigating through the Great Depression and CCC workers were building Roaring River State Park, Cassville businessman, C. M. “Ole” Olson, started the Cassville Red Heads, later changing the name to All American Red Heads. Olson had been the legendary star and owner of traveling men’s basketball team, “The Terrible Swedes,” and his wife, Doyle, owned several beauty salons in Missouri and Arkansas.
Two young women who worked for Olson’s wife were great basketball players and happened to be natural red heads. Olson decided that forming a women’s basketball team would be a great entertainment opportunity, and he set two rules for potential players—they had to be tall, and they had to have red hair. For those players who were not naturally red-headed, Doyle helped solve that problem by dying their hair red using henna.
Red Heads team members, many of whom hailed from Oklahoma, were paid to play approximately 200 hundred games in a 7-month season, barnstorming across America and even overseas. Civic organizations in towns across the country often organized the games to help raise money for their particular cause. The women were all accomplished players and played only men’s teams, using men’s rules. The opposing teams were comprised of local talent, celebrities, or college standouts, but the Red Heads worked hard and won most of their games.
The Red Heads proved to be a very popular draw. They filled gymnasiums in small towns coast to coast, and traveled to Hawaii and Alaska, Canada, Mexico and as far as the Philippines to compete, delighting millions of people. In Hollywood, the Red Heads made guest appearances on talk shows and movie sets, playing in a variety of arenas, including a U. S. Navy battleship, and beat many celebrity teams. As a service to the military, they played at hundreds of Army camps and military hospitals throughout the years to help boost soldiers’ morale.
To improve their skills even more, Olson hired up-and-coming coach Orwell Moore in 1948 to lead the team. Coach Moore pushed the women to perfection. Oftentimes on a road trip, he would stop the car and make the girls get out to practice their skills between games. His wife, Lorene “Butch” Moore, was the team’s most successful player at the time and remained with the team for 11 years, scoring a lifetime 35,246 points. Moore’s philosophy was that playing on a professional basketball team would help women secure meaningful employment when they left the team. “Due to their professional basketball career, they get the best jobs when they go home.”
The Red Heads, who have been compared to the Harlem Globetrotters, not only excelled in traditional basketball, but developed awe-inspiring tricks to entertain the crowds. They played “straight” basketball at the beginning of each game, then added the entertainment. While their opponents rested during half-time, the Red Heads stayed on the floor and put on a show.
One woman was a comedienne, delighting the audience with her antics, while other team members did juggling and dribbling tricks and made fancy shots, sinking free throws from their knees and bouncing the ball off their heads to make baskets. Deb Parashak, Red Heads player from 1975 to 1977, said, “We would win a game based on the merits of our skills. We would run set trick plays for fun, but we were there to show people that women could play the game.”
Being an All American Red Head wasn’t all fun and games. They played rough on the court, jabbing and pulling the hair of their opponents at times. Moore was a strict coach on and off the court and never allowed them to smoke in uniform or drink alcohol, insisting the players were emulated by children across America.
They played one game a day with two games on Sundays, and they played in a different town each day. After cramming into a station wagon, bus or stretch limousine, depending on the era, and driving all day, the Red Heads kept busy with interviews, supermarket visits and promotions before each game. They were only allowed one bag apiece to save space, so after each game ended, the entire team would head to an all-night laundromat to wash their clothes and uniforms for the next day.
Though the Red Heads showed that women are capable, competitive athletes, they felt social pressure to retain their femininity. They were allowed to wear shorts, a garment women didn’t tend to wear at that time, but many of their uniforms were made of satin to express their “feminine” side. In the early days of women’s traveling teams, competitive sports were considered unwomanly and mannish, and many women fell victim to untrue rumors and hurtful gossip. It was even commonly believed that playing sports would cause a woman to be unable to have children.
One Red Head team member, Babe Didrikson, was often questioned on the levels of her female hormones. Though she did not see why a woman should not play a game she loved and excelled at, Didrikson was compelled to dispel rumors of her sexuality by wearing lace and marrying a man by the name of George Zaharias to quiet the murmurs. Stemming from these early negative experiences, Didrikson spent the rest of her career fighting for equal rights in women’s sports.
Olson eventually retired, and Moore went on to own the team. He continued to coach until the All American Red Heads disbanded after fifty years of play in 1986. Many other women’s basketball teams came and went over the years, but the All American Red Heads lasted the longest, surviving well past the 1972 Title IX amendment prohibiting sex-based discrimination in any federally funded education program or activity. By the mid-eighties, crowd numbers dwindled compared to the audiences in earlier decades because at that point they were used to seeing girls playing sports.
The All American Red Heads helped pave the way for women’s sports long before our nation had adopted the idea of equality. In 2011, the team’s efforts were recognized by the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn. Another honor came in 2012, when the Red Heads were inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, in Springfield, Mass., the city where James Naismith invented the game of basketball in 1891.
Though the team moved on from Cassville once Olson sold it, the Barry County Museum maintains a Red Heads display as part of their permanent collection. Several years ago, a woman using a walker visited the museum and said she was a former All American Red Heads player. She had told her children she wanted to see the display in Cassville before she passed. To date, the woman is the only player known to have visited the museum.
If interested in learning more about the All American Red Heads, visit www.allamericanredheads.com, follow their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/TheAllAmericanRedHeads/, and swing by the Barry County Museum to see the display. You may also wish to read the 2017 book started by Moore and finished by his daughter, Tammy Moore Harrison, “Breaking the Press: The Incredible Story of the All American Red Heads.”
Prix Gautney
At a time when American women had barely earned the right to vote, and society insisted that women’s place was in the home, Cassville’s All American Red Heads broke barriers and made history as the first professional women’s basketball team in the nation.
In 1936, while America was navigating through the Great Depression and CCC workers were building Roaring River State Park, Cassville businessman, C. M. “Ole” Olson, started the Cassville Red Heads, later changing the name to All American Red Heads. Olson had been the legendary star and owner of traveling men’s basketball team, “The Terrible Swedes,” and his wife, Doyle, owned several beauty salons in Missouri and Arkansas.
Two young women who worked for Olson’s wife were great basketball players and happened to be natural red heads. Olson decided that forming a women’s basketball team would be a great entertainment opportunity, and he set two rules for potential players—they had to be tall, and they had to have red hair. For those players who were not naturally red-headed, Doyle helped solve that problem by dying their hair red using henna.
Red Heads team members, many of whom hailed from Oklahoma, were paid to play approximately 200 hundred games in a 7-month season, barnstorming across America and even overseas. Civic organizations in towns across the country often organized the games to help raise money for their particular cause. The women were all accomplished players and played only men’s teams, using men’s rules. The opposing teams were comprised of local talent, celebrities, or college standouts, but the Red Heads worked hard and won most of their games.
The Red Heads proved to be a very popular draw. They filled gymnasiums in small towns coast to coast, and traveled to Hawaii and Alaska, Canada, Mexico and as far as the Philippines to compete, delighting millions of people. In Hollywood, the Red Heads made guest appearances on talk shows and movie sets, playing in a variety of arenas, including a U. S. Navy battleship, and beat many celebrity teams. As a service to the military, they played at hundreds of Army camps and military hospitals throughout the years to help boost soldiers’ morale.
To improve their skills even more, Olson hired up-and-coming coach Orwell Moore in 1948 to lead the team. Coach Moore pushed the women to perfection. Oftentimes on a road trip, he would stop the car and make the girls get out to practice their skills between games. His wife, Lorene “Butch” Moore, was the team’s most successful player at the time and remained with the team for 11 years, scoring a lifetime 35,246 points. Moore’s philosophy was that playing on a professional basketball team would help women secure meaningful employment when they left the team. “Due to their professional basketball career, they get the best jobs when they go home.”
The Red Heads, who have been compared to the Harlem Globetrotters, not only excelled in traditional basketball, but developed awe-inspiring tricks to entertain the crowds. They played “straight” basketball at the beginning of each game, then added the entertainment. While their opponents rested during half-time, the Red Heads stayed on the floor and put on a show.
One woman was a comedienne, delighting the audience with her antics, while other team members did juggling and dribbling tricks and made fancy shots, sinking free throws from their knees and bouncing the ball off their heads to make baskets. Deb Parashak, Red Heads player from 1975 to 1977, said, “We would win a game based on the merits of our skills. We would run set trick plays for fun, but we were there to show people that women could play the game.”
Being an All American Red Head wasn’t all fun and games. They played rough on the court, jabbing and pulling the hair of their opponents at times. Moore was a strict coach on and off the court and never allowed them to smoke in uniform or drink alcohol, insisting the players were emulated by children across America.
They played one game a day with two games on Sundays, and they played in a different town each day. After cramming into a station wagon, bus or stretch limousine, depending on the era, and driving all day, the Red Heads kept busy with interviews, supermarket visits and promotions before each game. They were only allowed one bag apiece to save space, so after each game ended, the entire team would head to an all-night laundromat to wash their clothes and uniforms for the next day.
Though the Red Heads showed that women are capable, competitive athletes, they felt social pressure to retain their femininity. They were allowed to wear shorts, a garment women didn’t tend to wear at that time, but many of their uniforms were made of satin to express their “feminine” side. In the early days of women’s traveling teams, competitive sports were considered unwomanly and mannish, and many women fell victim to untrue rumors and hurtful gossip. It was even commonly believed that playing sports would cause a woman to be unable to have children.
One Red Head team member, Babe Didrikson, was often questioned on the levels of her female hormones. Though she did not see why a woman should not play a game she loved and excelled at, Didrikson was compelled to dispel rumors of her sexuality by wearing lace and marrying a man by the name of George Zaharias to quiet the murmurs. Stemming from these early negative experiences, Didrikson spent the rest of her career fighting for equal rights in women’s sports.
Olson eventually retired, and Moore went on to own the team. He continued to coach until the All American Red Heads disbanded after fifty years of play in 1986. Many other women’s basketball teams came and went over the years, but the All American Red Heads lasted the longest, surviving well past the 1972 Title IX amendment prohibiting sex-based discrimination in any federally funded education program or activity. By the mid-eighties, crowd numbers dwindled compared to the audiences in earlier decades because at that point they were used to seeing girls playing sports.
The All American Red Heads helped pave the way for women’s sports long before our nation had adopted the idea of equality. In 2011, the team’s efforts were recognized by the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn. Another honor came in 2012, when the Red Heads were inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, in Springfield, Mass., the city where James Naismith invented the game of basketball in 1891.
Though the team moved on from Cassville once Olson sold it, the Barry County Museum maintains a Red Heads display as part of their permanent collection. Several years ago, a woman using a walker visited the museum and said she was a former All American Red Heads player. She had told her children she wanted to see the display in Cassville before she passed. To date, the woman is the only player known to have visited the museum.
If interested in learning more about the All American Red Heads, visit www.allamericanredheads.com, follow their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/TheAllAmericanRedHeads/, and swing by the Barry County Museum to see the display. You may also wish to read the 2017 book started by Moore and finished by his daughter, Tammy Moore Harrison, “Breaking the Press: The Incredible Story of the All American Red Heads.”