My Wife's Past Life: She Had a Ball

After landing at Paris’s Orly airport, Mary Anne cleared customs, made her way to the domestic terminal, and found a seat. It would be hours until she boarded her next flight, destination Clermont-Ferrand. That city was in the middle of France, a place she’d never been. 

A distinguished older gentleman took a seat next to her, silk jacquard ascot around his neck. It turned out he was the French actor, Paul Meurisse.  Her father’s favorite international star, Paul had become better known in the US when his film with Simone Signoret, Les Diaboliques, was distributed. Mary Anne shared with him that she was headed to Clermont-Ferrand to play basketball. Ah, les demoiselles de Clermont, he responded. She had been told they were the best team in France, the national champions, but didn’t know that made them a household name. He seemed impressed she had been invited to join them.

It seemed hard to believe that just two months earlier, she had been sleeping on the couch in her sister’s apartment in New Haven, pumping gas at a station off of I-95 starting at 6 am, and coaching and refereeing part time. Back then, she wondered what the future held for her.  At 22, Mary Anne had played on the ’74 and ’75 US women’s national basketball teams, but there was no guarantee she’d be selected for the first ever Olympic team. All the players had to succeed at the tryouts, held in May of 1976. When it was over, some of those former national teammates didn’t make the cut. At that time, it never crossed her mind that she’d be playing basketball in France for the next 8 years. No American woman had played on a French club team and if other foreigners had, she hadn’t heard about it.

During Mary Anne’s childhood, her parents installed a hoop in the backyard of their home in Fairfield, Connecticut. She spent hours trading shots with her sister Eileen. The school they attended didn’t offer basketball for girls, it wasn’t until they moved on to high school that they first had the opportunity to play competitively. Her experience wasn’t surprising, it was the status quo in 1970. Decades later, that hoop was still nailed into the oak tree when I visited her parent’s house in Fairfield for the first time. The tree roots that made up the court remained exposed. The house also still had just the one bathroom which the family of eight shared. 

As the eldest of six, Mary Anne was the first to use that hoop, but she did not have an opportunity to play organized basketball until 1967, when she started ninth grade. During her early parochial school years, organized team sports were for boys only - Little League, Pop Warner. 

I asked Mary Anne how it made her feel when she went home to visit and saw the hoop still on the tree.

“Reminds me of my grandfather. He was the one who bought us the hoop and the ball. He’d watch me practice and give me tips. He had me pretend the swing set was my opponents and he’d have me shoot over it. He encouraged me all of the time, inspired me to do better. What began as a backyard game became a career for me. He taught me golf too, and emphasized how good sportsmanship was always essential. Play hard, respect your competitors during the game or match, and win or lose with grace.

It also makes me burn a little. It reminds me of all the things that were denied to us just because we were girls. We had the hoop but there were no organized basketball teams for girls until we got to high school. And Eileen and I were great at baseball as kids. We played with the boys in the neighborhood. Their parents signed them up for Little League teams and we asked why we couldn’t be on a team. The answer, of course, was because you are girls, not because you aren’t good enough.”

As a high school freshman, and again as a college freshman, Mary Anne made the varsity teams. She tapped her foot and shook her head as she said, “It didn’t go over well with some of the upperclasswomen to have a freshman as a teammate, especially as a starter. I steeled myself for their whispers and had to consistently prove my skills.”

Title IX was not yet in effect, there were no college sports scholarships for young women in 1971 when Mary Anne was a college freshman. Money going towards the women’s game would later change everything.

*

Women’s basketball was under consideration as a new sport for the Olympics in 1955 and again in 1965 but the idea was rejected both times. It wasn’t until 1972 that the yes vote led to teams around the world trying to figure out how to be one of only six teams allowed to compete in the Olympics.

Mary Anne was on the 1974 US national team that kicked off a tour of exhibition basketball games against the USSR at Madison Square Garden. That was their first experience playing against Uljana Semenova, a native of Riga, Latvia, who was near impossible to guard, given her height of over 7 feet tall. Her team held the undisputed rank as the best in the world. Most of the players on both teams would meet again on a bigger stage. 

For the 1976 Olympics, the team from the host country, Canada, was guaranteed a spot, and another three teams qualified based on their performance at the 1975 FIBA World Championship. Two spots were available for the twelve remaining international teams, including the US. 

Once the US players were selected, the team traveled to Hamilton, Ontario for the qualifying competitions.  At that time, there were doubters who included US officials. No budget had been allocated for an Olympic women’s basketball team. Once Mary Anne’s team qualified, there was some scrambling for funds. Word was that Bill Walsh of USA Basketball used his American Express card for the initial costs. This was later confirmed by the team’s coaches in interviews and articles. 

With the Games just two weeks after the qualifiers, you wonder how the team’s families secured tickets, reserved rooms, and arranged transportation to Montreal on such short notice. Back then, there was no internet or online booking services. Mary Anne’s parents owned a '69 VW van with daisy stickers plastered on the side, but that would never have made it to Montreal and back. 

Her mother had a great relationship with a reporter at their hometown paper, the Fairfield Citizen News. The reporter had been following Mary Anne’s progress since she was selected for the national team in '74.  He interviewed her and the reporter asked "What do you need?" and she said “We need a car,” the quote was in the paper, and next thing you know, the Volkswagen franchise down by Bradley's provided them with a VW van, the deluxe model, six cylinders, and insurance. They only had to pay for gas.  

“If the games had been held in Europe or Asia, no one from my family would have been able to come watch us play, but thanks to the temporary gift of that VW bus, plus a complementary hotel room, my parents, Eileen, Patrick, plus grandma were able to make the trip up from Connecticut. Peg, John, and Kate were all lifeguards at the lake and stayed home to hold down the fort. They hosted 15-20 people at the house every night for an Olympics watch party, some ended up spending the night. “

*

As the 1976 summer Games were held in Montreal, all of the US Olympic teams went to Plattsburgh, near the Canadian border, home of the State University of New York. After spending a night or two in a dorm room, the athletes picked up their uniforms and their opening ceremony ensembles. The team had their first look at the other US Olympians. Although three Olympic sports had been added for women – basketball, rowing, and handball - there were more than double the number of US men (278) competing compared to the women (118).

 Departing SUNY, Mary Anne’s team was escorted to a chartered bus, one of many in the Olympic caravan.

“I can still hear the sounds of the helicopters above us as we crossed the border and made our way to the Olympic Village. There were lots of people on the Route 87 overpasses with ‘Go USA’ signs.”

I asked why there were helicopters.

“For security!”

Then I remembered the tragedy of the prior Olympic games, Munich in 1972. Israeli Olympians were taken hostage and some were killed. When I lived in Portland, Maine, I knew a gay activist in town, Fred Berger, who was the brother of one of the Olympians who was murdered at the games. The brother, a native of Ohio, and 28 at the time, was a dual US Israeli citizen living in Israel. He competed in weightlifting before he was murdered. 

While women's basketball didn't get much television coverage, Mary Anne’s siblings who stayed home told her they saw her face in the TV promos every night before the commentary started. When her sisters, brother and friends all saw her on TV in a close up shot, “they went bonkers.”  They also witnessed her sinking three shots during the competition.

Her parents, and siblings Eileen and Patrick had seats at the basketball venue, Montreal’s Forum, for the silver medal game.  The matches were round robin, if the US had lost the last game, they would have gone home without a medal. Instead, the O’Connor family at the Forum were able to witness the US team’s victory over Czechoslovakia.

Mary Anne framed a ticket to the 1976 Olympic opening ceremony. She knows that on July 17, 1976 at 3pm, her mother sat in the Stade Olympique, section F, row 10, seat 3, next to her father, sister Eileen and brother Patrick.

A month later, Mary Anne was on a plane to France to start her professional career. She had been approached by a French woman during the qualifying matches in Hamilton regarding playing for the best French club team - Clermont University Club (CUC). They had won the French Championship for nine years in a row. Was she interested? Yes, she was. She didn’t need to try out, if they missed seeing her play with the US team in the international competitions of ’74 and ’75, they saw her skills during the Olympic qualifying rounds.

Late August, a month after the Olympics, when it was time to head for France. her parents drove her down to JFK airport, accompanied her to the Air France gate, and stayed until she boarded the flight for France. 

Hours after taking off from Orly in Paris, her plane circled the Puy-de-Dôme, an inactive volcano, and she looked down at the land and the city below. It was very dark, haunting even. The team representative picked her up and took care of her bags.  While they were on their way, he told her that many of the town’s buildings were built from black lava rock. They passed the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, composed of blocks of the lava which contrasted with the red tile roofs of nearby buildings. It made the center of town look foreboding.

He parked outside her apartment building in Chamalieres, a nearby town. When he opened the door, she held her tongue when she saw it was just a studio--at least it was furnished. When she inquired about her car, she was again surprised when he told her that her local transportation for the season was a moped, a Solex, with the motor over the front wheel. She didn’t let on her disappointment but thought traveling to the grocery store in the rain or snow was going to be a challenge.

It wasn’t until over a week later that the other players returned to town. Mary Anne was introduced to her teammates, and they received their uniforms, sweats, and shoes. Black with white for away games and white with black for home. Canon, the camera maker, was a sponsor and their logo appeared on the uniforms. She held up a pair of the basketball shorts and inquired of her teammates if they were a joke. They looked like a pair of underwear. The rest of the team looked at her in confusion as they were typical of the uniforms worn by French women players.

Their traveling outfits were designed by Yves Saint Laurent. These clothes were couture, not prêt-à-porter; three fitters arrived in Clermont-Ferrand to take measurements. A few weeks after the fittings, each player received a large box with her name on it, and inside, hidden beneath the rustling tissues, was a custom fitted new ensemble, jacket, shirt, and skirt. These would get the most wear during trips throughout Europe on planes and trains to create a stylish and cohesive look for the team.

Bill Sweek, the American the coach of her new team, Clermont UC, aka CUC, only spoke French during practices and games. That wasn’t an issue for long, as several months after her arrival, a romance with a French teammate, led to the blossoming of Mary Anne’s French skills. She’s fluent to this day. And she’s still friends with her former French romance. On our visits to Paris, we always stay with Irene.   In our living room among the gaggle of photographs on the shelf next to the fireplace, there’s one I took of Irene and Mary Anne outside a café in Montmartre. Irene had insisted on being my tour guide for a visit to Sacre Coeur.

That first year with Clermont-Ferrand, the team won every game they played and were crowned Champion de France. After the season ended, the CUC coach resigned for another coaching position, and a search for a new coach began. Mary Anne renewed her contract for another year, hoped for the best, then flew home to enjoy the summer break. 

After her second season with the team, though she appreciated the transportation upgrade to a car – Citroën Deux Chevaux, and a larger apartment, she received an offer she couldn’t refuse. She was not one to say no to living in Paris or playing for the up-and-coming Stade Français. She accepted the offer and played with them for six years helping the team become French champions three times. 

French culture worked its magic on her. Mary Anne developed a palate for fine wine, ate oysters on the half shell for the first time. Her first opera performance was La Bohème, performed at Palais de Garnier on Place d’Opéra. She bought a purebred wire-haired fox terrier, McDuffy, as she could take her everywhere, the French had no restrictions on dogs in restaurants or in sports venues. Mary Anne also continued to enjoy the nightlife.

Following home games, some of the team would go out to dinner near the Stade, around Porte de St. Cloud.  Afterwards, they’d head over to Katmandu, a lesbian disco, to dance the night away to the tunes of Sylvester, Alicia Bridges singing I Love the Nightlife, and songs by the French chanteuse France Gall. Under the rotating disco ball, they’d grab a partner and dance the hustle to the Bee Gees’ Night Fever.

While playing for Team USA, Mary Anne had traveled to Taiwan, Japan, Columbia, Mexico, and Canada. When her French teams qualified for the European Cup of Champions, or for the Coupe Liliana Ronchetti, there were trips to Poland – Krakow and Warsaw, to Prague, Belgrade, Budapest, Sofia, and Torino, Italy. She also played games in the USSR, not just in Moscow, but also in Riga, Latvia, and Novosibirsk, Siberia. She felt unease traveling behind the Iron Curtain, the Cold War was still on. 

“In Moscow there were portraits of Lenin in every building. We visited his mausoleum in the middle of Red Square where his corpse was on view, and a talkative French teammate was silenced by a guard’s rifle butt pressing against her ribs.”

The team flew Aeroflot to Moscow and all available seats on the plane were filled with French boosters and supporters who were part of the team’s entourage. The players arrived with suitcases stuffed with Levi’s jeans which weren’t available in the USSR, maybe the boosters did the same. The Soviets wanted their ‘Lee Wees,’ as they called them, and they traded bottles of vodka, mostly Stolichnaya, and jars of caviar, which the French women loved, for a pair or two. In Moscow, it was a tradition to have shots of vodka between each course. You can imagine the state of the guests by the end of dessert and it was a good thing that no practice was scheduled for the next morning.

*

After eight years of playing professionally, preceded by four years in college and four years in high school, Mary Anne retired from the sport. She lived in Paris for another six years, earned an MBA and began a new career. Fourteen years after arriving in France, she relocated back to the US, and after I met her in New York, our adventures together began. One day she turned and said “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to move to San Francisco. Want to come?”

I couldn’t say yes fast enough. We’ve been in the Bay Area for over thirty years. While she no longer plays, she is a big fan of both women’s and men’s basketball. We went to the 2012 London Olympics and watched the US women beat France for the gold medal in basketball. We already have lodging reservations for the Paris Olympics in 2024, and, of course, we’ll again spend some time with Irene, her former French heartthrob.

ADA HARRIGAN grew up in Ohio and currently lives in California. “Kenduskeag,” an excerpt from her memoir in process, was published in Saranac Review. Other work appeared in “Cancer as a Women’s Issue,” an anthology, and URevolution magazine. Additional writing may be found at www.adaharrigan.com.