From Amazons to Glamazons:
The Rise and Fall of North Carolina Women's Basketball, 1920–1960

Pamela Grundy

In the spring of 1949, the twelve members of the Highland High School Ramlette basketball team packed themselves into an assortment of supporters' vehicles and embarked upon the long and bumpy journey from Gastonia, North Carolina, east to Durham. The Ramlettes had played a stellar season, had won the district tournament held in neighboring Bessemer City, and thus had gained the right to compete for the state championship, 150 miles away at North Carolina College. Before they left, the students from the close-knit school had packed the gym to cheer them on. "Go Thompson!" they had yelled. "Go Davis!" "Go Adams!" "We were pumped up," recalled Gladys Thompson, the Ramlettes' tallest player and top scorer. "We were going to win this."1	1
The Ramlettes met those expectations, bringing home the North Carolina Athletic Conference crown. Gladys Thompson found the victory particularly sweet. She had been a tall, clumsy girl, often called "Stringbean" or "Pole," who lacked the grace of a natural athlete. "When I started playing I was afraid and awkward," she recounted. "They would tell me 'You're awkward,' and I wanted to give it up." But she loved basketball, and she worked hard on her skills, challenging the equally determined players who starred for schools all across the region. When the Ramlettes took the court in Durham she was ready, scoring twenty-three points in the championship game and winning Most Valuable Player honors. "I always think about that," she explained. "Because I scored the twenty-three points, more points than any girl on the team had ever scored. . . . And they wrote an article about me in the paper. I think that would highlight everything. There were good times and bad times, but this one sticks in my mind more than any of them. When we won that championship. And then the article written about me—and that came back to the school, it was on the bulletin boards and everything. I felt pretty proud of myself, doing that."2	2
With her performance, Gladys Thompson reached a goal dreamed of by thousands of her peers around North Carolina. As interest in school sports spread across the nation, varsity athletic competition had become an integral part of life in the Tar Heel State, drawing larger crowds than any school event but graduation and offering students perhaps their major opportunity to win respect among their peers and within their communities. Throughout North Carolina, high school and college students envisioned starring for beloved institutions, playing before cheering fans, cradling championship trophies, and seeing their accomplishments acknowledged in the authority of newspaper type. Basketball had become by far the most popular American women's sport, and for the many young women who played the game it held particular appeal, carrying them past many of the restrictions that still circumscribed women's activities. "Just little things about it, you know," Gladys Thompson explained. "Getting to go places. Girls didn't get to go many places. I had a strict mom. She was strict. And to get to go to Durham, North Carolina. Or even Bessemer City. That was a long way for us. Girls now they have boyfriends that just drive. But see they didn't have cars to take us places then. As a matter of fact, when I played basketball, I wasn't courting. My mama didn't allow me to court until I graduated from high school. She did not. You had a friend to take you to the prom, but that's it."3	. . .