All-American Red Heads: Meet 2 Minnesotans who played on first pro women's basketball team

(FOX 9) - When the Minnesota Lynx took on the New York Liberty in game five of the WNBA Championship, 3.3 million viewers were watching, making it the league's most watched finals game in 25 years.

But long before players like Napheesa Collier and Courtney Williams took the court, another group of female athletes had much of America seeing red.

Looking back

For Lynnette Sjoquist, flipping through the pages of her scrapbook is like taking a step back in time.

"You'd think it would make me feel old, but it makes me feel young because I think I'm still like this, but that's not the case," said Sjoquist.

Each piece of memorabilia is a reminder of how her love for basketball made her a pioneer of the game.

"I feel like we carried the banner for women's sports, not just women's basketball, but all of women's sports," said Sjoquist.

From 1973 to 1977, Sjoquist was a player for the first professional women's basketball team, the All-American Red Heads.

Sjoquist says she and her twin sister decided to try out for the team after watching the Red Heads play in their hometown of Cannon Falls.

"I just thought it was so exciting. It was a great brand of basketball. So I know when coach Ben Oberman talked to us after the game in Cannon Falls and he saw two six-foot-one women coming at him, he thought this could have some potential here, so we were billed as the Minnesota Twins," said Sjoquist.

On the road

For the next few years, Sjoquist and the Red Heads visited small and mid-sized towns across the country, playing men, mostly in teams made up of male faculty members of the local high school.

Their exhibition contests also included a halftime show, where the Red Heads would show off their ball handling skills, sort of like a female version of the Harlem Globetrotters.

"We sold out arenas and gyms as far as how many people they could hold at the time. That's what we saw. It wasn't a difficult sell. The goal, certainly from the players' perspective, was to show people that women can play," said Sjoquist.

Sjoquist says the Red Heads played 200 games a year in just about every state, except Hawaii.

And if the players weren't natural red heads?

"Clairol became your best friend. So Clairol Flame 33 was the particular color that you had to use. So even some of the young women who actually had naturally red or strawberry blond hair, they had to go to the bottle as well," said Sjoquist.

Background

The All American Red Heads were based in southern Missouri and operated from 1936 to 1986. 

But after Title IX and the rise of women's basketball in college and the Olympics, the novelty of watching women play the sport wore off.

Decades later, the team was honored as trailblazers by the Women's Basketball Hall Of Fame in 2011 and inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall Of Fame the following year.

"They were women that played at a time that was not all that common. They played the way they wanted to. They had flashy costumes. They traveled and they showed they could do it. And I think they had a really good time doing it on top of that," said Dana Hart, president of the Women's Basketball Hall Of Fame.

Diane Martinson also played for the Red Heads for a couple of years in the late 70s.

She believes she and her teammates showed the world women could play basketball at a high level and helped lay the groundwork for the WNBA.

"I do believe with all the traveling that those women did over the years, that we did make an impact. I feel we made an impact," said Martinson. 

But as proud as Martinson is to be part of the past of women's basketball, she's even more excited about its future.

"I'm just so excited for where the game has come and where it's going. I mean players like Caitlin Clark, she's just the start. There's going to be many coming after her like that and that's what's exciting.and I'm glad I had a hand in getting it started," said Martinson.