Texas Cowgirls:  1962-1965      Bernice Holladay Shafer

             

                  

I was raised on a small dairy farm near Walkerville, Michigan and grew up loving all sports.  When I went to gym the coach asked me if I wanted to play forward or guard on the basketball team.  Never seeing or playing a game, I asked an older girl what position she played.  Suddenly, the coach threw me the basketball and I literally took the basketball and tucked it under my arm and ran towards the basket- that’s all I knew about basketball.

When I was a senior, I never even realized there were woman’s basketball Professional teams!  The Texas Cowgirls came to neighboring town and I had the privilege of seeing them play.  My coach has talked to the team captain, Linda Yearby about me and a couple of weeks later I received a letter from Dempsey Hoveland, the owner, asking me to travel with the gals for 1 week.  One scared, bashful, little country girl traveling with those girls- WOW, were they good or what!  That same week I’d made up my mind that I was going to travel and become a Texas Cowgirl too.  Up until then, I always thought I was going to become a Policewoman!  My parent’s finally told me I could go to training camp, but had to come home at spring time to help them farm.  Deal or no deal, I was headed for training camp at South Beloit, Ill. Ready to travel and play too!

Washington DC, New York City, west to Montana, the Indian Reservations, Dakota’s, Georgia, Kansas, south eastern states, we hit 36 states and 7 provinces of Canada.  We traveled with and played preliminary games to Harlem Globe Trotters, Men’s Pro teams like the 76ers, Lakers, etc.  We played all men’s teams, men’s rules and averaged around 30-250 games per season and traveling approximately 36,000-40,000 miles per year.  We had a pretty good record, wining about 80% of our games.  What a life!

I thank the Lord and Savior for my ability and privilege of playing and for the friendships that developed with all the players and other farm gals on the team.

The travel, friendships and experiences were awesome, but I eventually came back to Michigan and married my friend, my husband Jerry, of 42 years!