Oklahoma National Champions

I am deviating from my usual topics to do a book review of a rcent Oklahoma history volume that I thought might be of interest.  I picked up a library book before my March trip to Ponca City which I only recently had time to read, and I decided I had to share it with you.     .  

If you are interested in Oklahoma history, women’s basketball, or small denominational colleges, visit your local library or bookstore, (or online seller) for a copy of Dust Bowl Girls by Lydia Reeder (Chapel Hill, NC:  Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2017).

The storyline is based on an actual college (Oklahoma Presbyterian College in Durant, OK, now defunct) and its  basketball team which electrified the nation by becoming the AAU national women’s basketball champions in the 1930s.  

It is also about a remarkable group of young women who composed that team, who had come from that part of the state during the Dust Bowl/Great Depression time.

But it is mostly about the remarkable coach at that college who scoured the girls’ high school basketball teams in that part of the state to find the rare talented player who could be molded into a championship team and the college president and his wife who enabled these young women to get a college education (usually the first in the family) and enabled them to propel themselves into a fuller life.

It is good to be reminded be that such people exist.