Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory

Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory

by Lydia Reeder
Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory

Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory

by Lydia Reeder

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

“A thrilling, cinematic story. I loved every minute I spent with these bold, daring women whose remarkable journey is the stuff of American legend.” —Karen Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy

The Boys in the Boat
meets A League of Their Own in this true story of a Depression-era championship women’s team.


In the early 1930s, during the worst drought and financial depression in American history, Sam Babb began to dream. Like so many others, this charismatic Midwestern basketball coach wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm near the tiny Oklahoma college where he coached, Babb recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education in exchange for playing on his basketball team, the Cardinals.  

Despite their fears of leaving home and the sacrifices that their families would face, the women joined the team. And as Babb coached the Cardinals, something extraordinary happened. These remarkable athletes found a passion for the game and a heartfelt loyalty to one another and their coach—and they began to win.

Combining exhilarating sports writing and exceptional storytelling, Dust Bowl Girls takes readers on the Cardinals’ intense, improbable journey all the way to an epic showdown with the prevailing national champions, helmed by the legendary Babe Didrikson. Lydia Reeder captures a moment in history when female athletes faced intense scrutiny from influential figures in politics, education, and medicine who denounced women’s sports as unhealthy and unladylike. At a time when a struggling nation was hungry for inspiration, this unlikely group of trailblazers achieved much more than a championship season.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781616207403
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date: 12/05/2017
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 113,774
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile: 1120L (what's this?)

About the Author

Lydia Ellen Reeder is the grandniece of Sam Babb, the extraordinary basketball coach featured in Dust Bowl Girls. She spent over two years conducting research for the book and also wrote and narrated a short film about the Cardinal basketball team, currently on view at the Oklahoma Historical Society website: youtu.be/fokmbnWmp50. As a former associate editor at Whole Life Times in Los Angeles and Delicious Magazine in Boulder, Colorado, Reeder has worked for many years as a copywriter and editor on behalf of corporate and organizational clients and most recently developed e-learning for a national nursing association. She lives in Denver with her husband and enjoys hiking in the mountains of Colorado. Dust Bowl Girls is her first book.

Table of Contents

1 New Recruit 1

2 The Making of a Coach 6

3 The Field House, 4 a.m. 27

4 A Good Shot Maker Believes in Herself 42

5 Choctaw Town 56

6 A Man's Sport 73

7 Weak Ankles and Weaker Nerves 95

8 Barnstorm 113

9 End Game 133

10 Babe Didrikson and the Golden Cyclones 153

11 Guts and Glory 172

12 Next Stop, Shreveport 193

13 Brains, Beauty, and Ball Handling 209

14 A Team That Won't Be Beat Can't Be Beat 233

15 A Hometown Welcome 247

Epilogue 256

Acknowledgments 263

Notes 267

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