Long before the WNBA, there was the WBL. And there was Kunzmann, who scraped and hustled her way to relative fame in a shoestring, sexist league. You might know her name today, if not for a horrific act 40 years ago.
Two days before she was murdered, Connie Kunzmann played the game of her life.
It was the evening of Feb. 5, 1981, and Connie, a long-limbed 24-year-old with a halo of curly brown hair, was matched up against the best women’s basketball player on the planet, Dallas Diamonds point guard Nancy Lieberman. The face of the nascent Women’s Professional Basketball League, Lieberman was as skilled a passer as she was a scorer.