Machine Gun Molly: Iowa Time Machine June 29, 1978

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On June 29, 1978, “Machine Gun” Molly Bolin signed with the Iowa Cornets, a move that helped give women’s professional basketball one of its first true stars and gave Iowa a place at the center of a new sports frontier.

The Women’s Professional Basketball League, the first women’s pro basketball league in the United States, launched in 1978 and struggled to prove that women’s basketball could survive beyond amateur and college ranks. The Iowa Cornets were the league’s first franchise, backed by Cedar Rapids businessman and trampoline inventor George Nissen, and Bolin, a Moravia native, became the face of that effort.

Bolin had already built a reputation as a prolific scorer, and the league saw in her a player who could draw attention in a market hungry for hometown pride and novelty. She inked a one-year deal worth a reported $6,000 to become the face of Iowa’s first professional women’s basketball franchise.

The WBL lasted only a few seasons, but it helped prove there was an audience for elite women’s pro basketball, and Bolin’s fame prefigured the way modern women’s leagues now rely on star power, regional loyalty, and media visibility. #Iowa #OTD #History #Basketball #WomensSports