I talked about my Houston homegirl Brittney Griner becoming the ninth woman to dunk in NCAA women's competition a month ago.It's time for Moni to play Final Jeopardy with you.
On December 21, 1984, this 6 foot 7 West Virginia University player became the first woman to dunk in an NCAA game against Morris Harvey University (now the University of Charleston) Name the player who accomplished this feat.
If you said, who is Georgeann Wells-Blackwell, you are correct.
Today is the 25th anniversary of Wells-Blackwell's groundbreaking dunk. What was even more impressive about it is that back in the day, she did so while using the men's regulation ball. She is the only women's player to do so in NCAA competition while using the men's ball.
ESPN was only a fledgling network just beginning to break out of its northeast regional turf and wasn't the dominant sports force it is now.
Wells-Blackwell's dunk was such a big deal back in 1984 that she appeared on network television, in an issue of Sports Illustrated, was honored at a luncheon in New York, had a display put up in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, another one in the Women’s College Basketball Hall of Fame and was given the honor of being inducted in the University of Houston’s Phi Slamma Jamma dunking fraternity.It took ten years before another woman b-baller joined her in the elite basketball dunking sorority Alpha Slama Dunka.
But Georgeann Wells-Blackwell will forever be known as the first one to do so.