Totally Hoops, Hang Time, and the Dream Team: A Millennial Girl’s Basketball Canon

. . . Baby One More Time, But Make It Basketball: A Millennial’s Buzzer-Beater Nostalgia Trip

This is a free post for subscribers of Landline, a pop culture and history newsletter for people who care about the Titanic, and the the Kate Winslet vehicle of the same name. Consider subscribing to the paid plan to get my weekly email of recommendations and links, a podcast episode, and more! You can also help me spread the word by sharing it with a friend who would love it.

I have been glued to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament over the past few weeks. I am a lifelong UCONN Husky fan (more on that in a moment) and would encourage anyone who thinks sports are not for them to check it out. Women’s basketball is very team-focused (aka more fun to watch than men’s #iykyk), and has the added incentive of lots of US Weekly-related storylines on and off the court.

In honor of this auspicious occasion, I’m counting down the influences in my childhood that made me love basketball (and made me think girls could play ball).

Hang Time

I grew up watching this show on Saturday mornings. The premise is that a girl moves to an Indiana town where the high school does not have a women’s basketball team. She tries out for the men’s team, and hijinks ensue. The real tryouts were for a regular cast, because this show went through cast members like me with a bowl of M&M’s, aka fast. The star and her friend were mainstays but the backdrop of men for her to ball with/ date changed each season. Kind of a feminist icon, tbh. Title IX for the win! Some hero has posted the entire series on YouTube.

Totally Hoops (2001)

This was an iconic (to me) early reality show on the Disney Channel that followed an AAU girls’ team in Dayton, Ohio. Over 16 episodes, we follow the girls through tryouts, training, coming together as a team, and their season. I love a process story, so any show or movie that presents a team evolving and learning is for me. It also stars teen girls, so there’s a lot of self doubt and friends pulling each other out of it. Very sweet and affirming for 15-year-old me. I also loved Shelby, a standout player who was kind of a personality hire while also having a killer 3-pointer (she was a firecracker who the coach could not contain). I am thrilled to see that Shelby is now special assistant to the University of Arizona’s women’s team, but am devastated this show isn’t streaming! Release the tapes! Everyone gets nostalgic for Bug Juice, but where are the Totally Hoops heads?

One Tree Hill

Imagine many seasons of this kind of brooding with early 00s indie music playing in the background. You get it.

This show is basically the answer to the question, “What if we let an awkward straight white man with a Cliff Notes-level knowledge of Shakespeare imagine a drama about brothers using basketball for therapy and conflict management? Also, let’s by all means let him make on-the-fly decisions about what kind of storylines might be appropriate to showcase female vulnerability in the high school years (this man has been called out as a menace, and I see it). Despite this description, I loved it. It’s a moment, an energy, a thing I cannot explain to strangers because you had to be there. Where were you when Dan’s donor heart got eaten by a dog? I have no clue what the theme song was about, but Gavin DeGraw’s work lives in my head rent-free. Is basketball therapy a thing? Should it be? This show genuinely made me wonder. The women (Peyton, Brooke, and Haley) had much more compelling friendship dynamics that they have continued to work out on a rewatch podcast. I can’t really recommend this show, but it holds a very special place in my heart.

Jenn Rizzotti (UCONN Women’s legend, member of the 1995 championship team)

Imagine you’re a short girl from Connecticut who loves basketball, and suddenly, there’s a short-ish girl FROM CONNECTICUT on the UCONN basketball team who brings a lot of scrappiness and flair to the point guard position. I was riveted. In 1995, Jenn Rizzotti was the point guard of the UCONN women when they won their first championship. I’ll never forget where I was when my favorite all-time basketball player slid under the scorer’s table during a game because she was going after a loose ball with no thought of personal injury. An icon! She was a great player, had an amazing of-its-moment side sweep bang, and played with a lot of rizz (sorry, had to). At a Connecticut Sun game two years ago, I was shocked to find her seated in front of me, visiting with some friends. I was so starstruck I could not say hi. Forever may she wave, she is simply the best.

Here is a video from her CT Women’s Hall of Fame induction:

The 1996 Dream Team

Before Dawn Staley was the coach at South Carolina, she was a WNBA pioneer and a legendary member of the 1996 Olympic squad. There is a fun documentary about this team and their historic run that coincided with the introduction of the WNBA called “Dream On” (a 30 for 30 doc) that is very good. One thing I love about documentaries is the salty details offered up by talking-head interviews. Are these people settling scores? Proving a point that’s mostly about them? I don’t know and mostly don’t care. What I do care about is the knowledge that ahead of the ‘96 games, the team did training games at every player’s former college campus where they would start the game. When the team came to UCONN, the Olympic coach (Tara VanDerveer, coach at Stanford until her recent retirement) did not start Rebecca Lobo, a member of UCONN’s 1995 NCAA championship team. Would love to have been seated next to Tara as she watched Geno’s moment in the doc. Lest you think Geno is beyond reproach, google “UCONN Olympic curse.” This documentary also highlights the challenges these women faced as the early pros of the WNBA to normalize seeing women as pro basketball players.

Shaq in Kazaam

He couldn’t make a free throw, but he did make this movie. Thank you, sir.

Eddie

If someone asked me as a child if women could coach in the NBA, I would say yes, because Whoopi Goldberg broke that glass ceiling in 1996 as the star of Eddie, a movie about a chauffeur who inexplicably ends up coaching the Knicks. Is this movie good? No, absolutely not. But, it features a woman as head coach in the NBA who becomes respected and lauded for leading a winning team. Want to hear something more chilling than the plot of this movie? (in which the owner of the Knicks wears a cowboy hat and rides a horse onto the court at Madison Square Garden). There has never been a woman head coach of an NBA team. Yes, women are assistant coaches in the NBA, have coached in the summer league, and Becky Hammon became the first woman to serve as acting head coach when Greg Papovich was ejected from a game in 2019, but that’s where we are.¹

Love & Basketball (2000)

I was 14 years young when this debuted, and saw it a year or so after it came out at a friend’s house. Blockbuster really did us a solid that day, because this blew my mind. It was hot, the people who played basketball players really seemed like they could play, and I was shocked at this woman finding a man who respected her game as much as his own (spoiler alert). Love the early WNBA representation! I have rewatched this many times, and it holds up.

That one time Britney Spears showcased her basketball skills in the “. . . Baby One More Time” music video.

Please never forget Britney Jean Spears played basketball, in the video and in high school. Could she play? Yes, her game has produced literal tears.

This use of “no disrespect” took years off my life

Call Me! (or not!)

I’d love to hear from you! Drop your thoughts in the comments to share with the Landline community, or reply to this email to contact me. You can also find me on Instagram, or email me. I don’t have a dedicated phone line yet (just like in my youth), but maybe someday I’ll achieve Claudia status and get a Landline.

Thanks for reading!

This is a free post for subscribers of Landline. Consider subscribing to the paid plan to get my weekly email of recommendations and links, a podcast episode, and more! You can also help me spread the word by sharing it with a friend who would love it. Thank you for being a friend!

Note: All books referenced in Landline can be found in my bookshop.org storefront, from which I earn a small percentage of all books purchased.

1. She was acting head coach for 63 seconds.