The Villages - March 2018 - 16

BASKETBALL

MAdnESS

JuLiE BrAdLEy

W o m e n ' s

B a s k e t B a l l

Julie Bradley is a pioneer.
Growing up in the 1950s and '60s, Bradley experienced
plenty of discrimination just for being a girl, when all she wanted to do was play the same sports the boys were playing.
"The boy across the street and I would pitch day after day
after day in the park, and then he'd go off to Little League and
I'd go home," Bradley said. "And that irritated me somewhat."
The boy's father told Bradley she played as well as any boy,
and arranged a tryout for her with a local team. The coaches
took her aside and said they would not know how to treat her if
she was injured, then turned her away.
On Saturday mornings, Bradley would watch basketball
games in the gym - they never would let girls play.
Bradley's high school did not have a gym teacher when she
was a freshman, so Bradley - fed up with the discrimination -
asked the principal if she and one of the other girls could start
their own basketball team.
"Another girl and I decided we could do what any gym
teacher or basketball coach could do," Bradley said. "We asked
the principal if we could coach a team and he said, 'Well sure,
you can do it.' We found an outside coach and that's when we
started the basketball program at our school."
After high school, Bradley wanted to attend a college
that had intercollegiate women's sports - not just intramural. Bradley found Southern Connecticut State
College in 1962, where she played women's 6-on-6
basketball. She never was coached on the nowstandard 5-on-5 rules, and 6-on-6 was the common
setup for women at the time.
At Southern Connecticut State, Bradley was
coached by Louise O'Neal, herself a pioneer.
O'Neal started the women's basketball
program at SCSC the same year Bradley started there, and O'Neal took the
team from a club team to a full varsity
sport.
Bradley attended SCSC from
1962 to 1966, and O'Neal went on
to lead the team to eight appearances in the National Women's Collegiate Championships, along with
multiple top-five rankings in the early
1970s. O'Neal is considered by many to
be a pioneer in women's basketball, and
she was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.

MARCH 2018

P i o n e e r

Upon leaving SCSC, Bradley began a teaching job at Eastern
Connecticut State University. Ever the advocate for women's
sports, Bradley started the women's basketball program at the
university - a program that continues today. ECSU inducted her into their hall of fame in 2002, naming Bradley
one of their "Pioneers of Eastern Athletics."
Here in The Villages, Bradley leads the women's
basketball program that meets from 4:45 to 6:30 p.m.
Thursdays at First Baptist Church of Oxford. Bradley
also played basketball in the National Senior Games in
Birmingham in 2017, where her team won the silver
medal out of 16 teams in the 70-74 age bracket.
Basketball is still a large part of Bradley's life,
and she's not letting anything slow her down.
Like a true pioneer, Bradley continues to find
ways to share her love of the sport with anyone who wants to participate.

Women's
BasketBall -
meets sundays,
tuesdays and
thursdays. For
more inFormation,
contact
Julie Bradley
at 870-260-0630.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Villages - March 2018