Cardte Hicks Played Above The Rim And Ahead Of Her Time

As Cardte Hicks leapt toward the hoop, the audience at the Albuquerque Civic Auditorium suddenly hushed. These were the final minutes of the Women’s Professional Basketball League’s All-Star Game on Feb. 9, 1981, where an undersized squad from the West was blowing out the favored East team in what would be a 125-92 win. The arena grew rowdier as the quick sharpshooters of the West racked up points, but when Hicks alone flew above the rim, the crowd went silent.

Hicks, a 25-year-old All-Star from the San Francisco Pioneers, was unlike any other player on the court. At 5-foot-9, listed in some places as 5-foot-8, her vertical leap was reported as high as 36 inches. Word of her talent had spread across the WBL, the tale growing taller. “She’s up there so long, she can dial a telephone number,” Pioneers teammate Roberta Williams would tell me decades later. “Say hello, and before the conversation’s over, say goodbye … I never saw a female who had the kind of hang time she had.”

With the clock winding down, this gave West head coach Greg Williams the idea to encourage Hicks to try something she’d never done in a WBL game before: attempt a dunk. “She was such a graceful athlete,” he remembered. “Almost poetry in motion.” The coach had total confidence in her abilities. “You go up there and play the way you wanna play—just shake ‘em!” she recalled him saying. Hicks, known for her impressive vertical and magnetic charisma, was more than ready.