act:
Molly Van Benthuysen received polite applause for the baton twirling routine she performed at halftime of the Moravia High School girls’ basketball game in the winter of 1967.
But the fifth-grader really noticed the roar of the crowd when the Mohawkettes took the floor for the second half.
It seemed to young Molly as if all 700 souls in Moravia attended the game, every made shot brought the crowd to its feet, and each rebound and pass brought shouts of encouragement to the girls.
“When it was over, I knew I had to do this,” Molly Van Benthuysen, now Kazmer, said. “I had to play basketball.”
Molly Bolin watching a game. (Photo: Special to the Register)
Molly Bolin grew up in a magical age when six-on-six girls’ basketball ruled Iowa winters. The 2019-20 season marks the 25th without the six-player game and a time when the last of its stars are reaching their mid-40s.
Kazmer, now 62, is working to preserve the history of these early women’s pro pioneers.
When the game was at its peak, stars like Kazmer — her married name at the time was Molly Bolin — were household names. She would grow up to be one of the most prolific scorers in Iowa girls’ basketball, averaging nearly 55 points per game her senior year.
She eventually earned the name “Machine Gun” Molly Bolin. The nickname came from her rapid-fire jump shot that she could take and make from almost anywhere.
She signed the first contract for a pro league based in the United States, the Women’s Professional Basketball League, or WBL.
But pro basketball — with gyms devoid of fans, badly managed league finances and gender-based marketing — was a far cry from the hardcourt royalty she experienced in small-town Iowa.
The WPL folded after just three seasons. Kazmer endured a series of hardships, including a messy custody dispute over her first child.
'Nobody helped us'
All Molly, born Monna Lea, wanted to do was get out of the house.
She was the fifth of six children born to Wanda and Forrest Van Benthuysen.
Forrest Van Benthuysen was a pipeline worker, and the family went where his work was. The six children were born in four different states, and Molly came into the world in Ontario, Canada, in 1957.
Molly Van Benthuysen of Moravia sold greeting cards door-to-door to earn money to attend basketball camp when she was 12. (Photo: Special to the Register)
The family settled in Moravia when Forrest Van Benthuysen got a job building the Lake Rathbun dam.
Money was tight. Four of the six kids were still at home. They worked at an aunt’s hog farm near Knoxville to earn money for school clothes.
They lived in a trailer near the railroad tracks abutting a church graveyard. They couldn’t afford to shop at the local grocery store, so they grew nearly all of their fruits and vegetables.
Kazmer's father hunted game for meat.
Forrest Van Benthuysen started abusing alcohol after a truck crash. Sometimes he would fall down drunk in the middle of the day.
“People passed by and didn’t say a word,” Kazmer said.
His drunkenness mortified his wife. Kazmer said she felt ashamed.
Her father hit her mother, Kazmer said.
“One day, mom had enough and told him that if he did it again, he would never see her again,” Kazmer said. “He stopped. She stood up to him, but nobody got involved or helped us. Back then it wasn’t domestic abuse, it was ‘a family matter.’”
'Anything to get out of the house'
She sought refuge in 4-H, clarinet lessons and had a perfect attendance record at school. She took baton twirling lessons for 10 cents apiece.
"I would do anything to get out of the house," she said.
Molly Van Benthuysen shoots a jumper over a Southeast Warren player while playing for Moravia as an Iowa prep. (Photo: Special to the Register)
The baton twirling money proved well-spent when it brought her to her first six-on-six girls’ basketball game as a fifth-grader.
Six-on-six divided the court into two halves. Each team put out three forwards, who scored, and three forwards, who defended.
Rules allowed only two dribbles before a pass. When one team scored, the referees handed the ball to the other team’s forwards at half court to handle possession change.
The game was fast-paced and combined scores often tallied 200 points or more. In a time before cable TV, the internet and telephones in our pockets, Iowans packed gyms.
“Iowa was in the forefront of involving Iowa girls in athletics,” said Gary Ross, basketball administrator for the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union. “It was what you did on a Tuesday or Friday night in the winter. It brought the community together.”
Molly Van Benthuysen wanted in on the action.
Fighting for her shot
Kazmer's next-door neighbor coached the junior high team. He had an outdoor hoop. He worked with her on shooting.
She hefted shots without regard for rain, snow, wind or heatwave. Molly shot.
She played against boys who took losing against a girl poorly. One regular opponent threw the ball as hard as he could down the street after every loss. Kazmer had to go get it.
Another boy twisted her arm behind her back so badly it injured her shoulder.
Still, she kept shooting.
The summer before she entered high school, her eighth-grade coach suggested Kazmer attend a summer camp run by Bob Spencer, then of the now-defunct Parsons College in Fairfield, to work on her basketball skills. The camp cost $75.
Money was still tight in the Van Benthuysen household. Kazmer ordered a greeting card sales kit from a magazine ad. She went door-to-door across Moravia and sold the cards for 50 cents or $1.
She raised $25, enough for the deposit. Her effort impressed Spencer, who allowed her to work off the remainder of the fee by serving food during mealtimes.
“Coach Spencer was the best coach I ever had,” she said. “He taught me about setting goals and discipline.”
She worked so hard in the camp, she got blisters on her feet, but the pain was Moravia’s gain.
High school phenom rises
Kazmer played only junior varsity as a freshman per coach’s edict. She joined the varsity team her sophomore year and played with another six-player legend: Fonda Dicks.
Dicks possessed a smooth jump shot that Kazmer sought to emulate. The pair combined to light up scoreboards.
Molly Bolin grew up playing six-on-six basketball, but adapted to the five-player game to become a pioneer in women's pro basketball. (Photo: Special to the Register)
Dicks scored 51 points and Kazmer added 32 in Moravia’s 103-90 loss to Colfax in January 1973. The rest of the team scored only seven.
Colfax denied Moravia a spot in the state tournament, ending the Mohawkettes’ season with a three-point loss in the regional final. Dicks scored 42; Kazmer had 23.
Moravia would never make the state tournament during Kazmer's tenure, but the fans who filled the bleachers got a shooting display from Kazmer nearly every night.
She developed a 30-inch vertical leap. The hops pushed her 5-foot-9 frame above defenders and allowed her clear looks at the basket.
She scored 50 points 30 times in her high school career, including scoring 83 points against Leon in January 1975.
Missing the state tournament haunted her.
“Every time we lost, I was in a state of depression for weeks,” she said. “Every girl in the state wanted to make it to Des Moines for the state tournament.”
Kazmer eventually would make it to Des Moines, but as a college and pro star.
More at: https://www.press-citizen.com/story...st-womens-pro-basketball-contract/2586471001/
Molly Van Benthuysen received polite applause for the baton twirling routine she performed at halftime of the Moravia High School girls’ basketball game in the winter of 1967.
But the fifth-grader really noticed the roar of the crowd when the Mohawkettes took the floor for the second half.
It seemed to young Molly as if all 700 souls in Moravia attended the game, every made shot brought the crowd to its feet, and each rebound and pass brought shouts of encouragement to the girls.
“When it was over, I knew I had to do this,” Molly Van Benthuysen, now Kazmer, said. “I had to play basketball.”
Molly Bolin watching a game. (Photo: Special to the Register)
Molly Bolin grew up in a magical age when six-on-six girls’ basketball ruled Iowa winters. The 2019-20 season marks the 25th without the six-player game and a time when the last of its stars are reaching their mid-40s.
Kazmer, now 62, is working to preserve the history of these early women’s pro pioneers.
When the game was at its peak, stars like Kazmer — her married name at the time was Molly Bolin — were household names. She would grow up to be one of the most prolific scorers in Iowa girls’ basketball, averaging nearly 55 points per game her senior year.
She eventually earned the name “Machine Gun” Molly Bolin. The nickname came from her rapid-fire jump shot that she could take and make from almost anywhere.
She signed the first contract for a pro league based in the United States, the Women’s Professional Basketball League, or WBL.
But pro basketball — with gyms devoid of fans, badly managed league finances and gender-based marketing — was a far cry from the hardcourt royalty she experienced in small-town Iowa.
The WPL folded after just three seasons. Kazmer endured a series of hardships, including a messy custody dispute over her first child.
'Nobody helped us'
All Molly, born Monna Lea, wanted to do was get out of the house.
She was the fifth of six children born to Wanda and Forrest Van Benthuysen.
Forrest Van Benthuysen was a pipeline worker, and the family went where his work was. The six children were born in four different states, and Molly came into the world in Ontario, Canada, in 1957.
Molly Van Benthuysen of Moravia sold greeting cards door-to-door to earn money to attend basketball camp when she was 12. (Photo: Special to the Register)
The family settled in Moravia when Forrest Van Benthuysen got a job building the Lake Rathbun dam.
Money was tight. Four of the six kids were still at home. They worked at an aunt’s hog farm near Knoxville to earn money for school clothes.
They lived in a trailer near the railroad tracks abutting a church graveyard. They couldn’t afford to shop at the local grocery store, so they grew nearly all of their fruits and vegetables.
Kazmer's father hunted game for meat.
Forrest Van Benthuysen started abusing alcohol after a truck crash. Sometimes he would fall down drunk in the middle of the day.
“People passed by and didn’t say a word,” Kazmer said.
His drunkenness mortified his wife. Kazmer said she felt ashamed.
Her father hit her mother, Kazmer said.
“One day, mom had enough and told him that if he did it again, he would never see her again,” Kazmer said. “He stopped. She stood up to him, but nobody got involved or helped us. Back then it wasn’t domestic abuse, it was ‘a family matter.’”
'Anything to get out of the house'
She sought refuge in 4-H, clarinet lessons and had a perfect attendance record at school. She took baton twirling lessons for 10 cents apiece.
"I would do anything to get out of the house," she said.
Molly Van Benthuysen shoots a jumper over a Southeast Warren player while playing for Moravia as an Iowa prep. (Photo: Special to the Register)
The baton twirling money proved well-spent when it brought her to her first six-on-six girls’ basketball game as a fifth-grader.
Six-on-six divided the court into two halves. Each team put out three forwards, who scored, and three forwards, who defended.
Rules allowed only two dribbles before a pass. When one team scored, the referees handed the ball to the other team’s forwards at half court to handle possession change.
The game was fast-paced and combined scores often tallied 200 points or more. In a time before cable TV, the internet and telephones in our pockets, Iowans packed gyms.
“Iowa was in the forefront of involving Iowa girls in athletics,” said Gary Ross, basketball administrator for the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union. “It was what you did on a Tuesday or Friday night in the winter. It brought the community together.”
Molly Van Benthuysen wanted in on the action.
Fighting for her shot
Kazmer's next-door neighbor coached the junior high team. He had an outdoor hoop. He worked with her on shooting.
She hefted shots without regard for rain, snow, wind or heatwave. Molly shot.
She played against boys who took losing against a girl poorly. One regular opponent threw the ball as hard as he could down the street after every loss. Kazmer had to go get it.
Another boy twisted her arm behind her back so badly it injured her shoulder.
Still, she kept shooting.
The summer before she entered high school, her eighth-grade coach suggested Kazmer attend a summer camp run by Bob Spencer, then of the now-defunct Parsons College in Fairfield, to work on her basketball skills. The camp cost $75.
Money was still tight in the Van Benthuysen household. Kazmer ordered a greeting card sales kit from a magazine ad. She went door-to-door across Moravia and sold the cards for 50 cents or $1.
She raised $25, enough for the deposit. Her effort impressed Spencer, who allowed her to work off the remainder of the fee by serving food during mealtimes.
“Coach Spencer was the best coach I ever had,” she said. “He taught me about setting goals and discipline.”
She worked so hard in the camp, she got blisters on her feet, but the pain was Moravia’s gain.
High school phenom rises
Kazmer played only junior varsity as a freshman per coach’s edict. She joined the varsity team her sophomore year and played with another six-player legend: Fonda Dicks.
Dicks possessed a smooth jump shot that Kazmer sought to emulate. The pair combined to light up scoreboards.
Molly Bolin grew up playing six-on-six basketball, but adapted to the five-player game to become a pioneer in women's pro basketball. (Photo: Special to the Register)
Dicks scored 51 points and Kazmer added 32 in Moravia’s 103-90 loss to Colfax in January 1973. The rest of the team scored only seven.
Colfax denied Moravia a spot in the state tournament, ending the Mohawkettes’ season with a three-point loss in the regional final. Dicks scored 42; Kazmer had 23.
Moravia would never make the state tournament during Kazmer's tenure, but the fans who filled the bleachers got a shooting display from Kazmer nearly every night.
She developed a 30-inch vertical leap. The hops pushed her 5-foot-9 frame above defenders and allowed her clear looks at the basket.
She scored 50 points 30 times in her high school career, including scoring 83 points against Leon in January 1975.
Missing the state tournament haunted her.
“Every time we lost, I was in a state of depression for weeks,” she said. “Every girl in the state wanted to make it to Des Moines for the state tournament.”
Kazmer eventually would make it to Des Moines, but as a college and pro star.
More at: https://www.press-citizen.com/story...st-womens-pro-basketball-contract/2586471001/
