The Iowa Girls' High School State Championships.

While the rest of the country was downplaying girls' sports, Iowa high school girls' basketball had a huge following in the 1940s. In the 1940 state championship game, 7,000 fans packed the Drake University Fieldhouse to see Hansell High School defeat Waterville High School.

The Hansell team boasted a stellar player in Helen Van Houten who scored more than 2,500 points in her high school career. This happened at a time when across the country, girls had been banned from playing basketball for fear that the game, even in its restricted format that limited where players could move on the court*, was too strenuous for females. The belief was that too much exercise was bad for women's reproductive systems and that they didn't have the stamina for competitive sports.

However, Iowans ignored this wacky theory, and girls' high school basketball thrived throughout the decade. In fact, the sport was so popular among Iowa's high school girls that Iowa Wesleyan College took the plunge and opted to offer women's basketball as an intercollegiate sport. The Tigerettes, as they were called, participated in AAU play throughout the Midwest.

So, next time someone tells you that women's basketball hasn't been around long enough to have paid its dues, make like a Tigerette and roar out this information.

* Most women played a six-on-six game at the time ... we'll tell you about that whole story in a future Fun Fact.

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