A Basketball Trailblazer: My Mother, the WNBA Star You’ve Never Heard Of

My mom, Judy Mosley McAfee, was one of the very first women drafted into the WNBA. But you’ve probably never heard of her. I certainly didn’t know how she blazed a trail for what women’s basketball has become today until I started researching her past.

My mom passed away from breast cancer when I was 12. I never saw her playing college or pro ball because by the time I was born in 2001, she had stopped playing. I knew her better as a high school teacher and coach.

Now that I’m 24, just a few years older than my mom was when she started playing college ball, I’ve been on a quest to understand that side of her, and why she loved a sport I’ve been less than fond of for most of my life.

I’m 5’10” — and my whole life, people have asked me if I play basketball. But the truth is, I’ve never really liked the sport. The exuberant mascots, the endless running up and down the court. It felt pointless and boring to me.

But when my mom played, she made fans fall in love with women’s basketball, and ultimately left a legacy that paved the way for today’s record attendance at WNBA games — and the rise of teams like the Golden State Valkyries.

My mom started her basketball career at La Puente High in Los Angeles, where she averaged more than 15 points per game. Recruiters came knocking from more than 80 schools, but she ultimately decided on the University of Hawaii at Manoa, which, at the time, ranked 159th in the U.S.

But my mom turned that around. She would become the nation’s second-leading scorer, averaging 27 points and 15 rebounds per game. And she put the University of Hawaii on the map. Today, the UH Rainbow Wahines are ranked seventh in the NCAA.

Even 35 years after graduating from UH, my mom is still considered the best player — in both women’s and men’s sports — in the school’s history. She was even honored with the title “All-Time American” for her last two years of college.

This spring, I actually got to visit the college to meet some of her former teammates and see the gym where the Wahines used to play. I kept trying to envision what it must have been like to be 18, a California girl on a basketball scholarship to Hawaii, double majoring and balancing good grades with her record-breaking basketball career. I truly do not know how she did it.

The best part of the trip was visiting the current Wahines locker room to marvel at a giant photo on the wall. There was my mom, larger than life, going for a rebound, the only player to lead the Wahines in scoring and rebounding for four straight seasons.

“When the ball was in the air, you don’t know which way the ball was gonna bounce, but your mom did,” her former assistant coach, George Wolfe, told me.

“We call it a nose for the ball,” Wolfe said.

Soon after graduating in 1990, my mom played overseas in places like Italy, Hungary, Japan and Spain. Once she met my dad, he traveled with her all over the world, witnessing the influence she had on the crowd. He told me it was like walking on clouds.

In 1997, she was drafted to the Sacramento Monarchs for the WNBA’s inaugural season. She was the sixth woman picked for the league — out of 32 women selected from around the globe.

My mom’s former teammate, Tajama Abraham, told me it wasn’t easy to be a part of the first-ever women’s basketball national league because there were no mentors.

“You’re creating this whole women’s pro thing from scratch. We had no understanding of what it [was] going to take at that level,” Abraham said.

And in those early years, the women’s league didn’t get the same coverage as the NBA — and generated far less advertising revenue and corporate support.

Back in that first year of the WNBA, female players only earned a base salary of $28,000 a season. Compare that to NBA players’ base of $200,000.

Even though my mom passed more than a decade ago, it feels good to get to know her better. To know that she paved the way for women’s basketball and teams like the Golden State Valkyries to get the respect they deserve.

I’m grateful to get to know this side of my mom. She was a champion, a. A true warrior on and off the court. I didn’t get to know her for very long, but she was, and still is, everything to me.

I can’t remember how her voice sounds anymore, but I will always recall the smell of the fresh pots of rice she would make in the early morning, before her two-hour commute to work. I will always cherish her big gummy smile, the one we’d see after she told a joke that usually only she thought was funny. I won’t forget the way she would throw her hair up into a ponytail and curl her bangs with a bump.

Like her favorite flower, she was a rose plucked too soon. Luscious, fleeting. A flower that left me with thorns all over because I held on too hard. And still, I would pick thorns out of my hands for the rest of my life if that meant I could see her again. If I make it to 45, I hope I’m at least half as cool as she was.

I may not blaze new trails or set new records like she did, but I know that if I just try my hardest and am genuine in what I do, everything will be okay.

I love you, mommy.

Audy McAfee produced this audio documentary as her master’s thesis at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism’s audio program.