Motivation Quote by Sue Wicks

Sue Wicks is sketching the prehistory of women’s basketball stardom: a world where talent existed in plain view, but the spotlight was rationed. The bluntness of “two or three NCAA games a season” isn’t nostalgia, it’s an accounting. She’s marking how the sport’s visibility was structurally throttled, not earned or lost on merit. A “very good local following” reads like a small-town band with no distribution deal: the community shows up, the wider culture doesn’t even know the tour is happening.

The pivot to Europe is telling because it complicates the usual American progress narrative. Going overseas is often framed as validation or adventure, but Wicks describes it like a reality check. “Once in a while we had a good crowd, but usually not” lands with the cadence of someone tired of romanticizing scarcity. It’s not bitterness; it’s clear-eyed recollection of what it meant to compete in a marketplace that didn’t yet believe women’s basketball was a product worth broadcasting.

Subtextually, she’s also drawing a line between audience and infrastructure. People could be enthusiastic locally, but without regular TV windows, leagues can’t build national storylines, casual fans, or the kind of cultural muscle that turns players into household names. Wicks’ understated phrasing mirrors the era’s low expectations, and that’s the point: women athletes weren’t just playing opponents, they were playing the limits of attention.