1904 women's basketball champs

'Full Court Press' honors tenacity of tribal team"FULL COURT QUEST: The Girls From Fort Shaw Indian School Basketball Champions of the World," by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith, University of Oklahoma Press, 496 pages, $29.95

When I think of pioneering basketball players, I think of the women who were the first to earn scholarships after the adoption of Title lX.

So, I was stunned to learn that not only were women playing basketball from the game's inception in 1891, but that a group of women who participated in one of our country's most embarrassing programs—Indian boarding schools—played the game so well they were recognized by World's Fair officials as champions in 1904.