SAN FRANCISCO – Denise Long Rife spends her days as a retiree rather quietly, reading theology books in her Kansas home.
The 74-year-old used to ride horses, but hip surgeries and knee ailments made such activities difficult — though she still finds the strength to help her husband Dan fix up the house from time to time.
Her life now is far from what she called the “Calamity Jane” whirlwind she lived over 50 years ago as a trailblazing teenage hoops superstar.
This month, the Warriors invited Long Rife back to the Bay Area.After all, she is a pioneer of a now thriving women’s game.
Seated next to Natalie Nakase, the coach of the Bay Area’s beloved WNBA team that sells out every home game, at a news conference before a recent Warriors game,Long Rife had the chance to relive some fond memories: when she scored 111 points in an Iowa high school game, when the Warriors made her the first woman to be drafted by an NBA team, when Wilt Chamberlain asked for her autograph, when she averaged 45 a night as a 19-year-old.
What could she have done had she been born in 2001, not 1951? What more could Long Rife have accomplished in a world that has pushed women’s basketball to the front, instead of relegating it to a sideshow?
It is not a question she cares to answer.
“I view it in the way that God had me born where and when I was supposed to be born, and that I was supposed to create this little bridge,” Long Rife, a devout Christian, told the Bay Area News Group.
NBC Sports and Athletics broadcaster Jenny Cavnar, Warriors 1969 draft pick Denise Long Rife, Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller and Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase, from left, pose with jerseys during a press conference before the Warriors NBA game against the LA Clippers at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, March 2, 2026. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
NBC Sports and Athletics broadcaster Jenny Cavnar, Warriors 1969 draft pick Denise Long Rife, Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller and Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase, from left, pose with jerseys during a press conference before the Warriors NBA game against the LA Clippers at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, March 2, 2026. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
Growing up in tiny Whitten, Iowa, she was a star in a six-player form of basketball. Three scorers remained on one side of the court, and three defenders on the other in the only version of the sport girls were allowed to play.
It was players such as Long Rife who set the stage for today’s modern stars. Almost 60 years later, fellow Iowan and current WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark admitted as much.
“When I hear from a lot of people that played basketball, whether it was six-on-six however many years ago, I think they’re blown away at where women’s basketball is now and the platform we get to play on,” Clark told reporters in 2024. “That doesn’t come if it’s not for the people who came before us.”
Long Rife was among the most prolific of the pioneering players. Tasked only with scoring, the 5-foot-11 Long Rife put up truly preposterous numbers at Union-Whitten High School.
An unfathomable 6,249 career points. Averaging 69 points per game. Multiple games in triple digits. A state title as a junior.
All earned her lofty praise from coach Paul Eckerman, whom she credited with molding her into a star.
“I’ve heard coaches say, ‘You can stop her by doing this or doing that,’” Eckerman told the Des Moines Register in 1969. “But I’ve seen her in the state tournament the past four years and I’ve never seen her stopped yet. We couldn’t stop her. She must get a foot off the floor when she takes that jump shot. There’s no defense against that.”
While Long Rife’s jump shot was indeed nigh unblockable, she grimaced at the thought of it a half-century later.
“I wish (Eckerman) would have given me some pointers on my jump shot a little earlier, because I was just a young girl, and I could add scoring to my average,” Long Rife said.
Whatever insecurities she had about her lethal jumper did not find their way to San Francisco, where then-Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli had heard reports of a mythical scorer from America’s heartland.
The Bay Area media tycoon then decided to make her the centerpiece of a wild idea.
On May 8, 1969, the Warriors made Long Rife their 13th-round selection in that year’s draft, enshrining her in the history books as the first woman drafted by an NBA team. Only one woman — Luisa Harris in 1977 — has been drafted since.
Facing cameras and a swath of media in her tiny hometown, Long Rife was not frightened by the prospect of moving cross-country.
Denise Long drives to the rim during a game. Long was drafted by the Warriors in 1969 (Photo courtesy of the Golden State Warriors)
Denise Long drives to the rim during a game. Long was drafted by the Warriors in 1969 (Photo courtesy of the Golden State Warriors)
She was just relieved to be drafted by a basketball team, rather than the military.
“I thought I was going into Vietnam,” Long Rife said. “I thought, ‘Well, maybe they think I’m going to be a good soldier.’”
Instead of shooting bullets, she shot baskets. But not against NBA competition. Commissioner Walter Kennedy voided the pick and Mieuli decided he would make Long Rife the face of his four-team women’s basketball league, which would play before or after Warriors games.
“This is no mere whim of mine,” Mieuli told the San Francisco Examiner after the draft. “I’ve been thinking about a girls league for months. I intend to fly to Des Moines this week and confer with Miss Long and her parents and coach.”
Mieuli was successful in convincing the family to buy into his dream, and Long Rife did not disappoint once she arrived in San Francisco.
On the court, she led the league in scoring with a 45-point-per-game average while playing a more conventional five-player game against grown-up opponents with jobs and children.
She lived a charmed existence, aside from dealing with a roommate who stole the clothes Long Rife bought with a stipend provided by Mieuli. She made the dean’s list as a student at the University of San Francisco and enjoyed life as a teenager in the city vibrating with energy at the time.
Denise Long poses with former San Francisco Giants star Willie Mays in 1969. Long was drafted by the Warriors in 1969 (Photo courtesy of the Golden State Warriors)
Denise Long poses with former San Francisco Giants star Willie Mays in 1969. Long was drafted by the Warriors in 1969 (Photo courtesy of the Golden State Warriors)
She went to Janis Joplin concerts, met Willie Mays at Giants games, and frequent made trips to the center of Bay Area counterculture at the time.
“I went down to Haight-Ashbury, and that was memorable,” Long Rife said. “You couldn’t not remember that area.”
She even had an unforgettable experience with former Warrior Wilt Chamberlain, who was no stranger to scoring 50 a night. Previously, the 7-footer had jovially remarked to a reporter that he might ask Long Rife for her autograph.
But once they met by chance by a jukebox at a restaurant, Chamberlain decided to drop the act.
“He told me he could block my shot anytime,” Long Rife recalled. “So he got his cockiness right back. He asked, ‘You need my autograph, right?’’’
Her pro career as the high-scoring phenom in the fledgling San Francisco league lasted less than a year. After it didn’t bring in the kind of fan support and revenue he craved, Mieuli folded the league in March of 1970.
Long Rife spent the next decade attending Midwestern colleges while dabbling in other sports such as flag football and track.
After being encouraged to read the Beatitudes, Long Rife committed her life to Christianity, later going to Faith Bible College back in Iowa and joining a barnstorming team that preached the gospel while entertaining fans across Asia.
Eventually needing a more stable income, Long Rife settled down, earned a degree and worked in pharmacy until she retired in 2016.
Though her days as a scoring machine are long behind her, and the ruleset that she thrived under is nearly extinct as five-player basketball reigns in its place, Long Rife still finds joy in the game that, for a short time, turned her into a star.
“We watch it every chance we get in Kansas,” she said. “The game’s changed, but it’s still good.”
Denise Long is interviewed during a practice in 1969. Long was drafted by the Warriors in 1969 (Photo courtesy of the Golden State Warriors)
Denise Long is interviewed during a practice in 1969. Long was drafted by the Warriors in 1969 (Photo courtesy of the Golden State Warriors)