Willa Faye Mason and the All American Red Heads

In 1949, Willa Faye “Red” Mason, a graduate of Siloam Springs High School began playing basketball with “The All American Red Heads”, the first women’s professional basketball team.

The team became so popular with the sports’ crowds that the team hit the road and successfully challenged men’s teams with their trick shots, athletic ability, and “hijinks.”

The Red Heads thrilled audiences all over the United States with behind-the-back shooting, back-hand passing, and athletic ability on the court.

They played men’s teams using men’s rules and won seventy percent of their games. While the men’s teams rested during half-time, the women put on a show that featured their comedic, yet physical, acrobatics.

The team was featured in Life, Sporting News, Sports Life, Look, and Colliers magazines.

They appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show,I’ve Got A Secret, Art Linkletter’s House Party, and What’s My Line.

Once she left the team, Mason went on to earn a Ph.D. in education and eventually became the women’s athletic director at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla.

She taught college for 30 years, and was inducted into the Northeastern State University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1990.

In 2022, she was a finalist to be inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.

Cheree Franco of the Arkansas times is quoted as saying “Without the All American Red Heads, there would be no WNBA.”