Women’s Pro Basketball League Planned

Although two previous shots at establishing a women’s professional basketball league in the United States bounced off the rim, a Compton businessman is giving it another try with the Women’s Sports Assn. Professional Basketball League, scheduled to begin play March 15.

One of the league’s 10 franchise is scheduled to be located in Santa Ana.

The league’s organizer, Lou Dias, is a 49-year-old advertising executive for Compton College’s sports department and a tax consultant. Dias said the league would succeed by avoiding the mistakes of its predecessors, the professional Women’s Basketball League (1978--81) and the Ladies Professional Basketball Assn., which folded in 1980.

Dias, who was not involved with either of those leagues, said the new league will decrease overhead by playing small venues, keeping players’ salaries down and emphasizing corporate sponsorship.

The league’s coaches will draft players Saturday at Compton College. Players will be selected from a pool of athletes who participated in four Southland tryouts in December.

Dias said the other franchises will be in Compton, Long Beach, Cerritos, Ventura, Los Angeles, Culver City, Pasadena, Montebello and San Bernardino.

Orange County’s proposed entry, the Santa Ana Bees, will be coached by Mark Thomas of Placentia, a sales director for a Cerritos auto dealership. Thomas’ only varsity experience was as the girls’ coach at Pomona Catholic High School in 1981.

No corporation has announced its intentions to sponsor the league and it remains to be seen if the top players will participate.

Ann Meyers, a former Olympian who signed a three-year, $130,000 contract with the WBL’s New Jersey Gems but stopped playing because she wasn’t paid, agrees that any professional league for women will have to start small. But by doing so, she says, it won’t be able to attract name players such as Olympian Cheryl Miller, a sports broadcaster for ABC.

“The good women’s players coming out of college and playing on national team are going to go over to Europe and make money,” said Meyers, who also is a sports broadcaster.

Meyers, however, said she would consider playing in the league if it didn’t interfere with her broadcasting.