Oral history interview with Musiette McKinney conducted by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White on July 2, 2024 for Game On! The Oral History of Las Vegas Sports project. In this interview, Musiette KcKinney recalls a childhood in Illinois and Pomona, California. She describes being recruited out of high school to play at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in 1975, and then being drafted to the San Francisco Pioneers, an expansion team in the first women's professional basketball league, the Women's Basketball League. Returning to Pomona, McKinney coached basketball part time for Mount San Antonio Community College (Mt. SAC) and earned her A.A. in Criminal Justice. In 1992, McKinney arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada as UNLV's Assistant Women's Basketball Coach for four years under Head Coach Jim Bolla. After two years at the Andre Agassi Academy, McKinney returned to UNLV to work with the Center for Academic Enrichment & Outreach. McKinney was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame with her former team, the San Francisco Pioneers, and the entire Women's Professional Basketball League as "Trailblazers of the Game." Digital audio and photographs available.
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Gwendolyn K. Walker arrived in North Las Vegas in 1962 from Houston, Texas, as a five-year-old with her parents, two brothers, and her cousins. The Walker family at first moved to a rented house on D Street, and Gwen attended Kit Carson Elementary School for first grade. Her mother enrolled in nursing school, so she sent Gwen back to Delhi, Louisiana, to be raised by her grandmother. In Delhi Gwen picked cotton with her aunt while she was in the second grade. Gwen returned to North Las Vegas to live with her mother and complete elementary school at Jo Mackey before matriculating to J. D. Smith Elementary School for junior high school and then to Clark High School. Later she attended UNLV. Gwen and her mother joined Saint James Catholic Church at H Street and Washington Avenue, but after she returned from Delhi she joined Second Baptist Church, where she became close with a cohort of friends that remained strong even as she experienced racism and bullying and love for the first time.
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