History nut alert.

Give me three minutes, and I'll remind someone that women have been playing basketball since 1892,

Give me two minutes more, and I'll point out that in the mid-30's Lou Hoover helped ban all (but one) state high school tournaments and most college varsity teams had been eliminated.

One more minute, and we'll get to the story of those stubborn women who truly played for the love of the game. The best of those players became AAU All-Americans. It's a list that dates back to 1929.

Margaret Sexton Gleaves was one of those women.

Few players in the country stacked up with the 1938 Bellevue High alumna.

"She was one of the best guards there's ever been," said Alline Banks Sprouse of Manchester, the decade's most dominant player (nine times she was AAU national tournament MVP) and Gleaves' roommate on the road for several years with NBC and the Blumes.

"We won many national championships. We were All-Americans.