Cheryl Miller, Nancy Lieberman, Ann Meyers Drysdale recall Mercury, WNBA launch in 1997

The 2023 WNBA finals won by the Las Vegas Aces in October were the league's most watched finals in 20 years. It averaged 728,000 TV viewers through the series' four games, up 36% from last year, per Statista.

That level of fan interest was similar to Phoenix's first game on June 22, 1997 when the league began.

“Women’s basketball was coming off a high because of the ’96 Olympic team, and they killed everyone," former Phoenix coach Cheryl Miller said to The Republic. "I didn’t know how big it was gonna be.

"And to that first game, I’ve never been afraid as a player or even as a coach, but you’re talking about the biggest stage and its (16,000) standing. I don’t think they sat one time. I know I couldn’t because my legs were shaky but it was magical.”

Phoenix's highly anticipated matchup and home win over the Charlotte Sting was aired on NBC with a sellout of over 16,000 fans at the America West Arena (now Footprint Center).

The Mercury had the league's then-oldest player at 39 in Nancy Lieberman. Ann Meyers Drysdale was the WNBA's color analyst, who called the Phoenix-Charlotte game. Lieberman, Miller, and Meyers Drysdale were Naismith Hall of Famers before the league began.

Meyers Drysdale has been an analyst for Phoenix Suns and Mercury games since 2012.

“Nancy, Cheryl, Annie, all the greats that came before me, without them there would be no league right now, honestly,” Phoenix's All-Star center Brittany Griner said to The Republic.

“I gotta give them the credit for fighting so hard, especially then because it was way different than it is now. For them fighting so hard for us to even have this W, be able to stay here or have the choice to stay here and not have to go (play) overseas.”

The Mercury are one of the league's original eight teams. Phoenix arguably had the most buzz besides New York, the Los Angeles Sparks, four-time consecutive champion and now-defunct Houston Comets, and the latter three boasted future Hall of Famers Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie, and Sheryl Swoopes from the gold medal-winning 1996 U.S. National Team on their respective rosters.

They all were among the biggest names in the league's initial "We Got Next" ad campaign that began in the fall 1996.

Current Phoenix Xavier Prep girls basketball coach Jennifer Gillom was the Mercury's leading scorer that first season at 15.7 points per game. Lieberman played for just one season in Phoenix.

The team's fans made the Footprint Center the league's highest attended arena this season. Meyers Drysdale told The Republic that Miller was vital in curating the Mercury’s high spirited fan base "X-Factor" after the franchise's first victory.

“When they won that first game, Cheryl was on the (scorer’s) table waving the towel, it created such an excitement and that was Phoenix Mercury. That was who they became because of Cheryl," Meyers Drysdale said.

The Mercury made their first of its five finals appearances the following year, and won three in 2007, 2009, and 2014.

Phoenix Mercury tied to modern women's basketball origins

Miller and Lieberman were the torchbearers of women's basketball in the 1980s, and Meyers Drysdale and Lieberman were among its pioneers during the previous decade.

Meyers Drysdale was the first four-time women's All-American at UCLA, the nation's first female to receive a four-year Division I athletic scholarship.

Lieberman and Meyers Drysdale were the first high school student-athletes for the nation's first all-women's international team for the 1975 Pan American Games team and won the tournament. They played together again on the next year's U.S. women's hoops Olympic team, after the U.S. government passed the anti-sex discrimination Title IX law in 1972.

“We were the Title IX babies," Meyers Drysdale said.

The 1976 team were among the 2023 Hall of Fame class inductees celebrated at the Jerry Colangelo Hall of Fame Golf Classic in Litchfield Park in September.

“In my Reveal jacket at the Hall of Fame this year for that '76 team, they said you could have four logos. I had the Big 3 (league in which she serves as a coach), Old Dominion, USA Olympic team and Phoenix Mercury," Lieberman said. "People that ask about the Mercury logo, they don’t understand what it means to me."

In addition, Meyers Drysdale was the first female to sign an NBA deal to play for the Indiana Pacers in 1979, but didn’t make the final roster after a three-day tryout. She began her broadcasting career as one of the team’s color analysts when few women held that job in sports.

Miller is Pacers legend Reggie Miller's older sister. She scored 100 points in a high school game, was a three-time National Player of the Year at USC, led the Trojans to the 1983 and 1984 NCAA titles, and the U.S. women's national team to the gold in the latter year's Los Angeles Olympics.

Lieberman led Old Dominion to its second straight national title in 1980 over Tennessee, which was coached by Lieberman’s and Meyers Drysdale’s late former USA teammate Pat Summitt, women's college basketball's second-most all time in wins and eight national titles.

Lieberman added that many of her Olympic teammates retired from playing because making a stable living in women's basketball was seldom, other than coaching, playing in the Amateur Athletic Union or professionally in Europe.

That began to change when several short-lived women's domestic pro leagues were created then quickly faded. The WBL (Women’s Professional Basketball League, lasted from 1978 to 1981, WABA (Women's American Basketball Association) for just one year in 1984, and ABL from 1996 to 1998.

Meyers Drysdale was the WBL's the first overall draft for its inaugural season, but didn't sign a contract to maintain her amateur status and eligibility for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. But she then joined the WBL's New Jersey Gems and won 1980 co-MVP honors.

Lieberman was the WBL's 1980 first overall pick by the Dallas Diamonds and Rookie of the Year, the WABA's MVP in 1984.

“I made a decision not to go to Europe, that I was going to stay, kind of ride or die and that I was going to try to do my best for women’s basketball,” Lieberman said.

Miller was drafted to several leagues, including the men's league USBL in which she played in the late 1980s. Her playing career was cut short after a series on knee injuries, then she joined the USC coaching staff from 1991 to 1995.

Similar to Meyers Drysdale’s Indiana tryouts, Lieberman was the only woman on the Los Angeles Lakers’ 1981 summer league roster under its then-assistant coach Pat Riley.

In 1985, NBA commissioner David Stern called Lieberman to set up a meeting with him at the league's New York front office.

”He goes, 'Nancy, before I’m done being the commissioner of the NBA, there’s gonna be a WNBA,' and went, ‘What? What are you talking about?' He said, ‘It’s my only hope that you’ll still be around to play, and I went, ‘Of course, I will." You don’t see the end at 25, 26." Lieberman said.

"He was already planting the seed with the owners and the league didn’t start until 1997.”

Lieberman added that all past and present WNBA players should be grateful to the late Stern for giving them that platform, and is thankful for today's WNBA All-Stars looking up to them.

“What I love about Diana Taurasi, Sabrina (Ionescu), and Arike (Ogunbowale of Dallas Wings) is that they treat me like gold,” Lieberman said. “They honor Ann Meyers. They honor Cheryl Miller, us. ...

“People that go to war and come back, they just want to be remembered that they fought for you. We fought for this league.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Mercury legends Lieberman, Miller recall WNBA's 1997 launch