How a Kansas woman travelled the yellow brick road to Harlem Globetrotters history

It was Lynette Woodard's childhood dream to play for the Harlem Globetrotters.

Her cousin, Hubert "Geese" Ausbie, played for the Globetrotters. She had the poster on her wall, and she'd be in the stands every time they visited her hometown of Wichita.

But as a Kansas native, whose mother Dorothy once had a dog named Toto, Woodard knew she'd have to travel her own yellow brick road to history.

"In Kansas, it's indoctrinated into you, you learn about the Wizard of Oz. So I just kind of took it and made it my own story, but that was a dream that I had that no one believed," Woodard told CBC Sports.

In 1985, Woodard's dream became reality. She was one of 60 women to respond to a Globetrotters newspaper ad. She was one of about 20 to move onto the second stage of tryouts in California.

And she was the only one to make the team, the first woman player in the history of the Harlem Globetrotters.

"I'd see the magic, the wizardry, and they were just always in my heart. And I don't know, I just started to say I was going to do it," Woodard said. "And that was my dream. I held it and then it came true. So dreams do come true."

By the time she joined the Globetrotters, Woodard, who's now 63, had already enjoyed an esteemed four-year college career with the Kansas Jayhawks where she became the all-time leading scorer in women's college basketball, a record she still holds today.

Woodard made the 1980 U.S. Olympic basketball team but did not compete because of the Western boycott of those Moscow Games. She returned as captain for the 1984 squad, leading the Americans to gold in Los Angeles.

That's where the idea of turning co-ed first occurred to the Globetrotters. Still, not all team members were necessarily open at first — not that