Black Fives

Philadelphia Quick Steppers

Location: Philadelphia, PA
Manager: Germantown Colored YWCA
Established: Late 1920s

The Philadelphia Quick Steppers were organized in the late 1920s in connection with the Young Women’s Christian Association Colored Branch in Germantown, a racially diverse section on the city’s North Side.

Along with future Basketball Hall of Fame member Ora Washington, Inez “Pat” Patterson was the Quick Steppers’ most talented player.

A record-setting Temple University athlete, she was an All-Collegiate selection in many sports including basketball, and was enshrined in the Temple University Hall of Fame in 1987.

A native of West Philadelphia and the team’s captain, Patterson led the Quick Steppers to a 15-1 record and the Eastern Colored Women’s Basketball Championship title in 1929.

More than a great athlete, Patterson also managed the team and was far ahead of her time as a Black female sports promoter and entrepreneur.

In 1930, she approached the powerful Philadelphia Tribune, a leading African American newspaper, to propose a team sponsorship arrangement with the Quick Steppers that would promote her basketball team, bringing free advertising, promotion, and financial stability during a time of great uncertainty at the start of the Great Depression.

In return, she renamed her squad the Tribune Girls, a team that would go on to win eleven straight Black national championships.

The Quick Steppers broke the paradigm of dainty blouses and bloomers not only by dominating their competition on the court but also by shattering prior notions about the levels women could achieve as leaders in the business of sports.

Patterson died unexpectedly in 1944 following a nervous breakdown after a two-week illness.

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