Long before Chamique Holdsclaw, Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swopes arrived on the basketball scene there was Carol Blazejowski. Today she is the Vice President and General manager of the WNBA's New York Liberty.

But a quarter-century ago she was "The Blaze," one of the greatest players ever to step on the court in any era.

You won't find Blazejowski's name on the list of all-time NCAA scoring leaders. She finished her career at Montclair State in 1978, before the NCAA took over control of women's intercollegiate athletics. But the numbers she put up were staggering.

In her four collegiate seasons Blazejowski scored 3199 points, more than any other female player in history and averaged 31.7 pints per game. She also holds single season marks for scoring average (38.6) and total points (1235)– and there was no three-point line when Blazejowski played!

A three-time All-American she was the Converse Player of the Year as a junior and the first-ever Wade Trophy winner as a senior. She represented the United States at the Pan American and World University Games and was a member of the United States team that boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.

Blazejowski played a key role in heightening the awareness of women's college basketball. When she began her collegiate career she and her teammates played in front of a few dozen friends and relatives, when she left, Montclair State was playing to capacity crowds and had played in the first women's doubleheader at Madison Square Garden. In her sophomore season (1976) Montclair State reached the AIAW Final Four.

Times were different then; Blazejowski and her teammates washed their own uniforms and had to buy their own shoes. "We played for the love of the game," she says now. "For the most part we played to have fun and be competitive. When you look back now, some 20-odd years later you realize how much of a pioneering effort it was."

Since her college days, Blazejowski has remained a trailblazer. She played in the short-lived Women's Basketball League and before it sank beneath a sea of red ink she was its leading scorer and Most Valuable Player. Now she is part of a women's pro league that has unprecedented resources at its disposal but she is convinced the WNBA has survived only because the public wanted it to.

"None of this would have mattered unless the culture was ready for it," Blazejowski said. "We had gone through an evolution of societal and attitudinal changes in terms of how people reacted to women in sport. I think you could get all the marketing dollars you wanted but if the public isn't ready for it it Anita going to happen."

As an executive Blazejowski remains a pioneer with an old-school attitude; wanting to see the game grow but refusing to take a quarter century of progress or granted.

"Oftentimes I think of some of these athletes, even in our league and say, "Look, this is a privilege to participate in this league," she said "and to get the exposure you're getting. This is not a right you have, this is a privilege and I can speak to them that way because I came from a world where there was nothing and I viewed every opportunity for me as a privilege, because it was, because I didn't have to have it. These guys don't have to have it and if they don't treat it with tender loving care and really look at it as sacred, they'll lose it."

Now in her mid-40s Blazejowski still plays pickup games with her Liberty players from time to time and is as competitive as ever. Ask her if she would be competitive in today's game and she says'Absolutely.' The casual observer might think she's kidding but those who saw the fire and feistiness she brought to every game aren't so sure.

"I was a heady player," Blazejowski said. "I didn't rely on my athleticism back then and I wouldn't rely on it now. I was just smart."

She was more than that. She was one of the best that ever was.