This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

When producer Ellie Gordon Mortial was growing up, she played baseball, tennis, soccer.

Ice hockey, field hockey, flag football, volleyball, field lacrosse,

box lacrosse, I don't even know what that one is.

Basically I played whatever I could find. If there's a team, a moving object, and points to be had, I'm probably pretty good at it.

Ellie is an only child, and she didn't really think of her parents as sports people. To be fair, my dad sometimes went out for

runs, but in short shorts I found very embarrassing, so I blocked it out.

You have to take care of yourself in this world. Still for years I thought I was the only one in my family that truly understood the appeal of the sweat, blood, and tears of sport. That is until I came across my mom's high school yearbooks.

So you guys were called the Rockettes?

Yes. And the boys were called the rockets. I wouldn't say the rocks, but yeah.

That makes a lot for sense.

This is me talking to my mom a few years ago. We were pouring over memories from her time on the high school basketball team back in the 1960s.

Yeah, here I can see. The team ended the season with a 9-16 record.

In one photo, all the girls are sitting straight-legged on the gym floor.

They're in sort of a semi-circul around a basketball showing off their striped socks.

There's also photos of the team goofing around, which I love, but my favorite picture of my mom is her at practice leaping up to defend a player she still remembers.

This is Donna Kraus, who was like the star on the team.

She's shooting a basket, and you can tell there's no way I'm going to block her shot.

In the practice photos everyone looks so cool and athletic with their white sneakers and socks.

But in the game photos, some things looked off. the uniforms for example.

The tops, they were kind of cropped tops so that when you shot a basket or moved your arms up you could actually see your stomach.

Yeah, her entire midriff is exposed and I remember looking at these when I was a teenager and such a tomboy I was like horrified

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