Blazejowski, Carol A. ("Blaze")
Basketball
b. Sept. 29, 1956, Elizabeth, NJ
Using a jump shot patterned after what she saw in televised professional games, Blazejowski became one of the greatest scorers in the history of women's basketball, although she didn't begin serious competition until her senior year in high school.
At Montclair, NJ, State College, the 5-foot-10 forward was a three-time All-American, from 1976 through 1978, and won the first Wade Trophy as the nation's finest collegiate woman player in 1978. She led the nation in scoring with 33.5 points a game in 1976/77 and with 38.6 per game in 1977/78. Blazejowski scored 40 or more points in each of her last three games, and she set a Madison Square Garden record for either sex with 52 points in a 1978 game against Queens College.
Only an alternate on the 1976 Olympic team, she led the 1977 World University Games team in scoring and had 38 points in a losing effort against the Soviet Union.
After finishing her college career with a record 3,199 points, she played two seasons of AAU basketball with the Allentown, PA, Crestettes. The leading scorer on the national team that won the 1979 world championship, she was chosen for the 1980 Olympic team, but her hopes for a gold medal were crushed by the U. S. boycott of the Moscow Games.
Blazejowski in 1980 became the highest-paid player in the Women's Basketball League, signing a three-year contract for a reported $150,000 with the New Jersey Gems. However, the league folded after just one season, effectively ending her career.