Chang W. Lee/The New York Times  When Jean Marcellus, center, tried out for the professional basketball league, he persuaded his girlfriend, Heather LaCasse, far right, to join him.  WEST ORANGE, N.J. â When Heather LaCasse heard of a proposed coed professional basketball league, she passed the information to her boyfriend, Jean Marcellus, and suggested he try out. As an inducement, she promised to keep him company on the drive from the Bronx to New Jersey.  But on the morning of the tryout, Marcellus, who is 6-foot-6 and played some college and overseas pro ball, talked LaCasse, who is about a foot shorter and played in high school, into packing gym gear, too.  âWhen we got here, he gave me the pen and I said, âI donât think Iâm going to do it because I havenât done organized ball in a long time,âÂ â LaCasse, 30, said. âAnd then he and everybody at the sign-up table said, âJust do it.âÂ â  Making a snap decision at the sound of a well-known slogan, she did.  Mshangwe Crawford, who played football in college, hit the court mainly to provide support for his girlfriend, Amanda Hill, a former high school standout who was intrigued by a paying league that paired men with women.  âI play with her four nights a week, and I donât know anyone who loves the game more than Amanda,â Crawford said.  Women assisting men. Men helping women. Before a ball was dribbled Saturday in the West Orange High School gymnasium, John Howardâs belief in the societal benefits â and potential commercial appeal â for what he is calling the Mixed Gender Basketball Association was heightened.  A few women, most notably Ann Meyers and Nancy Lieberman, have played with men in a professional setting. Many top womenâs college teams routinely use men as practice players. This year, the Dallas Mavericksâ owner, Mark Cuban, suggested that Brittney Griner, the No. 1 pick in the 2013 W.N.B.A. draft, audition for his team. The offer was panned by critics who frowned on imposing male standards on women with leagues and challenges of their own.  âWhether he was serious about it, I donât know, but Grinerâs going into the N.B.A. and playing in an otherwise gender-segregated model is not what Iâm talking about,â Howard said. âMy model is not antagonistic or just competitive. Itâs collaborative.â  After playing basketball for the University of Cincinnati and the Harlem Globetrotters in the 1960s, Howard had a long career in education as a district superintendent, high school principal and college professor. While working for the Michigan Department of Education in the late 1970s, he helped start a gender equity project and became fascinated with the subject. He was not convinced that segregated paths in the realm of sports worked best for the greater good.  Howard, who retired last year, has been designing game and business plans since January for a league he hopes can begin play in 2014 or 2015, with exhibition games at select sites commencing late next month.  He has created a red-and-blue logo (of a ponytailed woman outleaping a man for the ball), a website and a company based in Florida, M.G.B.A. Inc., with national staff directors. He said he was building a network in several areas around the country with the intention of selecting teams to play a series of exhibitions to roll out the concept regionally.  âWhen I show people the plan or the website, the first thing that comes out of their mouth is, âAre you serious?âÂ â Howard said. âI tell them, âYeah, Iâm serious.â And they say, âWell, tell me more about it.â They want to see how it works.â  In his blueprint, the composition of the teams would change from quarter to quarter: three men and two women, and vice versa. There would be a 4-point shot line for women, allowing Howard to use what he called scramble time â giving a team that is trailing at the end of a game or possibly each quarter the right to play up to five women to increase the chance for a 4-point play.  Coaches, he said, would have to process many more game situations than in menâs or womenâs basketball, even on basic screen-and-rolls, given the possible consequences of an unfavorable man-on-woman matchup. Women, conversely, would bring more discipline and a greater commitment to fundamentals, Howard said.
John Howardâs vision for his Mixed Gender Basketball Association includes 4-point shots and lineups whose men-to-women ratio changes from quarter to quarter.