From Caitlin Clark’s success this season, to the Women’s Basketball Team shot at The Olympics this week, the history of women’s basketball has been paved by Title IX.
Basketball sensation Caitlin Clark’s final year at The University of Iowa had everything but an elusive national championship. That went to South Carolina in an action-packed showdown worthy of the top two teams in the country.
For the first time ever, that championship game had more TV viewers than the men’s game: 18.9 million people tuned in, nearly double last year’s record 9.9 million viewers and the most of any basketball game—NCAA women or men, NBA or WNBA—in five years. At its peak in the fourth quarter, viewership rose to 24 million. People wanted to see if South Carolina could become the first unbeaten team since 2016, and they wanted to watch Clark, arguably the best player in women’s college basketball, who was on the opposing squad.
During her four years at Iowa, Clark broke records, did State Farm commercials and brought fans by the thousands into arenas all over the country to watch her play. She even had announcers at men’s sporting events talking about women’s basketball. She is the 2023-24 National Player of the Year, and when I watch her compete, I see the full fruits of Title IX and the much longer history of women’s basketball that made this moment possible.
The Amazing Career of Caitlin Clark
Born in 2002 in West Des Moines, Iowa, Clark was already garnering interest from college coaches and setting records as a middle schooler.
In grade school, her parents signed her up to play with boys because there were no girls teams for her age range. By the time she reached middle school, the Iowa basketball world had heard all about her.
Between her sophomore and junior years in high school, Clark didn’t make the USA U17 (the national team for girls ages 17 and younger) and that disappointment motivated her to step up her game. The next year, she was Gatorade Iowa Player of the Year.
In Clark’s first year at Iowa, her 26.6-point average led NCAA Division I, the highest level of collegiate sports in the U.S., and she was named first-team All-American.
Her sophomore year, she scored a then-career-high 46 points in one game, and she was the first Division I woman to lead in the same season in both points and assists. As a junior, she won the National Player of the Year award, which had its first-ever unanimous vote, was named the AP Player of the Year and the Naismith Women’s College Player of the Year; and received the John R. Wooden Award.
In her senior year, Clark hit a new career high with 49 points in a single game. She broke Kelsey Plum’s NCAA women’s career scoring record, and followed that up by breaking the men’s record of 3,667 career points held by Pete Maravich for more than 50 years. She also broke the single-season records for both women and men for three- pointers, and she won back-to-back AP, Naismith and Wooden awards.
It’s now over 50 years since Title IX was passed and it’s amazing how great U.S. women athletes are doing [at the Olympics]. Finally hearts and minds are getting closer to matching the law. People are investing in women’s sports as a business, not a charity.
Billie Jean King
If Not for Them
Much of Clark’s success can be attributed to talent, hard work and good coaching. But as Clark herself acknowledges, many other women paved the way for her. If not for them—and especially if not for Title IX, the 1972 legislation mandating equal treatment in education—there would be no Clark, no record-breaking crowds, no WNBA.
Shimmy Gray-Miller, a former women’s coach and a color and studio analyst for the Big Ten Network, told Ms., “I have watched [Clark] since she was in high school [and] coached against her as an opposing assistant. And now this past year, covering her as an analyst, has given me a totally new perspective. She is one of those rare, younger-generation players who I believe does have an understanding of Title IX and the impact that earlier players have had on our current game.”
The first college women’s basketball games were played at Smith College in 1892, when an enterprising instructor named Senda Berenson adapted the new game to enliven her physical education courses. Soon other schools added the sport, and the first intercollegiate game featured Stanford and UC Berkeley in 1896.
The NCAA formed in 1906 to regulate men’s sports but had no interest in women’s participation. The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) formed in 1971 to govern women’s sports and offer athletic championships for women.
“I think it’s really important to know that there was a time, not too long ago, when there wasn’t intercollegiate competition for women and the NCAA wasn’t interested in women’s sports,” said veteran sports broadcaster Brenda VanLengen, who is producing a documentary series on the origin story of intercollegiate women’s sports through the lens of basketball. “It took the leadership and courage of the women who created and nurtured the AIAW and the coaches and athletes who played in less than ideal environments to pave the way for the opportunities that girls and women have today.”
As schools began to implement Title IX in the 1970s, the legislation revolutionized girls’ and women’s sports. While fewer than 30,000 women played college sports when Title IX was passed, today more than 225,000 compete. Schools have been required to provide girls and women with equitable coaching, facilities, equipment, training and scholarships. While most schools are still not in full compliance with Title IX, the investment in girls and women has paid off.
In 1978 the Women’s Basketball League (WBL) was founded, the first of its kind. It lasted three years and at its peak had teams in 13 states.
The growth of women’s sports ultimately captured the NCAA’s attention. In 1982 both the NCAA and AIAW offered a basketball championship. The AIAW couldn’t compete with the NCAA’s money, and eventually all of its championships moved to the NCAA.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the universities of Tennessee and Connecticut dominated women’s basketball and demonstrated just how powerful and athletic women could be. As generations of girls born after Title IX moved into college, the number of teams able to contend for a championship grew significantly.
This year, more than a dozen teams had a legitimate shot at the Final Four. We’ve also watched superstars of NCAA women’s basketball become household names to fans: Cheryl Miller, Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum, Sabrina Ionescu, A’ja Wilson, and now Angel Reese, Hannah Hidalgo, Paige Bueckers, JuJu Watkins and, of course, Clark.
As Clark told ESPN’s Holly Rowe, “There’s been so many amazing players to come before me and laid such a great foundation for me to be able to play on this stage in front of crowds like this. It didn’t just start with me. It didn’t just start with this team. It was all the people in front of me who have paved the way for women’s basketball and players like myself.”
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