My first intuitive feeling about sportswriting was when I was in seventh grade. UW finished the season 39-0 and won its third national title in eight years. I was anxiously waiting for Sports Illustrated to air.
When it arrived, Maryland's Juan Dixon was on the cover, and the front page of the April 8, 2002 issue read: 44. ”
I immediately flipped through the 2002 magazine's “Faces in the Crowd,” where I was sure to see female athletes, including close U.S. seniors like Sue Bird, Swin Cash, A'ja Jones, and Tamika. I read a special feature detailing the life of . Williams. How they lived together off campus. I cooked weekly family dinners. We played card games and bet on who would cry first on senior night. …I ate it all.
As a women's college basketball fan in the 1990s and 2000s, these details stuck with me years later because there wasn't much information out there to inform me about the most exciting teams and players. I rarely forget anything. The facts just existed in your brain (sometimes for the next 20 years).
After rereading the UConn article, I turned to the back page to check out the column I always read, “Life of Reilly.”
What's the headline? “I feel disconnected from my feminine side.”
“Do you think it's hard to coach in the Final Four?” Do you think it's hard to deal with 280-pound seniors, freshmen with agents, and athletic directors with pockets full of pink slips? ” columnist Rick Reilly began. “Please. Try coaching a 7th grade girl. After working with boys for 11 years, I helped coach my daughter Ray's school basketball team this winter. About the 7th grade girl What I learned is that they are usually in the bathroom.”
A few pages about strong elite women in college were sandwiched between a three-word headline on the front page and 800 words more suited to trash and lazy literature on the back page. It was disappointing and frustrating. Worst of all, even for me as a seventh grader, it was expected.
Throughout the history of sports, female athletes (and their fans) have had to embrace the highs and lows and move on. I understood that the lows were all too often intentional: due to a lack of investment, institutional support, and attention. These downturns then became artificial reasons to suppress and keep the sport suppressed. It's a Catch-22 for women's sports.
The “Caitlin Clark Effect” swept through the WNBA this summer, with not just the Fever but teams across the league drawing record crowds and massive television ratings. The women's college season begins this week, but interest remains even without the star players who took women's college hoops to a new level.
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Defending champion South Carolina sold out season ticket packages for the first time in program history. UW sold out season tickets for the first time since 2004. LSU and Iowa State each sold out without Angel Reese and Clark. Texas, Notre Dame and Tennessee also reported significant increases.
Five months before the national title game, Final Four tickets are sold out and the resale market is booming. A nosebleed at the national championship game costs nearly $200, but a courtside seat costs nearly $3,000.
For the first time since 2004-2005, Gampel Pavilion season tickets are sold out.
Limited season tickets for the XL Center game remain ➡️ https://t.co/SLhPATBr4S pic.twitter.com/QGyhYGh81F
— UConn Women's Basketball (@UConnWBB) October 2, 2024
No one in women's hoops has won more than Dawn Staley – a Final Four as a player, a national title as a coach, an Olympic gold medal as a player, and an Olympic gold medal as a coach. Her office in South Carolina is filled with memorabilia. But even among her special accomplishments, this particular moment in women's college basketball feels especially different for her. “I feel like I have the freedom to explore how far this game can go,” she said. “We don't have boundaries, so you can look at the talent, the coaching, the fan support, the ratings, all of that.”
Staley speaks frequently and openly about how the women's game has been intentionally suppressed by so many for so long. First, due to the exclusion of women in sports prior to Title IX. Then by the NCAA, which prioritized men's college basketball. Also, the TV media partners who refused to introduce the game to as many people as possible (and used the lack of viewers as a reason not to air it on the major networks), and the print media coverage who refused to write about it. The same goes for . It was about women's sports (often claiming afterwards that no one read about it).
Then came last season. This was a year in which the women's national title game drew nearly 4 million more viewers than the men's title game, a year in which the NCAA intentionally undervalued the game and forced its media partners to underpay. This was just three years after the Kaplan report revealed this.
“This is it,” Staley said, pausing and moving her hands to show everything that had happened over the past year. “I never thought I would ever be able to participate.”
Anyone who has been around women's basketball will share the excitement and cautious optimism about this season. Will this finally be a turning point? Will the forces that have permanently blocked the match retreat?
Tara VanDerveer has seen it all, including what she considers to be a turning point. The first season in Columbus, the 1985 game between Iowa and Ohio State drew 22,000 spectators. But it turned out to be an outlier. Throughout her career, which began as an assistant coach driving the team bus and doing the laundry and ended last season with three title rings and 1,216 career wins at Stanford, she has started and stopped, and a moment could change. I experienced a time when I couldn't. With investment, support and excitement, momentum builds.
“Instead of making it a one-off, we needed to build on it,” Vanderveer said. “Keep your eye on the ball and continue to grow your game. There are more young girls playing. Great high school tournaments, enthusiasm for the college game. People are excited about the WNBA.”
Vanderveer says that's how it feels today.
Clark took his game to new heights last season. This year, USC's JuJu Watkins, UW's Paige Backers and the Gamecocks, who are on a 39-game winning streak, are poised to continue that momentum. NIL has completely changed the way women's basketball players are marketed (and empowered) and gained new fans. The transfer portal has allowed player movement, making the game more equal and democratized. If you look around, you'll see that there are 10 teams that could make it to the Final Four. Gone are the days when UW or the University of Tennessee could win too many games and be accused of being bad for sports.
Less than a week into the season, we're seeing the top five teams pushed to the brink. Who are the talented stars of women's hoops? they draw pictures. But is there a true belief that there has never been more equality and that anything can happen on any given night? It's so fascinating.
What we are seeing has been a long time coming, and it feels like we are just getting started.
For decades, women's college hoops had better credentials than playing second fiddle in the NCAA's orbit. In order to combine moments to create something bigger and better, we needed to be unshackled. It deserved more than three words on the cover and a patronizing column on the back page. It deserved to be widely disseminated. So, decision makers and stakeholders, please don't screw this up.
A new generation of 7th graders is taking notice.
(Photo by Dawn Staley: Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
