One might be tempted to hail the impossibility of obtaining season tickets for the 2023-2024 University of Iowa’s Women’s Basketball Women’s season as a pretty powerful indication that women’s sports have reached a new level of popularity. Of course the Women’s National Soccer Team has played to sold out crowds, Women’s Gymnastics are a predictable draw, the women’s Euro League has filled stadiums.  The final game between Iowa and LSU drew 10 million viewers, and the NCAA is considering selling the rights to the women’s NCAA basketball tournament separately from the rest of its championships.

Hawkeye Fever in women’s basketball is intense as Caitlin Clark, NCAA Women’s Basketball Player of the Year, enters her senior season. Ticket sales are one thing, but Clark joined an elite group of athletes whose likeness have been carved in butter at the Iowa State Fair. By elite, I mean three. Clark joins Kurt Warner, Hall of Fame quarterback and graduate of Northern Iowa University, and Jack Trice, the first African-American athlete to play at Iowa State University. Iowa State’s stadium is named after Trice, who died after sustaining injuries in a 1923 game against the University of Minnesota.

Caitlin Clark holds a slew of records, many of which were viewed by the millions watching the 2023 NCAA basketball tournament. She scored 40 points in two consecutive games; in one of those games she recorded a triple double – 41 points, 12 assists, and 10 rebounds. She hit eight three point shots in the final game against LSU, eventual winner of the tournament.

Sportscaster Rich Eisen suggested that “the best shooter in the US is playing college ball,” to which Hall of Fame basketball player and analyst Reggie Miller responded, “Caitlin Clark is amazing.”

That’s impressive, but I gotta think the butter statue still beats any other tribute.

Excitement surrounding the start of the 2023-2024 season is building as Clark will face stiff competition from LSU’s young championship team, a physical and talented South Carolina team coached by Dawn Staley, and perennial contender, the University of Connecticut, coached by Gino Auriemma in his 38th season at the helm.

That’s really what I wanted to get to in starting this piece. I’ve been a fan of UCONN women’s basketball for years. I grew up in Connecticut, but my fandom began in the Rebecca Lobo era, 1992-1995. I could wax rhapsodic about UCONN’s dominance, capturing eleven NCAA Championships, four in a row from 2013-2016, but my experience in watching basketball in the years following UCONN’s championship streak has informed my appreciation of the sport. National Champions South Carolina, Notre Dame, Stanford, Baylor, and LSU and the teams they beat in the finals, Mississippi State, Arizona, and Iowa (also UCONN) are terrific teams. NCAA Women’s Basketball is exciting, challenging, and, most significantly, has reached parity among a number of excellent programs.

How? Why? I’m going to suggest that the UCONN juggernaut, like the NY Yankees, Tom Brady’s New England Patriots, and the US Olympic Gymnastic programs demonstrated skill at the highest level, allowing many to jump on board, and in the case of the Yankees, develop strong antipathy as well. The MLB and NFL had plenty of viewers anyway, but America loves winners, and UCONN won big and won often.

This observation explains, I think, the rising tide that carried all boats. UCONN is still very much in the mix, but its success has bred a plethora of equally exciting programs. 

So too, the success of the Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) changed the face of soccer in the United States and around the world, and created the impetus that brought superior teams to this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup. The US won four World Cup titles and Four Olympic gold medals, but the 1996 Olympic Games and the 1999 World Cup final super charged the success of the sport. More than 76,000 people watched the gold medal match between the US and China, and more than 90,000 filled the Rose Bowl for the 1999 World Cup match, again against China.

Just as WNBA players such as Rebecca Lobo, Sue Bird, Maya Moore, Lisa Leslie, Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, Breanna Stewart, and Brittney Griner are names to conjure with, so Mia Hamm, Brandy Chastain, Michelle Akers, Julie Foudy, Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and Carli Lloyd have become familiar as members of the USWNT. Just as the pool of talented and experienced women playing soccer at the highest level has grown in the US, so have the numbers of talented female players on the world stage.

The US bowed out early in this year’s World Cup, barely escaping the group stage and losing to Sweden in the round of 16. In earlier years, I might have signed off after my team was eliminated, but the quality and personality of several surviving teams allowed me to enjoy the quarterfinals and to anticipate the semifinals. Having now seen all 32 teams in action, I can offer three observations:

1. The US team on the field was less dangerous than the teams that have moved on. The coaching was bizarre. Julie Ertz played in the wrong spot, Alex Morgan didn’t score, Rose Lavelle was not able to play at full strength, Lindsey Horan is a beast, and look out for Sophia Smith, Lynn Williams, Trinity Rodman, Naomi Girma, and Alyssa Thompson.
2. The women playing football at the Cup level are remarkable athletes and almost superhumanly tough. 
3. Whereas I cannot identify a particular character in describing the US side, I have no problem in differentiating between the meticulously controlled brand of football as played by Japan and the brutally physical game played by Colombia. Neither of those excellent teams survived the round of 16, but neither went out easily.

World Cup play is still ongoing, but the US Open tennis tournament begins in about a week. Is Coco Gauff ready to break through? Can Ons Jabeur finally win a final Slam match? Is Jessica Pegulathe best US player? If the past informs the future, will the next Open champion be from Kazakhstan, Belarus, or Poland? 

If Pegula wins it all, surely the city of Buffalo will do what it takes to carve her likeness in butter, or beef on weck, or spaghetti parmesan. Greatness demands tribute.