It’s official: The 2024 NCAA women’s basketball championship game, which outdrew the men’s final in viewership, has handed a big W to all female sports.
The numbers say it all: The battle between Iowa and South Carolina brought in nearly 19 million viewers, the largest audience ever for a college basketball game on ESPN platforms.
Thanks in large part to Iowa star Caitlin Clark, whose star power is being compared to Michael Jordan, there’s been a major shift from recent years, the likes of which, local coaches tell me, has never been seen before.
And that’s good news for women in general, especially those who have been an athlete or are invested in these young females, whether as a coach on the field or a parent on the sidelines.
As athletic director at West Aurora High School and proud dad of daughter Madison, now playing volleyball at Ball State University, Jason Buckley is as excited as anyone watching this “moment” in women’s sports that he hopes will last far longer.
“The ratings have proven all eyes are on it … but it’s been a long time coming,” insists Buckley, referring back to “when the tide began to turn” in 1999 with the U.S. women’s national soccer team winning the World Cup.
“Like so many other things, there was a big push that began to go away,” he says of female sports becoming more mainstream. “We are hopeful we are finally starting to turn the corner … I’ve never seen this before where people are talking about it on a daily basis. I don’t see this fading.”
For me personally, this excitement comes with a tinge of regret because I am one of those female Baby Boomers who never got a chance to be a player because organized sports for girls simply did not exist in my neck of the woods at that time.
I watched my six brothers from the bleachers play football, baseball, basketball and wrestle. Yet two of my most vivid memories of high school were putting on pads and a helmet as the running back for a homecoming “Powder Puff” football game, then, the following spring, getting smoked by elite sprinters from Wichita at the one and only track meet a boys coach put together for a few of us girls who exhibited good speed in P.E. class.
I felt the thrill of victory and agony of defeat in those memorable events, and I wanted to experience it more.
Like me, Paula Drendel of Sugar Grove graduated a few years before Title IX, so although she considered herself athletic – she won club golf tournaments in her hometown of Geneseo – the only opportunities for playing basketball, volleyball or softball, for example, were intramural competitions through the Girls Athletic Association.
“I loved it. We had some park district sports but nothing that was organized,” recalls Drendel, who was also a cheerleader but, like me, never considered advocating for more equality on the playing fields.
Things changed dramatically with the 1973 passage of the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities. Female sports continued to grow, although still considered the underdog and largely ignored by the media. But Drendel’s two girls not only played on high school teams, eldest daughter Kelsey was on Kishwaukee College’s 2006 NJCAA volleyball championship team, went on to coach volleyball at Normal West High School and this past year was voted Coach of the Year by the Illinois Volleyball Coaches Association.
What a difference a generation made. And what a difference we now see.
“We are consistently looking for ways to get young girls more involved in athletics,” says West Aurora’s Buckley, noting the success of the school’s girls wrestling program, which is only two years old, and the flag football program that will begin in the fall.
“There’s a ton of interest” in that latest girls sport sanctioned by the Illinois High School Association, Buckley said.
“We ran an intramural program to get an idea of the interest, and 60 students turned out,” according to Buckley.
I have a feeling we also will be seeing more girls sign up for basketball in the coming months and years.
These high-profile games, with stars who lived up to the hype, goes a long way in the evolution of all girls sports, insists Buckley, adding that, “while there’s still a lot of work to do, there is enough momentum this is really going to take off.”
And that can’t help but raise revenue for female teams, and confidence in those who play on them.
Looking back, Drendel is convinced sports would definitely have given her “more confidence in general.” Even as a skinny kid, “I was very much aware of body shaming that went on,” she admits, adding that “I was always afraid to put myself out there … being on a team would have been good for me.”
Anna Gonzalez, director of community affairs for West Aurora School District 129, saw those benefits in more than a few ways.
The ‘96 West Aurora grad and three-sport athlete at North Central College describes her athletic journey as “the most transformative experience” of her formative years and one that, without question “sculpted my character.”
For one thing, what was once a drawback – Gonzalez was six feet tall in middle school and grappling with insecurities – became an advantage as she immersed herself in sports. And that self-assurance extended beyond the basketball and volleyball courts and track fields as she “significantly improved” her academic focus.
Sports also provided invaluable lessons, from resilience in the face of setbacks to the importance of teamwork and leadership, while also fostering lifelong friendships. “Because of Title IX,” she says, “I had opportunities my mother and grandmother never dreamed of.”
All of which makes Gonzalez “hopeful” this recent interest in women’s basketball will inspire an increase in participation in girls sports at the grassroots levels.
Dana Wagner, athletics manager at Waubonsee Community College who played basketball at Aurora University, describes it as a “shot of adrenalin,” especially for athletes like Annika Bielskis, who set a new WCC record when she hit her 110th career three-pointer in February for the Chiefs.
The “amazing talent that’s out there” is now hitting the big media markets, she points out, which is giving more people access to these games and, in turn, generating more enthusiasm.
“And as girls begin playing at younger ages, the competition is only getting better,” even at the younger levels, which, in turn, will bring out more support from family, friends and the community, Wagner said.
“We are on the big stage again and this time it will stick,” insists Wagner. “We may not be playing above the rim quite yet, but we are getting there.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
