It is March, officially known as Women’s History Month, but perhaps more commonly known in Indiana as March Madness time. For those of you who are not into “sports ball” let me explain. Dr. James Naismith, invented basketball in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891, but quickly noticed the rise in popularity of the sport in Indiana. In 1925, Naismith came to Indiana to watch the high school basketball tournament. Indiana’s tournament was famous for crowning only one champion from all the high schools in the state, regardless of size. (In 1997-98 Indiana introduced divisions based on enrollment.) You may have heard of a movie, Hoosiers, which dramatized the true story of the tiny Milan HS team which won the trophy on a last second shot in the 1954 state tournament. After his visit to Indiana, Naismith wrote: “While the game was invented in Massachusetts, basketball really had its origin in Indiana, which remains the center of the sport.” (https://aegoals.com/why-is-indiana-so-passionate-about-basketball/)
I consider myself to be a fan, having played basketball in high school and college, and lately, I have come to prefer the women’s college game. The competition is fierce, the players exceedingly talented and creative, and there is more parity throughout the different schools than there once was. (UConn, who has 11 National Titles, won 4 in a row from 2013-2016 during which time they amassed an NCAA record (men’s or women’s) winning streak with 111 straight wins from 11/23/14 until 3/31/17 when they were defeated by a Mississippi State overtime buzzer beater in the Final Four). Since that time, 5 different schools have won the previous 6 NCAA Women’s Tournaments.
The popularity of the women’s game jumped in the past few years. This increase partly came out of a gender equality review following the 2021 NCAA tournament, which revealed the lack of television and media coverage for the women’s tournament, among other inequalities. The NCAA expanded the women’s tournament to 68 teams in 2022 to be the same as the men’s tournament. It was at this time that the women’s tournament was officially branded “March Madness” like the men’s tournament had been known for a long time. Still, the women’s tournament receives much less funding from broadcast rights (ESPN has held the rights to the women’s tournament) and sponsorship than the men’s tournament. In January 2024, the women’s tournament rights remained with ESPN, who guaranteed that the championship games would air on ABC.
Basketball stars, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, players at Iowa and LSU respectively, and former Olympian Dawn Staley, coach of South Carolina have become household names in recent years thanks to NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) where college players can make advertising money. NIL has allowed women athletes to gain more attention than they have traditionally been able to get by playing on national television. Additionally, last year’s women’s NCAA tournament Final Four coverage had the most television viewers ever, with more than 12 million fans tuning in for the championship game. (The Final Four last March included Iowa, eventual champ LSU, South Carolina and Virginia Tech.)
If you are interested in following the local teams in the 2024 tournament, here is a quick update: The women’s tournament started March 22/23, with Louisville, a #6 seed, playing a first round game against Middle Tennessee State, (which U of L lost 69-71). Indiana, a #4 seed, played Fairfield, winning 89-56, and then went on to beat Oklahoma, 75-68 to reach the Sweet 16. Indiana will next play the overall #1 seed, undefeated South Carolina, on March 29 at 5:00pm. The Final Four games will take place on April 5 & 7. Go Hoosiers!
Women athletes have come a long way! The first big leap in Women’s College Basketball came with the passage of Title IX in 1972, which states:
“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” (https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/tix_dis.html)
Title IX made an enormous impact on the number of women receiving scholarships for their participation in college athletics, and in fact, enabled more women to graduate from college. The NCAA’s gender equality review brought more attention to women’s intercollegiate athletics by airing the competitions on mainstream television platforms. NIL makes some of our elite athletes and coaches household names. The future is bright!
If your interest is piqued, I have compiled a list of a few books which document the fight for and celebrate women’s rights in our country:
Basketball belles : how two teams and one scrappy player put women’s hoops on the map
by Macy, Sue
Raised on a cattle ranch, Agnes Morley was sent to Stanford University to learn to be a lady. Yet in no time she exchanged her breeches and spurs for bloomers and a basketball, and in April 1896 she made history. In a heart-pounding game against the University of California at Berkeley, Agnes led her team to victory in the first-ever intercollegiate women’s basketball game.
Girl, you’re amazing!
by Kroll, Virginia L.
Do you know an amazing girl?
Maybe she can swish a basketball through the hoop or play the saxophone. Or else she writes stories — or perhaps she’s great at math. She’s got the power to do anything she wants! Maybe she’s YOU!
How will Maya create a brighter world? By learning to honor her glowing feelings, just like Black women have done throughout history!
The light she feels inside
by Wallace, Gwendolyn
Maya feels a warm glow when she picks strawberries in the community garden, hears music in her neighborhood, or spends time with the people she loves.
She feels a different kind of glow when she gets pushed down on the playground, overhears her family worrying about bills, and sees her favorite cousin stopped by police. Sometimes that glowing seems like too much to carry.
But Maya is learning that others feel the same glowing light. Black women throughout history, like Ida B. Wells, Nina Simone, June Jordan, and Maya’s own ancestors, found ways to honor these glowing feelings. They were guided by their light to make a difference. The light Maya feels inside is an important part of her that she’ll share as she works toward a brighter world.
Born to ride : a story about bicycle face
by Theule, Larissa
Louise Belinda Bellflower lives in Rochester, New York, in 1896. She spends her days playing with her brother, Joe. But Joe gets to ride a bicycle, and Louise Belinda doesn’t. In fact, Joe issues a solemn warning: If girls ride bikes, their faces will get so scrunched up, eyes bulging from the effort of balancing, that they’ll get stuck that way FOREVER! Louise Belinda is appalled by this nonsense, so she strikes out to discover the truth about this so-called “bicycle face.” Set against the backdrop of the women’s suffrage movement, Born to Ride is the story of one girl’s courageous quest to prove that she can do everything the boys can do, while capturing the universal freedom and accomplishment children experience when riding a bike.
Inaugural ballers : the true story of the first U.S. Women’s Olympic basketball team
by Maraniss, Andrew
A League of Their Own meets Miracle in the inspirational true story of the first US Women’s Olympic Basketball team and their unlikely rise to the top.
Twenty years before women’s soccer became an Olympic sport and two decades before the formation of the WNBA, the ’76 US women’s basketball team laid the foundation for the incredible rise of women’s sports in America at the youth, collegiate, Olympic, and professional levels.
Love & justice : a story of triumph on two different courts
by Moore, Maya
In the tradition of Just Mercy, an inspirational memoir by WNBA star Maya Moore Irons and her husband, Jonathan Irons, who she helped free from a wrongful conviction.
A journey for justice turned into a love story when Maya Moore, one of the WNBA’s brightest stars, married the man she helped free from prison, Jonathan Irons.
Jonathan was only 16 when he was arrested for a crime he did not commit…
Dust bowl girls : the inspiring story of the team that barnstormed its way to basketball glory
by Reeder, Lydia
The Boys in the Boat meets A League of Their Own in this true story of a Depression-era championship women’s team.
In the early 1930s, during the worst drought and financial depression in American history, Sam Babb began to dream. Like so many others, this charismatic Midwestern basketball coach wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm near the tiny Oklahoma college where he coached, Babb recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education in exchange for playing on his basketball team, the Cardinals.
The daughters of Erietown : a novel
by Schultz, Connie
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND NEW YORK POST
1957, Clayton Valley, Ohio. Ellie has the best grades in her class. Her dream is to go to nursing school and marry Brick McGinty. A basketball star, Brick has the chance to escape his abusive father and become the first person in his blue-collar family to attend college. But when Ellie learns that she is pregnant, everything changes. Just as Brick and Ellie revise their plans and build a family, a knock on the front door threatens to destroy their lives.
The evolution of women’s lives spanning the second half of the twentieth century is at the center of this beautiful novel that richly portrays how much people know–and pretend not to know–about the secrets at the heart of a town, and a family.
The fifth quarter. 1
by Dawson, Mike
Get ready to hit the court in this heartfelt, sporty, graphic novel, the first in Mike Dawson’s middle-grade duology about a girl who deals with her insecurities through her love of basketball.
Lori Block is dedicated to her fourth-grade basketball team, despite being relegated to an extra period before the real game starts, known as the fifth quarter, where the not-so-good kids play and the points don’t count. That doesn’t matter to Lori though, because working on her skills gives her hints of self-confidence, which is a nice break from feeling awkward and out-of-place in her daily life.
Hoops
by Tavares, Matt
A work of fiction inspired by a true story, Matt Tavares’s debut graphic novel dramatizes the historic struggle for gender equality in high school sports.
It is 1975 in Indiana, and the Wilkins Regional High School girls’ basketball team is in their rookie season. Despite being undefeated, they practice at night in the elementary school and play to empty bleachers. Unlike the boys’ team, the Lady Bears have no buses to deliver them to away games and no uniforms, much less a laundry service. They make their own uniforms out of T-shirts and electrical tape. And with help from a committed female coach, they push through to improbable victory after improbable victory. Illustrated in full color, this story about the ongoing battle of women striving for equality in sports rings with honesty, bravery, and heart.
And one more book recommendation that is about basketball:
Basketball : a love story
by MacMullan, Jackie
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Inspired by a major ESPN film series, this is an extraordinary oral history of basketball–its eye-opening untold history, its profound deeper meaning, its transformative influence on the world–as told through an unprecedented series of candid conversations with the game’s ultimate icons.
This is the greatest love story never told. It has passion and heartbreak, triumph and betrayal. It is deeply intimate yet crosses oceans, upends lives and changes nations. This is the true story of basketball.
It is the story of a Canadian invention that took over America, and the world. Of a supposed “white man’s sport” that became a way for people of color, women, and immigrants to claim a new place in society. Of a game that demands everything of those who love it, yet gives so much back in return.
