Becoming Caitlin Clarke

“There is no Caitlin Clark without Iowa,” writes Howard Megdal in his recently released biography “Becoming Caitlin Clarke: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar” (Triumph Books 2025).

And while that may be somewhat puzzling, it isn’t when Megdal explains the history of the sport. The game of basketball was invented in 1891 and within a year young women were being taught to play the game at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The love of the game quickly spread and soon women were shooting hoops at the YWCA in Dubuque, Iowa as well as throughout the country.

But as with so many steps forward, a countermovement began to spread, and schools began banning women’s sports in both high school and college, the premise being that it might be bad for their physical health as well as their reproductive capabilities. And besides, people posited, shouldn’t the monies, time, and effort of sports be more wisely direct towards men instead of women? Do I need to say more about that? I don’t think so.

And so, in the second decade of the 20^th century, there was a drive to ban women’s sports in Iowa. Fortunately, it didn’t happen and, as Megdal digs deep into the history of the game he shows the connections between women playing 6-on-6 basketball in Iowa in the 1920s and Clark becoming a star in the 2020s.

“Caitlin’s playing college ball are direct consequence of an effort and interest in Iowa in women’s basketball that Vivian Stringer made as University of Iowa’s head coach,” he says about Stringer who during her 40 plus year career at Iowa and other schools amassed 1,055 wins, four NCAA Final Four appearances, 28 berths in the NCAA Tournament, and was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001. He also notes that Lisa Bluder, a three-year starter at the University of Northern Iowa who coached Clark at Iowa, is part of the state’s legacy.

Other women weren’t as lucky as other states ended their programs a century ago and didn’t restart them again until the 1960s and 1970s with the advent of Title IX and the founding of the Women’s National Basketball Association.

“That movement unfortunately was very successful,” says Megdal. “I mourn on a regular basis how many stories were stopped before they even started.”

It was Clark, says Megdal in a phone interview that broke basketball women’s basketball in the best way possible. She was a phenomenal success and a phenomenal player who captured the attention of the country. Indeed, she was so popular that the singing phenom Taylor Swift invited her to attend a Kansas City Chiefs game to watch her boyfriend, tight end Travis Kelce, play.

Megdal, founder and editor in chief of The IX newsletter, a daily newsletter covering 5 different women’s sports, and the nest, a 24/7 woman’s basketball outlet, has written several other books including “Rare Gems,” “The Baseball Talmud” and “The Cardinals Way.” During his 20 years writing about sports, he has pushed to ensure that women’s sports get as much attention as men’s.

“When you’re in this space you quickly become aware of the fact that there’s a yawning chasm between how men’s sports are covered and how women’s sports are covered and so I’ve gone about trying to change that over the course of my career,” he says, noting he has had the opportunity do so at such publications as The New York Times, Washington Post and Sports Illustrated.”

And Clark seems like the person to up the score for women in sports.

“There are a lot one dimensional narratives around Caitlin Clark and that just reinforced for me how important it would be to tell this story in a way for people to understand where this comes from,” says Megdal who wanted to counter such narratives as Clark just happened to be in the lucky one. “The reality is that this is a century in the making.”

Of course, it is also important to note, says Megdal, that Clark has blown away any and everything you could have ever expected of her on the court and off the court. It’s the perfect melding of the right person converging with the right moment in history.

“Caitlin Clark went out and became this transcendent player,” he says, “one who is changing the fundamentals of everything from the audience for women’s basketball to the economics around it.”