First, I was sad for them - all of them - the whole team and all their coaches. Caitlin Clark appeared on their court in Iowa City in 2020 joining the other players, playing in an empty Carver Hawkeye Arena to cardboard cutouts of people due to the COVID19 pandemic. Eventually, they played to the record-breaking millions of fans who packed arenas everywhere they went, along with the epic television/online audiences, she made her way humbly rocketing to superstardom. But she didn't do it alone. She did it with a team and together they were beyond outstanding and amazing! Second, it was sad for the hundreds of thousands - really millions of fans, especially kids - whose hopes were dashed. The Hawkeyes, for both years, were really categorized as underdogs, even though they had been winning, winning a lot. Somehow, the established and highly vaunted programs and prognosticators could not fathom that Iowa, that university in the middle of nowhere (so they implied) could ever make it to the Sweet Sixteen. 
Then, I noticed that their Pink Out game was on February 25, Carol's birthday. I told Carol and Kathy that we could try to go to the game. This was the plan: that we'd drive to Iowa City in the morning for brunch, keep checking the SeatGreek site to see if the prices went down right before the game - and they did! We all went to the Pink Out game, I with my pink jersey and I stood up with all the other survivors while everybody cheered for us while Rachel Patton's "Fight Song" blared over the sound system. Each Hawkeye player wore a pink jersey with the name of the woman or family member that they were remembering or supporting. It was all so wonderful, exhilarating and - a blessing, really.
As an athlete myself, I've always loved sports, especially women's sports - all kinds of sports! Even when I lived far away from Iowa, I followed them and cheered them on. But last year, at the end of January 2023, I was diagnosed with early stage one breast cancer. It was shocking and very upsetting. No one in my family has any history of any kind of cancer. This news upended my life in so many ways. I was so fortunate in that I was a poster-person for early detection. The spot was so small, even the surgeon couldn't feel it. So, I was scheduled for a lumpectomy on February 27, 2023, just about the time that the Hawkeyes were winding down their regular conference schedule and preparing for the Big Ten Championship in Minneapolis, March 1-5.
On March 5, the day they won the Big Ten Championship, I had to go back to the hospital because I had a very painful infection in my incision wound. I was so sick and was there for five days. When the doctor sent me home, she said all I could do was sleep and stay home. So, I did that and I started watching a lot of NCAAW's March Madness games. I saw Caitlin and her teammates do ridiculously amazing things. I watched them struggle and overcome adversity and I saw them do it together - with genuine joy and love; love for each other, the game, the coaches and their fans. I watched as they, after each game, faithfully and kindly signed autographs for the droves of kids who clamored and cheered for them. I watched them living a miracle of their own participation and unfolding, creating stories and memories out of shared dreams, grit, tough-it-out-ness and humility. It was beautiful and especially spellbinding because I was so very weak and sick, laying on the couch to heal - in wonder of them all.
Growing up in Iowa when I did, as a young girl I shunned the color pink, especially pastel pink. The messages all around me growing up were that pink was a girly color, a sweet and feminine color. While a color can't be weak, the message was that pink embodied weakness and not strength, passiveness and not assertiveness, cuteness and not power. I didn't want to associate with that, so I intentionally chose to not wear pink, at least not very often and only a few articles of pink. I was a track girl, a horseback riding girl, a Campfire girl, a biking girl, a gymnast girl, a strong girl - not...pink. I was always a robin's egg blue and turquoise girl. I liked bright colors, too. Growing up in Iowa, I wasn't aware at the time (before Title IX) that my state was fairly progressive for girl's sports in schools. Although it wasn't up to the standards of support like the boy's teams, at least we had teams when other states had few sports programs for girls. Growing up in Iowa, I was also aware that my state often got tagged as the "corn state" or even worse the "smelly pig state." People across the country often made fun of Iowa, saying that we must all live on farms and grow corn - dumb stuff like that. When we'd go for family trips to Minnesota, there were often souvenir shops that would sell plaques and t-shirts making fun of Iowa. This bothered me, like pink.
So, when I found out I had cancer, my dear sisters - who were so supportive of me in my scary cancer journey - were lovingly and mildly amused that I was now on the Power of Pink team, because of course, almost everyone knows that pink ribbons are the support ribbon for breast cancer and I was now on that team. So, I embraced my new team - the powerful pink team that has grit and determination to beat this horrible disease. I was now a pink-girl, all kinds of pink; powder and pastel pink; hot pink and magenta pink in all sorts of clothing. I have pink hats, pink shirts (I already owned a rose-colored clergy shirt), pink socks, pink hightop shoes, under garments, bandanas and scarves, a hot pink backpack, biking gloves and accents on my new sky blue road bike. Lots of pink. I got a very cool pink biking kit (a jersey and biking shorts) that I wore on the last day of RAGBRAI riding 75-miles from Iowa City to Davenport, Iowa. Pink people, all of us surviving breast cancer, are my people.
I knew that various athletic teams wear pink in October in support of Breast Cancer Awareness month. I wasn't aware that there was such a thing as Pink Out Day for teams. And then, I saw the Hawkeye women's basketball team in their pink uniforms and I was smitten - once again. I read about Pink Out Day, the Play4Kay initiative is a nationally recognized event to support the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. Yow, the former women's basketball head coach at North Carolina State helped create the Kay Yow Cancer Fund to assist those battling breast cancer. In 2023, the Hawkeyes rocked their pink jerseys on February 12.
Nearly a year after my breast cancer diagnosis, I had a follow-up mammogram and - huzzah - no evidence of cancer! I was still cancer-free! I called/texted/messaged tons of people - all the people who had prayed for me and supported me! I celebrated and I decided that I was going to get a Caitlin Clark 22 Pink Out Jersey and I was going to try to go to some of the games, even though I knew that they were all sold out. Through an all-too-long and weird story to tell, someone sent me that very jersey that I was trying to order. It arrived in late January. I still don't know who sent it to me, but I was thrilled! I would wear it every time we'd watch the games with my family and cheer them on or be sad with them when they lost.
My sister Carol and I made a plan to go to the Iowa v. Wisconsin game on January 16, an early treat for our birthdays. Then, on Saturday January 13, there was a big blizzard, frigid below-zero temps and gusting winds. The Iowa v. Indiana game was that night and people were unloading their tickets on SeatGeek for rock bottom prices. I texted Carol, she reached out to our sister, Kathy. "Do you want to go to the game tonight?" she asked. "Yes," exclaimed Kathy, "I'll drive!" So, we crazy Iowa-girl sisters drove to Iowa City for our first Iowa Women's Basketball game in a harrowing blizzard and blustery windchills. We had a blast and I was overcome with emotion many times. When the sold-out (again it was sold out even though it was blizzard-hoops) crowd roars together, you are the cheer. It reverberates through your body in a way that's hard to explain. We were there as something bigger than ourselves. We were part of the Hawkeye nation on this remarkable ride with them. They won their game over Indiana - a pay back because Indiana beat them on their home court.
Carol and I went to our game on January 16, they won again!
This is the spot where CC hit her record-breaking logo 3!
It's not "just a game" for me. Caitlin Clark is our home-girl, our Iowa girl. She was born here and she chose to go to the University of Iowa when she was recruited to go many places - actually, she thought at first she would be going to Notre Dame, where the women's basketball program is legendary (Caitlin is from a Catholic family). But something in her spirit said she needed to be in Iowa City with Coach Lisa Bluder. Caitlin was very good at her Dowling Catholic High School, but she wasn't the player she became until she went to Iowa. Caitlin Clark got better and better, as a player and as a person, at Iowa. Her teammates who became her best friends helped her to be better in all sorts of ways. They became better players as they played together - mutually inspiring one another, lifting each other up, holding each other accountable, becoming a magical team - together. The story goes that in one practice, now dubbed The Scrimmage, Caitlin started to make 3-point shots from almost half-court - the logo area. She did it over and over again - surprising even herself. Her teammates cheered her on, and so she was on a mission to be the best - with them.
Here they are on April 1, 2024 after they won their game over LSU!
Watching the Iowa Hawkeye women, for me, has been an emotional inspiration. For me, I vividly remember the times long ago when my girlfriends at Washington High School, Hannah Stuelke's alma mater, played 6-person half-court basketball. They had to do this because "expert" people (men) said that girls could not run the whole court (3 girls would be on one half of the court and pass it at half court to the other three). Girls were too weak, too frail, too "pink" to get so out of breath and sweaty. I watch CC and her team, and all the other fabulous women's teams and I am so thankful. I'm thankful for all of those people - women and men alike - who stood up for girl's and women's athletics, and all the other ways we have worked to support girls and women in all of their endeavors with all of their dreams to be on equal footing and funding with the boys and the men.
I'm grateful because it did make a difference and it made a difference for a little girl who grew up in Des Moines, Iowa; a fiercely competitive girl who loved sports, especially basketball. And now, the sport of women's (and men's) college basketball has been forever changed by an Iowan who happens to be the greatest of all time - not only in great in basketball but also as a great human being, inspiring little girls and boys to dream big.
My sad tears for them only coming in second two years in a row (a remarkable feat at that!) flow into the grateful, beautiful and probably proud Iowan tears of - of vindication perhaps. Our girl, our power pink girl, took flight and led a nation on a wild and ridiculous journey of logo threes, quarterback-like, laser-like bounce passes and behind-the-back passes to assist her teammates and so much more. She did that - with her team and all of us and I am so glad that I was a witness to this miracle girl, our very own Caitlin Clark, when I was facing my own fragile mortality - she and her team lifted me up. Thank you, Caitlin. I'm gonna miss ya, too.
On Sunday, after they lost, in the afternoon I asked Jack to take some photos of me before I took my Pink Out CC 22 jersey off to hang it up. I'll be wearing it to their welcome home celebration on April 10, 2024.
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