WEBVTT - Becoming Caitlin Clark with Howard Megdal 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.360 Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're avoiding 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:06.760 cracks in the sidewalk, being careful around mirrors, and staying 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:11.320 far away from ladders. Just in case. It's Friday, June thirteenth. 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.840 Happy Friday the thirteenth to everybody except my Triskadeca folks. 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:18.079 On today's show, we'll be skipping the need to know 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.520 and jumping straight into my conversation with Howard Meggill, founder 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.160 and editor of The Nine Newsletter and the Next Women's 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.520 Basketball Newsroom. He's got a new book coming out on 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.720 June seventeenth, titled Becoming Caitlin Clark, The Unknown Origin Story 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.919 of a Modern Basketball Superstar. So we talked about how 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.479 we approached putting Clark's meteoric rise in context, the research 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:39.879 he did to tell the history of women's basketball and 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.680 dig up the stories of past women's soups grates, and 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:45.400 his role guiding young writers in the evolving women's sports 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:57.760 media landscape. It's all coming up right after this, joining 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.000 us now. He's the founder and editor of The Nine 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.080 Newsletter and the Next Women's Basketball Newsroom, a staff writer 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.120 for Baseball Prospectives, and senior contributor at Forbes dot com. 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:10.040 He's published eight books, including his latest, Becoming Caitlin Clark, 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.800 out June seventeenth. He'll take the occasional break from women's 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.280 sports to down a Metz Cheese steak, egg roll, or 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.000 witness the glory of the Philly fanatic hot dog Cannon. 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:20.160 It's Howard Magdoll. 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.800 Hi, Howard, Hi, Sarah. Great to be with you always. 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.120 Yeah, great to have you. Congrats on the book. Before 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:27.440 we get to that, I want to back up a 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.160 little for our listeners that might not know your extensive 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:32.679 history in the women's sports space. So can you give 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.960 us a sort of condensed version of how you got 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.040 here and how you've been such a big part of 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:39.639 women's basketball and women's sports. 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.720 I appreciate that, you know, for me, it has been 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.720 our journey over the course of my career. I've been 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.840 in sports journalism about twenty years. And as soon as 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.080 you get involved and you know this that you can 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.080 see this gap between how men's sports and women's sports 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:57.640 are covered, and you can't unsee it. And so the 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.360 question is in my mind and has been what do 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.920 you do about it? And I've covered women's sports at 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.200 legacy publications for many years, always felt like I was 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.680 building in sand, and so how do you go about 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:14.120 building the infrastructure that creates the everyday coverage Number one 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.600 and number two creates opportunities for others to be doing 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.160 the work as well. And so in twenty eighteen started 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:23.960 The Nine, which is a women's sports newsletter. It was 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.880 three sports, then we're up to six now one per day, 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:32.519 and then in twenty twenty the newsroom the next, which 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.839 is a women's basketball twenty four seven, three sixty five 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.720 newsroom where we have over one hundred reported pieces every 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:43.040 single month on women's sports. We have a WNBA beat 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.880 reporter or sometimes two on every single team. We try 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.640 to cover with the fierce urgency that you can really 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.680 take for granted when it comes to men's sports. And 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.760 so that's essentially the thumbnail version of how I'm here. 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.000 I love it, and it's so true, and it's something 0:02:58.000 --> 0:02:59.920 of course we think about a lot here at this show. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:02.360 The only daily podcast is what can we bring to 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.680 people consistently and with regularity that they can't find anywhere else, 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:07.320 so that they can keep up and connect all the 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.399 stories in different stars across the space. For those who 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.240 want to subscribe The Nine is like title nine the 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.280 Roman numerals IX, so if you're searching forward, it's the 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.720 IX newsletter and then the next Women's basketball so you 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.200 can subscribe to those and get all the goodness in 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.240 your inbox. I want to talk really quickly about that, 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.560 because it's great to have those goals. It's great to 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.280 want to create something. But did you actually want to 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.800 be a boss, an entrepreneur, someone who had to handle 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:41.360 a staff and manage payroll and like all those other things, 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.920 because I don't. So I'm very impressed that you are 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.160 helping so many other young reporters and journalists in the space, 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:49.960 because that's a lot of extra work on top of 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:51.800 the stuff you actually want to do, presumably, which is 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:52.840 the journalism side. 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:54.800 I appreciate that question. You know. 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.640 What I have found is being able to create these 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:02.000 opportunities and build this infra structure with permanence makes it 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.400 worth doing those other things. I can't tell you that 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.720 I love the process of taking on payroll by hand 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:12.960 every single month, but absolutely to be able to reward 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.440 the folks who are doing it is also really significant 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.160 to me. And being a mentor in this space is 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:21.800 something that's really important to me. So there's enough that 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.440 I love out of it that, Yes, the place where 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.680 I feel most at home is in a pressure room 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.320 or sitting in a one on one interview, but being 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:34.080 able to do those things as well important in something 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:35.599 that I've come to really find joy in. 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.120 What's the toughest part about managing folks, especially folks that 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.120 they're maybe in one of their first gigs learning the 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:43.800 ropes as journalists. 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.080 The most difficult? Then? That's hard to say. 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.680 You know, everyone comes with certain strengths and certain weaknesses, 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.839 and it's sort of identifying what are the best ways 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.920 that I can support a young journalist, you know, as 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.080 she makes your way forward in this work. So I 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.800 wouldn't say that there's one thing that stands out most 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.240 of all. You know, they're different challenges for different people, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:09.440 But the joy of seeing somebody figure it out is 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.080 my favorite thing. I may enjoy that more than doing 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:13.799 the work itself. 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.919 Honestly, Oh, that's amazing. That's probably why you're in the 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.520 position that you're in. That's that's a really good quality 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:21.400 to have to care so much about watching other people 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.680 as they rise. I find what's interesting to me moving 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.040 across different spaces is even at ESPN, at different spaces 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:32.760 at ESPN, how the newsroom, whether that was a radio 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.120 or a TV or a written kind of newsroom operated differently, 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.080 And I wonder for you how that works. You've got 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.640 sort of whatever you make and create is the rules 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:43.839 for how you operate. But then you're working with journalists 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:46.480 who might have jobs at other places. You're working with 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:51.200 folks who maybe have never worked in an official journalistic 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.159 capacity anywhere. What do you tell them about how to 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.760 handle themselves in the women's sports space, particularly as it 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.680 changes so much, because it went from sort of pay 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.400 your own way, show up if you care about it, 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.000 sometimes too sick a phantic coverage because you're trying to 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.160 make sure you connect with the athletes and continue to 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.600 get access to Now where there's an expectation to really 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.520 be professional in the space and to potentially be able 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.080 to and have access to ask tougher questions. How do 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:19.839 you help them adjust to that? 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.720 There's no simple answer to that, but the way you 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.520 framed it is exactly right. I mean reflects obviously the 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:28.560 work that you do in this space all the time. Right, 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.520 there's a baseline we have to set up professionalism of 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.960 an understanding of you are there to cover and a 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.400 lot of people come from and this is not a 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:42.240 criticism from a place of we love the sport. We 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.919 care about the sport. You may even have fandom that 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:46.640 you bring into it, and we check that at the 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.800 door and we say, look, this is what we need 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.160 to do, and you do it for not just the 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.919 reasons of being able to maintain that distance, to be 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.400 able to cover, so that our audience understands we are 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:01.600 you can trust. 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.200 Because we are here to inform. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.880 And ultimately our relationship is with the reader, the viewer, 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.280 the listener in all these cases, but also so that 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.240 there is that space to allow a writer to be 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.160 critical when necessary, not critical in a way that you 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.320 cannot look that person in the eye when you see 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.559 her the next day at practice, but to make sure 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.120 that you are telling the truth about what's happening. And 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.760 I think we've found a lot of success with that. 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.240 Being able to provide people the access to do the 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.920 work is something that is of course a fight in 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:43.000 and of itself sometimes but critical part of making sure 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.320 that people are there, people are showing up. And then 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:47.679 the flip side of that is is that the people 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.160 who we have covered through the years. Understand we will 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.200 be there. We will be there when they're winning, we 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:55.200 will be there when they're not. We covered the Indiana 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.080 fever when they were five and thirty one, no less 0:07:58.080 --> 0:07:59.800 than we cover the Indiana fever today. 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.680 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a big part 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:08.480 of this space in general, is how are teams and 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.120 leagues and pr people and comms folks adjusting to the 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.000 new normal, and in some cases, I think not always 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.520 that great. I was talking to a local sports person 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:20.880 who said that their access to the women's teams in 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.360 their city is significantly less than the men's that they 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.960 are trying to give them more coverage. But whether it's 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:30.040 bandwidth resources that you know, not long tenures of the 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.760 folks working there who don't have relationships in the city 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.640 the same way, or whether it's the athletes themselves who 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.760 are rightfully gunchy about some of the coverage. How have 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.959 you seen the players in the w change over the 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:46.240 last couple of years, Because I do think that they 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.480 have a good reason to wonder about some of the 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:52.000 reporters parachuting in for the first time and asking dumb questions, 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.440 But they also need to be ready to make the 0:08:55.480 --> 0:09:01.520 transition from fan like reporters to higher level journalists asking 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:02.959 tougher questions that are fair. 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.600 I think it's less binary than this. I think you've 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.920 identified a lot of critical parts of the issue that 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.199 we see right now, and it's severalfold. And one is 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:20.720 that not all teams and not all leads have come 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.320 to the conclusion we don't need to credential literally everyone, 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:25.720 whether or not they're. 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:26.360 Doing the work. 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:32.199 And as a result, players are not going to necessarily 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.600 know whether somebody is parachuting in without a lot of information, 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.160 somebody is coming to cover, or somebody is there in 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.800 a fan capacity but credentialed as if they are media. 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.720 And when you don't know where the next question is 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.240 coming from, I don't just mean physically, but I just 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:54.360 mean from what perspective you can meet unshy as a result. 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:56.560 And so there's a lot of work that needs to 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.080 be done on multiple levels. Right The media needs to 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.320 come in an informed way and that needs to happen. 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:05.680 Needs to be work at the team and lead level 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:10.640 to understand who ought to be in those spaces, and 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:15.239 then for players, you know there's an information and understanding 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:19.360 of who are the people as individuals who are covering 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:22.520 me rather than the media as a monolith, I mean 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:24.920 those of us. And you've been in these rooms too, 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.240 where you just you want to bang your head against 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.520 the wall when you're a question from another quote unquote 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:35.760 media member. And unfortunately even it's even binary hpray area. 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.920 It's not old media versus new media. It's not print 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:43.359 versus digital. You know, there's it's always complishing. 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.640 Case by case really yeah, And I think like one 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:47.040 of the things that stood out to me was talking 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.440 to a veteran player who said, it's as simple as 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:52.560 being able to tell by someone's question that they don't 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:55.520 know that they were just traded this year, or they 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.600 used to be an MVP, or they've won a title before, 0:10:58.640 --> 0:10:59.160 and I think. 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.280 Their name is pronounce right. I mean, there's a lot 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:03.360 of basics. 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:04.920 Yeah, And I think a lot of that though, is 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.080 also like there's a real fear and I've been there 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.440 of walking into male professional league locker rooms and worrying 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:14.240 what the other media will think about you if you 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.600 haven't done your homework. And in the women's space, there 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.240 are far too many media who stroll in having done 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.480 zero homework and feel perfectly fine. Asking dumbshit questions that 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.240 the people who do know recognize as dumb shit immediately. 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.200 On the other hand, I do think it's more helpful 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:33.120 you are allowed to be mad about that, and where 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:35.199 does that get you as a player if your reaction 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:39.200 is frustration as opposed to can you choose instead, especially 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.640 if someone seems to be coming with good intention and 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.240 just maybe needs to learn how to better prep to 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.080 help them through that. It's not their responsibility or their job, 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.520 but for their response to be offering a little bit 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.560 of grace, we'll probably serve them in the coverage of 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.560 them better than to get frustrated and shut down. So 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:57.600 I think there's like a little bit of both sides, 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.040 where again it's not the player's responsibility to do that, 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.560 and also does it help them or the league or 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:07.600 their team to essentially be mad and not do media 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.320 anymore because they want everybody to show up and ask 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.120 better questions, you know, like what's the end goal? The 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.600 end goal is more coverage, better coverage, you know, and 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:18.720 teaching those people with the dumb shit questions. 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.199 I think it's important to note as well that we 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.920 want to see places that haven't necessarily covered. The WNBA 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.600 or room in sports in the past to cover it. 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.640 But a lot of times that means that the editorial 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:36.120 structure in place doesn't even have folks who are able 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:40.240 to bring people along to do it the right way, 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.400 and so they are forced to learn on the job. 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.720 It's something that I'm really conscious of at the next 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.199 where we're trying to build people up to the point 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.440 that for those who stay with us, that's amazing. And 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.240 for the people who end up at a lot of 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.360 other places and they have they're coming in with the 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.440 training to be able to do it the right way, 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.160 but that type of modeling is not there in the 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:03.840 way that it is for a lot of men's sports, 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.480 just because the structures have not covered it before. So 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:11.280 I just think it's significant, and I, you know, I 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:12.480 just wanted to mention it as well. 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:14.520 Yeah, no, I agree, And like I think that's why 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.840 in the end, everybody has allowed their feelings. But what 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.240 ends up getting us to the best place, and that's 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.040 a little bit of grace on both sides, right and 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:24.839 understanding that some of those people got assigned to you 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.839 an hour before drove out. They're trying to do their 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.240 best and when you help them, the coverage is better 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:35.160 than when you stonewall because you're frustrated. And we talked 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.200 to athletes about that too, and how they're ready for 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:39.560 the fair and tough questions. They just want them to 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.080 be well researched, which I understand. Let's talk about the book, 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.840 because you've written a number of books. Why, Caitlin Clark? 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:47.720 Why right now? 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.199 It's several years in the making, to be frank, And 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.319 it goes back to even just seeing her as an 0:13:56.360 --> 0:14:02.319 initial phenomenon and seeing an understanding that as she blew 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:04.800 up and I mean that before she blew up in 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:06.920 an audience sens so she just blew up as a player, 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.400 which you could see right from the start, right from 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:13.000 day one as a freshman at Iowa, there was this 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:18.800 legacy clearly tied not just to the previous few years 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:23.320 at University of Iowa, but going back a century. And 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.280 you know, I've had the privilege of covering and writing 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.800 about Molly Kashmir, who was Molly bowlan machine dun Molly, 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.840 dating back to the nineteen seventies in the WBL, and 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.440 you just couldn't help but see those parallels right away. 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:39.800 And so just the more I dug into it, the 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.240 more it was just very clear to me this is 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:46.520 a multi generational story. And then the more she blew up, 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.960 the more it was clear and obvious that there's a 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:54.440 large audience out there who may not know why this 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.920 is happening now. And I think that's what's really important. 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:00.400 That's what drove me when I wrote Rare Jam, which 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:05.160 is about effectively four generations of women's players in Minnesota 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.040 and where that came from, and to see this history 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.440 in Iowa, it goes back even further and there are 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:13.160 these direct links. You know, Jan Jensen is the lead 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:18.160 assistant coaching Caitlin Clark, and her grandmother was a star 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.280 in girls six on six basketball, not only in the 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.360 nineteen twenties, but writing about it, and I had access 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:26.680 to her journals in a way that no one had 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.880 ever seen before writeing about it in ways the language 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.960 parallels the way Caitlin talks about living as a basketball 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.560 player today. And so the more you see that, the 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:38.400 more you just feel like, you know, Wow, this is 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.120 a story that runs so much deeper than I'm going 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:44.240 to be able to get to in one story or 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:45.240 one podcast. 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:47.680 We got to take a quick break when we come 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:59.160 back more with Howard mgdal hang tight. I loved the 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.640 history that was in the book because it's Caitlin Clark 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.280 has done a lot, but her story is still relatively short. 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:07.680 So the idea that you connect that short story that's 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:12.320 been broadcast on the highest and biggest stages alongside this 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:17.400 lengthy history. And you talk mostly about Iowa and how 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:22.120 Iowa's had this incredible support for women's basketball dating back 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.160 to even previous iterations of the sport, and you do 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:27.040 compare it to other places and how it's different, And 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.160 of course the part about Illinois is stuck with me, 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.800 but it was uniform across many states. But this is 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:35.920 the example you used from Illinois, you write, as historian 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.040 Scott Johnson Chronicle quote. Not long after the introduction of 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.040 basketball as an athletic activity for high school girls, all 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.760 levels of the educational hierarchy were engaged in a debate 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:48.400 over its merits. As a simple playground game, girls basketball 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:53.560 had prompted few objections. However, when girls started developing interscholastic 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.960 programs that rivaled those of the boys, basketball quickly turned 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.440 into a nightmare for school administrators. While students and empathetic 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:04.119 teachers push for more interschool play, school principles, and professional 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.560 educators marshaled their resistance to what they perceived as the 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:11.679 masculinization of the female athletic program. This scenario played itself 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:15.359 out in practically every state during the early twentieth century. Now, 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:17.440 this is not surprising to folks who have been in 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.679 the women's sports space. In fact, it feels weirdly reminiscent 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.120 of some of the reactions to the w last year, 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.360 for folks who hadn't watched before, who said, oh, this 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.680 is mma. They're boxing out there, this is too physical, 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.919 everyone's mean, they're targeting Caitlin, and we're all like, this 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.600 is basketball, bro, Like, why have you been watching? But 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:40.320 the idea that girls playing is fine until people come 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.560 to watch, or tickets get sold, or the stakes get high, 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:46.879 or it becomes similar to the boys or surpasses the boys. 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.920 And there were plenty of examples in early Iowa basketball 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.080 that you cite where thousands of people are going to games, 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.200 where there's a tiny town of just a couple hundred 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.280 and two thousand people show up to celebrate when they win, 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:03.240 lining down the street. And what was the big takeaway 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:07.440 for you of the waves of fighting that are required 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.560 to push women's sport forward from the eighteen hundreds to 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:12.159 the early nineteen hundreds and carrying on. 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.080 So this is a big takeaway for me from this book, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.320 but frankly, this is a big takeaway for me from 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.080 Rare Gems. This is a big takeaway for me from 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.239 covering women's sports with a historical lens, and that is 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:28.800 that every time you see a gap between outcomes with 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:32.840 men's and women's sports, you can always trace it back 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:38.080 to process. And the thing that I think frustrates me 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:42.960 the most is where I hear people mistake process for outcome, 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.040 and to your point, and this is the most significant 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:50.120 part of it. Every time there's an elevation, every time 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:55.440 there is growth, there is a backlash to what we're seeing. Look, 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.000 we're seeing it in women's sports. We're seeing it, and 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.720 we've seen it at every wave of feminism that we've 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.879 had in this country throughout the world as well, you know, 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:09.000 again and again and again a pushback. And so that 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:12.280 for me is the big takeaway for people to understand 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.800 that women were playing basketball as soon as there was basketball, 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.080 just the same as men were. So everything that we've 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.119 seen for the EBB and flow and the fact that 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.800 there is not a parallel rise in men's basketball and 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:29.680 women's basketball is everything to do with efforts made to 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.119 stop the progress of women's basketball. 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:34.840 Yeah, one thousand percent. I talk about that all the time, 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.360 that if you don't understand the intention behind holding back 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.960 women's sports, you will continue to blame the product. And 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.520 the product has never been the problem. It has always 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.399 been the infrastructure and the people around it who are 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:47.520 trying to hold women back or keep women in a 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:51.320 specific lane. And it's frustrating to see that ebb and 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.320 flow and come back and repeat itself over the course 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.879 of time. We're currently fighting our way still in this 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.960 massive moment of growth, but of course we look at 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:05.760 some larger administration and other folks, the Trump administration, other 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.760 folks looking to push us back into yet another eb 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:12.000 What was the most surprising thing you learned about Caitlin 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:13.800 in the process of writing this book, because you sort 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:15.920 of tell these parallel stories of the history and then 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:18.119 her history as well. 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:22.959 The most surprising thing to me is that she never 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.479 had a moment of breaking. If that made sense, there 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:31.560 was something and it made sense within the context of 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:33.720 understanding that in a lot of ways she was born 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.240 and raised to meet this moment. But she did not 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.119 have a moment where her game failed her. She didn't 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.159 have a moment where she wasn't able to handle what 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:48.960 has been a gradually rising but clearly attention that she 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.080 has been receiving dating back to her high school days 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.480 and even before that. You know, she's playing at seventh 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:57.639 and eighth grade in these AAU tournaments in front of 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.320 you know, people like Lisa Bluter, and at no point 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.840 did she falter. And that is astonished. 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:06.240 So she is a robot. 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.479 I mean, it's astonishing, right, I mean, this is a 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.000 twenty three year old woman, and I just think about 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:16.800