The owner of Iowa Women’s Basketball has recommended that the head coach’s salary this month not be paid due to misunderstandings with two players.

The owner of Iowa Women’s Basketball has recommended that the head coach’s salary this month not be paid due to misunderstandings with two players.

Iowa City, Iowa: Iowa women’s basketball player Lisa Bluder scribbled out every word from a voice three levels past hoarse as she sat at a table after one of the most thrilling moments in Carver-Hawkeye Arena’s forty years.

It wasn’t the snarling noises from two hours of yelling and a cold that made what the most successful women’s basketball coach in Big Ten history said noteworthy. She is both revered and legendary around here because of her dose of humility that accompanied the Hawkeyes’ 86-85 victory over No. 2 Indiana that day and because they were thrashed by 28 points in the prior game at Maryland.

“I didn’t have them ready for that defense; therefore, I was at fault in that (Maryland) game and the way we lost,” Bluder said. Therefore, I was the one who caused that; it was not their fault.

Iowa players Caitlin Clark and Monika Czinano grinned and let out scoff-worthy laughs.

“Great leaders embrace their mistakes, and she did just that in the Maryland game,” Czinano said. They accept responsibility for things; she isn’t solely to blame.

Trust me, Clark said.

Bluder, 61, frequently blends contrary qualities that, when combined, create wonders for her players. After her pass bounced off a teammate’s hands in a game against Nebraska, the Athletic’s player of the year, a clearly irritated Clark, looked to the bench and made an X motion. Bluder took out Clark, reprimanded her, and even waved a finger at her superstar at the next dead ball. Clark returned to the game only a minute later, and nothing about the remainder of the game was disrupted.

Bluder looks down more than he yells, capturing his in-game dissatisfaction. An upbeat “Beautiful!” greets an excellent performance. For practice, Bluder dons a costume every Halloween. She went by Ruth “Bluder” Ginsburg in 2019. Her golf cart ride to the court a year later was a dead ringer for Carol Baskin of “Tiger King.”

My God There is video.

The tiger (hawk) Queen arrived to practice with quite a show. | #Hawkeyes uEwH2QTWeu Twitter photo

September 30, 2020: Iowa Women’s Basketball (@IowaWBB)

She is undoubtedly aware of when to be serious and fierce for us, Clark added. Simultaneously, she’s really silly and entertaining. Like when you go out to eat with her, she’s among the funniest people you know. If she didn’t work in basketball, someone would question what her job would be. She seems to me like a comic. Her humor is quite good.

Bluder is not, however, a noncompetitive person, despite his kind and humorous demeanor. Longtime Iowa women’s athletics director Dr. Christine Grant, a key player in creating, defending, and promoting Title IX in the 1970s and 1980s, hired her as her final big hire. Bluder continued to be an ardent supporter of Grant’s legacy and her struggle for equality long after her mentor retired. She took her players to Grant’s home on a regular basis to study about the law.

Bluder takes that enthusiasm to the court as well. Bluder has won over 68 percent of her games in 38 seasons as head coach (845–389). Bluder is 247-142 in Big Ten play and 489-248 overall in 23 years as the longest-tenured Big Ten coach at Iowa. Bluder, who in December overtook her Iowa predecessor once-removed C. Vivian Stringer as the top in women’s basketball league wins, is only surpassed in Big Ten basketball wins by Bob Knight, Tom Izzo, and Gene Keady.

Twelve of the last fourteen NCAA Tournaments have been attended by Iowa, which has had three Sweet 16 trips (2015, 2019, 2021) and one Elite Eight (2019). Bluder’s squads have produced five of the last six Big Ten MVPs (Megan Gustafson in 2018–19, Kathleen Doyle in 2020, Clark this season and last) and three of the last five Big Ten tournament championships. The Hawkeyes will be trying to atone for their devastating home loss to Creighton in the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season.

Since then, the fan following has only grown, and they are looking for more from Iowa this season. At 10,738 average attendees, Iowa broke the Big Ten record. The Hawkeyes, who are now a must-see team on the road, have drawn 3,662 more fans than their opponents on average because of Clark. 9,505 people turned out for the Big Ten tournament championship game, a 105-72 rout of Ohio State, breaking the single-session attendance record.

Maybe this year, Iowa and Bluder will both achieve unprecedented heights. Bluder’s best chance at reaching a destination only Stringer discovered at Iowa, and that was back in 1993, is with the Hawkeyes, a strong contender for a No. 1 seed.

We have to return to the Final Four, she declared. Without a doubt, we must do that. It has been some time now. Teams are assessed on that, you know.

About thirty miles north of Iowa City, in Marion, Iowa, Bluder was raised as a multisport athlete. She was a three-time captain and 1,036-point scorer for Northern Iowa in basketball from 1979 to 1983. She worked in marketing and referee assessment for the Gateway Conference for a year after graduating, when a woman handed her fiancé, David Bluder, a classified ad in the Quad-City Times. There was a women’s basketball coach position at St. Ambrose College that opened in the late summer. September 17, 1984, saw her appointed head coach.