The Enduring Goodness of the Iowa Girl’s State Basketball Tournament The “Iowa Boy’s” Ode to the Iowa Girl tween-game time periods – singers, dancers, acrobats and more. Put Note: Chuck Offenburger wrote this essay in more Iowa kids on the floor, he figured, and he’d also be putting more celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Girls parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and friends into the seats to State Basketball Tournament in 2019 watch and cheer. And he put them all on television, too. That strategy worked. Oh, did it ever work! BY CHUCK OFFENBURGER From the late 1950s into the 1990s, Cooley turned the girls state . tournament into one of the biggest sports events of the year in Iowa. It gives me pause to tell you that this 100th Tickets for the semifinals and championships on Friday and Saturday Iowa Girls High School State Basketball Tour- nights were harder to get than big-game football tickets at the Uni- nament is the 61st that I have closely followed, versity of Iowa or Iowa State University. A special television network and of those 61, I’ve attended at least 45. the IGHSAU put together carried the telecast of the championship Of course, the state tournament is the showpiece and money- into nine states across the Midwest, with ratings higher than pro foot- maker of the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union’s 10-sport pro- ball’s Super Bowl was getting then. It was such a widely-admired gram, which I believe is the best athletics program for high school and fun spectacle that Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, the girls in the nation. Washington Post and many other national publications often did fea- In my view, there are three profound things all this does for girls, ture stories on it. women and indeed all of Iowa, and these are things that may never I was a feature columnist for the Des Moines Register much of have occurred to you: that time, and I was fascinated by the joy and the success of the tour- --1. Have you noticed how happy the players look in the state tour- nament – and by Cooley, too. I pestered him often for quotes and in- nament? That really goes for girl athletes in all sports. Oh, there sights. Once in 1992, when he was 70 years old, I caught him in a may be red faces, anger or even tears right after a disappointing loss. reflective mood in his office, then at the former governor’s mansion But look again minutes later. There are huge smiles, hugs for fans on Grand Avenue in Des Moines. I asked him if he ever thought of and “thank yous” for coming to their games. It never seems to look himself as Iowa’s leading feminist. He immediately said no. But then quite that way for our boys in sports. he paused and thought some more. --2. About 20 years ago, I was startled to hear Lisa Bluder, the “Oh, I might be a feminist,” he said. “I just never thought of that coach then of the Drake University women’s basketball team and now before. I have fought some battles over the years to get equality for the coach of the University of Iowa women’s team, tell a reporter that girls. When you think of it, the athletic arena was the home of men the most important thing she and her assistant coaches were teach- and boys for more than 200 years. Only in recent times have women ing their players is “confidence.” I thought, wow! They’ve always and girls started coming into athletics, and sometimes they’ve had to looked plenty confident to me. But then it occurred to me, I wasn’t overcome hostility to do it. In Iowa at least, the girl athlete can walk seeing the players in their early insecurity about basketball and com- down the street just as tall as the boy athlete. No taller, but no petition in general. I was seeing them when they’re all polished up shorter, either.” and performing in the bright lights and big games. And that’s when I Cooley built the tournament, he took the game of six-on-six girls really understood: Wherever our former high school girl athletes wind basketball to fame and glory no one could have imagined, but he up, and whether married or single, they have an extra shot of con- wasn’t stuck in the way it was. When he perceived that the girls them- fidence and courage, developed from their experiences in interscho- selves favored a transition to the five-player game, he put in place lastic competition. an orderly transition to it, one that protected the financial support sys- --3. Just think of it, this is our 100th high school girls state basket- tem for the whole IGHSAU program. ball tournament. Do you realize most states are not yet celebrating He understood, believed and taught his successors that the 50 years of their girls’ tournaments? That’s because they didn’t start games, the sports, the tournaments, the pageantry, the Girls Union – having them until the federal government told them they had to pro- all of that – belongs to the Iowa Girl. Back then and now, too. vide equal opportunity for girls. That new law in the early 1970s “barely caused a ripple in Iowa,” then Gov. Bob Ray noted, because Chuck Offenburger, now writing in retirement from an acreage near the state had a girls’ program that started a half-century earlier. Girls Cooper in west central Iowa, for 21 years authored the “Iowa Boy” basketball, and the other sports added later to the IGHSAU program, column for the Des Moines Register, and for about 10 years, he was have given us a wonderful kind of glue that bonds generations of part of the TV broadcast team at the girls state basketball tourna- women in this state – great-grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers ments. He also wrote the 2002 book “E. Wayne Cooley and the Iowa and daughters who’ve all played, won, lost and learned from it. No Girl: A celebration of the nation’s best high school girls sports pro- other states have had girls competing in organized high school sports gram.” He is co-owner of the news & opinion website for four, now starting five generations. Offenburger.com, and you can reach him at [email protected] The state tournament has really been so much more than just bas- ketball. At least since 1955 it has. That’s when the board of directors of the IGHSAU decided to move the tournament from Drake Univer- sity’s old fieldhouse, with its capacity of about 5,000, to the huge new Veterans Memorial Auditorium in downtown Des Moines. E. Wayne Cooley, the new, young executive secretary of the IGHSAU was faced with the challenge of trying to fill 14,000 seats at “Vets.” Cooley had grown up at Coon Rapids in west central Iowa. The school was strong in both girls and boys sports, but it was also strong in vocal music, band and the arts. He noticed how the school’s con- certs always seemed to attract crowds just as big as the sporting events. So in ’55, as he thought about how to draw more people to Vets for the state basketball tournament, he came up with the then- startling idea of incorporating entertainment into the halftime and be- 100 Memories The Iowa Girls State Basketball Tournament is full of memorable moments. Former Associated Press sportswriter Chuck Schoff- ner selects 100 of the greatest moments in the history of the tournament. 1920 -- In early March, Drake University in Des Moines invites 27 the track when the train runs over you!" The meeting results in the for- teams to play in what becomes the first girls state basketball tourna- mation of the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, which remains ment. Twenty-four teams show up for the mid-March event, including the only high school governing body devoted solely to girls sports. a Correctionville squad that had to raise money from fans and local businesses to pay for the trip because the school refused to fund it. 1926 -- Irene Silka of Maynard becomes the first Iowa Girl to score After four rounds of competition on Friday and Saturday, Correction- 100 points in a game, tossing in 110 in a 127-13 victory over Hawkeye. ville and Nevada meet in the championship game on March 13. Cor- She averages 33 points for the season and finishes her three-year ca- rectionville, dedicating the game to its generous sponsors, wins 11-4 reer with 1,707 points. One news item says she is being called "the to become the first state champion in girls basketball. The Des Moines star girls basketball player of the world." Irene rings up her big Register reports the winners "played consistently throughout the meet" numbers in a three-court game that has two forwards, two centers and and notes they never gave up more than six points in a game. Cor- two guards. There's a center jump after every basket and the ball must rectionville center Doris Ward later is inducted into the Iowa Girls High be passed from the guard court to one of the centers before it can be School Athletic Union's Hall of Fame. advanced to the forwards. Correctionville pulls away late in the game when, according to the Register, a player named Cobb, "emulating her famous namesake 1927 -- With three future Hall of Famers on the court, it's easy to see Tyrus R., simply ran wild and scored three field goals in rapid succes- why Hampton rolls through the first state tournament under the direc- sion." tion of the IGHSAU to win the championship.