Before there was Iowa guard Caitlin Clark, before there was Washington guard Kelsey Plum. Before there was even an NCAA-sanctioned women’s basketball tournament, there was Kansas guard Lynette Woodard.
Woodard, one of the best female players of her era, scored 3,649 points in a four-year career for the Jayhawks from 1978-81. That is the most in major women’s college basketball history, but it is not recognized as such by the NCAA because it took place under a previous governing body, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW).
With Clark 32 points away from breaking Woodard’s mark—having taken the NCAA crown from Plum on Feb. 15 in a 106–89 win over Michigan—Woodard urged the governing body for college sports to respect her and her contemporaries’ achievements.
“I want the NCAA governing body to know that they should respect the (AIAW) players, respect the history. Include us and our accomplishments,” Woodard said during Kansas’s 58-55 upset of then-No. 10 Kansas State on ESPN2 Sunday. “This is the era of diversity, equity and inclusion. They should include us. We deserve it.”
With interest in the history of women’s college basketball at an all-time high as the sport explodes in popularity, the celebration of AIAW greats by the NCAA as a whole seems like a potential layup.
