TONIGHT: book event with howard megdal and molly bolin

we'll be discussing howard's new book about Iowa WBB, 'Becoming Caitlin Clark'

Thank you so much for being here! I am a full-time freelance writer and paid subscriptions to this newsletter allow me to continue to do work like this. Paid subscribers will also have access to events, like our book club discussions and tonight’s event with Howard Megdal and Molly Bolin! Upgrade here:

August’s book club selection is The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports by Michael Waters. We’ll be meeting on Sunday, August 31st, at 2 PM ET/11 AM PT. You can register here.

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I am so excited for tonight’s exclusive book event for paid subscribers! This one is going to be special, because not only will Howard Megdal be joining us to talk about his new book, Becoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar, but Iowa WBB legend “Machine Gun” Molly Bolin will also be there.

I really appreciate what Howard has done with this book—he’s used the mass appeal of a superstar like Clark as an entry point into the people who made her superstardom possible. Clark was born and raised in Iowa and played college basketball there, too. But what a lot of people may not know is that the Hawkeye State was, in many ways, the birthplace of girls and women’s basketball. As a result, it was home to the first superstars of the sport (like Molly) long before Clark was even born. But just as Iowa was one of the first states to really invest in and promote the women’s game, regressive values held progress back, keeping Iowa girls from excelling at the same level as players from the rest of the country—Iowa was the second-to-last state to adopt full court, 5x5 basketball for girls, not doing so until 1993.

In 1981, Sports Illustrated wrote:

“No one puts a higher value on girls' basketball than Iowans. A ticket to the Sweet 16s, the postseason high school tournament, is harder to come by than a ticket to the Super Bowl. Yet because of Iowa's antiquated girls' game—six-member teams are divided into three offensive and three defensive players, none of whom can cross center court or bounce the ball more than twice while dribbling—even the state's best players have little chance of making it big as pros. In fact, only one, Molly Bolin, has done so.”

Molly Bolin: After not being offered a raise, Iowa Cornets star Bolin posed for posters to promote the team that she sold for $3 each and kept the profits.

I first became acquainted with Molly (who now goes by Molly Kazmer) back in 2019, while reporting a story for Longreads on a high school student who sued to be able to play high school basketball in Iowa after having a baby. As I read about her career, I remember feeling ashamed that I had never heard of her before. In his book, Howard calls her “the Caitlin Clark of the 1970s.” In 2013, SLAM said she was “the best female guard you’ve never heard of.” She became the first woman to sign a pro contract in the first pro women’s basketball league, the Women’s Professional Basketball League, in 1978. Just last month, she attended a reunion for the WBL’s San Francisco Pioneers, for whom she played during the 1980-81 season (the reunion was organized, in part, by

maya goldberg-safir

).

My hope is that this discussion will accomplish what Howard’s book does so well—educate people about the context Caitlin Clark’s rise exists within. She doesn’t exist in a vacuum and she didn’t come out of nowhere.

Tonight’s event is at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT. Below, a link to register for tonight’s event, as well as additional reading and listening for those who are interested.

The BECOMING CAITLIN CLARK Syllabus