From 6-on-6 Girls’ Basketball to the “Caitlin Clark Effect”
There’s a saying that everything in life can teach you a lesson; you just have to be willing to observe and learn.
I was thinking about this after Iowa Hawkeye legend Caitlin Clark became the No. 1 overall pick in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and joined the Indiana Fever.
Imagine Iowa Hawkeye women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark playing a basketball game where the rules allowed her just two dribbles before she had to pass or shoot. Oh yeah—it would be illegal for her to cross the half-court line, too.
For most of the 20th century, this was girls’ basketball in Iowa. The game was 6-on-6, with three girls on one side of the court playing defense and three on the other side playing offense.
While the rules might seem archaic now, 6-on-6 was wildly popular for generations. Especially in rural Iowa, 6-on-6 was fully supported and encouraged at a time when competitive team sports for women were relatively unheard of (and often discouraged).
Iowa’s rich tradition of high school girls’ basketball dates back to the 1890s and early 1900s. In many small schools, girls’ 6-on-6 basketball proved more popular with fans than boys’ basketball. At its zenith, the sport involved more than 70 percent of the girls in Iowa, by some estimates.
That’s why some newspaper clippings and trophy at Doug and Karen Lawton’s farm south of Jefferson caught my eye. The items are displayed in Karen’s “she shed,” a former tire shop on the family’s Century Farm. When I was working on a story about the shed, I asked Karen about this unique décor.
Those items honor Luella (Gardeman) Boddicker, Doug’s maternal grandmother. She was a star player on the 1927 Newhall girls’ high school basketball team. A sophomore, Luella was the team’s leading scorer, hitting the goal that propelled Newhall High School to a 38-37 win over Sioux Center in the final game of the state tournament in Centerville.
This was the second tournament sponsored by the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU), which was organized in response to the Iowa High School Athletic Association’s decision that organized basketball was unhealthy for girls. “Luella rode horseback in the mid-1920s to speak out against that decision and save girls’ basketball,” Karen said.
Luella’s specialty was the one-handed jump shot—15 years before its introduction into boys’ basketball, according to March 6, 1994, article “Memory Still Vivid After 67 Years” in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. This former farm girl and country school student (who moved to Newhall her sophomore year) mastered the one-handed jumper after Coach William Franklin told her if she didn’t, “we’ll never get anywhere.”
After her senior season, Luella sold butter, eggs and cream to buy her only letter sweater. She couldn’t afford one before that. “In those days,” she told the Gazette, “you worked for what you got.”
Luella became a farm wife and mother of three daughters, including Doug Lawton’s mother, Dorothy (“Dot”), who was also a standout basketball player. Luella’s accomplishments left a lasting legacy not only for her family, but the future of girls’ high school basketball. She was inducted into the IGHSAU Hall of Fame in 1972.
Decades after Luella’s achievements, Iowa remained one of the last two states (along with Oklahoma) to play 6-on-6 high school basketball. In 1993, the IGHSAU voted unanimously to end 6-on-6, as more girls wanted to play 5-on-5 in high school and college.
Caitlin Clark herself has honored the history of girls’ 6-on-6 basketball in Iowa. Referencing the unprecedent interest in women's collegiate and professional basketball, “that doesn’t come if it’s not for the people who came before us,” she told the media. You nailed it, Caitlin.
Check out other stories from the Iowa Writers Collaborative:
I'd love to have seen her riding her horse in protest. In fact, I would have joined her. If it weren't for 6-on-6 I probably wouldn't have been able to play bball.
Terrific story, Darcy! In Doug & Karen Lawton, you’ve now met two of Iowa’s best high school basketball fans. I believe Doug had been attending the Iowa girls’ state basketball tournament since before he was born!