On February 15, 2024, University of Iowa senior basketball player Caitlin Clark sank a 30-foot three pointer from the logo against the University of Michigan and made basketball history. With that shot, Clark reached over 3,527 career points and surpassed Olympic gold medalist, 2x WNBA Champion, and University of Washington legend Kelsey Plum’s record for most career points in NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball history. But Clark was not done yet, as on March 3, 2024, she broke LSU alumnus and NBA star “Pistol Pete” Maravich’s NCAA Division 1 career scoring record of 3,667 career points, set in 1970. In that incredible game against #1 Ohio State University, Caitlin Clark became the best scorer in Division 1 college basketball history.
At least, that’s what most sports outlets said.
What is discussed far less often is that Clark did not actually earn the NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball scoring title until after she dropped 35 points on #1 Ohio State University to break the previous record set by Lynette Woodard. The NCAA did not formally recognize women’s college basketball until 1982 because it did not want women to be part of their organization and has since been highly selective in regards to which achievements carry over from the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), which was the original organizational body for women’s collegiate athletics. Though a small handful of records, such as games involved in Stanford women’s basketball head coach Tara VanDerveer’s total career win count (1200+ wins), have accounted for women’s college basketball before its inclusion in the NCAA, this is not the case for most other AIAW accolades. One of the achievements from the AIAW era that the NCAA does not count in the record books is Lynette Woodard’s all time major college basketball scoring record. She established herself as the most prolific scorer in women’s college basketball history in 1981, totaling 3,649 career points after four years playing for the University of Kansas. This means that in an approximately 35 game season (give or take 5 games depending on playoffs), Woodard would have been averaging 26.1 points per game if she played every game across all four years of her college career at Kansas. Beyond her more than impressive college resume, though, Woodard serves as a role model for young athletes everywhere and will go down as one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
Born to Dorothy and Lugene Woodard on August 12, 1959 in Wichita, Kansas, Lynette Woodard grew up in a basketball family. Whether playing what she termed “sockball” with her father and brother (basketball, except shooting rolled up socks at the door frame instead of using a ball or hoop) or spending time with her cousin Hubie “Geese” Ausbie, a Harlem Globetrotter, she was always around the game and developed an immense appreciation for it. Especially by learning Globetrotter tricks from Geese, Woodard learned that one of the most important parts of the game was to play with joy, and is well-known for her sharp competitiveness and discipline on the court and infectious, warm personality off of it.
Woodard did not begin playing organized basketball until her sophomore year of high school, but she went on to become a star for the Kansas Jayhawks. It is difficult to know where to begin with her laundry list of achievements at the collegiate level alone. Woodard was a four-time Kodak All American. She was named freshman player of the year by Street and Smith’s and Basketball Weekly for her 25.2 points per game (the second most in the country) and 14.8 rebounds per game (the most in the country). She continued to outdo herself in her sophomore year by leading the nation in points per game and setting a single-season scoring record with 1,177 points in addition to setting a single-game rebounding record with 33 rebounds. She would complete her time at Kansas with a bachelor’s degree in speech communications and human relations, the 1981 Wade Trophy (given to the best player in all of women’s college basketball), and a total of 3,649 points–a women’s basketball Division 1/major university record that would stand until two weeks ago when Caitlin Clark surpassed it during Iowa’s game against Nebraska. Woodard broke 24 of the 32 statistical records for women’s college basketball, all while maintaining a 3.04 GPA, and at the end of her time in college was the first student to ever have their jersey number retired by the University of Kansas.
In the professional sphere, Lynette Woodard’s resume only continues to grow. She played for two seasons in Italy in 1981 where she was the only English-speaking member of the team, and decided to come back to the United States to train for the 1984 Olympics. She had been selected for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team but was unable to play due to the United States boycotting the Moscow Games. However, she returned for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and was captain of the gold medal winning women’s basketball team, the first in American Olympic history. On top of this, she led the United States to a gold medal at the Pan American Games in 1983 and a silver medal at the World University Games in the same year. Woodard continued to make history when in 1985 she became the first woman signed by the Harlem Globetrotters, a dream she had held since her childhood days with Geese. She stayed with the Globetrotters for two years before returning to play professionally in Italy for two seasons and in Japan for three, all the while working toward the establishment of a professional national women’s basketball league in the U.S. In 1997, she was finally able to see this dream realized and came out of retirement to play in the inaugural two seasons of the WNBA for the Cleveland Rockers and then the Detroit Shock. She was named the 1982 NAACP Woman of the Year for her creation of a Big Brother-Big Sister program in Kansas and her efforts on behalf of the American Cancer society and was inducted into, among other institutions of honor, the Kansas Hall of Fame in 1990, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002 and 2004, the Globetrotter Hall of Fame in 2004, and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005.
Lynette Woodard is a true pioneer in the game of basketball. Her hard work, dedication, generosity, strong sense of community, and competitive edge drove her to become one of the greatest names in basketball of all time, and definitely someone we should be talking about more often in regards to college basketball legends.Women’s basketball was thriving before it was recognized by the NCAA in 1982, and the trailblazers of the AIAW need to be recognized. This Women’s History Month, let us take inspiration from Lynette Woodard and her incredible accomplishments and be empowered to blaze trails of our own.