Caitlin Clark Passes Lynette Woodard's Career Scoring Record — The Real One
MINNEAPOLIS — The "real" career scoring record now belongs to #22.
Iowa guard Caitlin Clark, already crowned the NCAA career scoring champion after February's 106-89 win over Michigan, scored her 33rd and final point of the game against Minnesota Wednesday night to reach 3,650 career points, besting former Kansas legend Lynette Woodard at 3,649. Iowa romped, 108-60.
"Tonight is the night of the real record," head coach Lisa Bluder said after Wednesday's game. "To me, the AIAW record that Lynette Woodard held, that was the real one."
The NCAA recognized former Washington star Kelsey Plum as the career record leader, as Woodard played from 1977-1981, prior to the NCAA's recognition of women's athletics in 1982.
Clark passed Woodard's career record on a three-pointer, naturally — Clark's eighth of the night in a volcanic performance that also included her second-consecutive triple-double, the NCAA single-season three-pointer record, and the Big Ten career three-pointer record.
"It just speaks to the foundation that these players have laid for us, to have opportunities to be able to play in environments like this, in front of crowds like this," said Clark after the game. "I wouldn't have the opportunity to be able to do what I'm doing every single night if it wasn't for people like [Woodard]."
READ MORE: The Caitlin Tour Comes To Town: Clark, Iowa Shatter Records at The Barn
Widely regarded as a legend of women's basketball, Woodard is not only Kansas' career leader in scoring, she still leads the Jayhawks in career rebounds and steals. She was a four-time All-American during her career.
"Obviously [Woodard]'s one of the best of all time," Clark said Wednesday. "She could certainly score the ball."
KU made its first three program appearances in the AIAW Tournament in the last three seasons of Woodard's career. Moreover, the tourney was much more selective then, only inviting 16 teams in 1979, and 24 in 1980 and 1981.
After graduating from KU in 1981, Woodard embarked on a professional career overseas in Italy, without professional options available in America. Woodard also captained Team USA in the 1984 Summer Olympics, winning gold in Los Angeles.
Woodard realized her dream of being a professional basketball player stateside soon thereafter, as the first female Harlem Globetrotter in 1985 — and even becoming a 38-year-old rookie in the newly formed WNBA in 1997.
Most recently, Woodard coached Winthrop from 2017 to 2020, and is still active in the basketball community.
Unlike the celebratory atmosphere after Clark's record-breaking three-pointer against Michigan, her passing of Woodard would not be mentioned on the broadcast until after a commercial break, and the postgame studio crew was more interested in Clark's proximity to the men's career scoring record — after Wednesday's 30-point effort, she's currently 18 points away from Pete Maravich.
With at least three games left in Iowa's season (and as many as 10), Clark passing Maravich's record is a formality, and with that any lingering nitpicking over Clark's singular dominance can come to a merciful close — she will be, without question, the greatest scorer of all time in college basketball history.
Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder wasn't content to let the moment go without proper, unequivocal recognition of Woodard's mark, though.
"For some reason, the NCAA does not want to recognize the basketball that was played prior to 1982, and that's wrong," said Bluder during her opening postgame statement, with Clark sitting next to her. "We played basketball back then. They just don't want to recognize it, and that hurts the rest of us that were playing at that time. There's no reason why [Lynette Woodard's mark] should not be the true record."
The late Dr. Christine Grant, Iowa's groundbreaking director of women's athletics from 1973 to 2000, would have been proud of Bluder's statement Wednesday. Grant administered sports as part of the AIAW (Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women), which was established in 1971 and governed women's college basketball during Woodard's career.
"At a school like Iowa, that has been so rich in AIAW history, I just want to make sure we recognize Lynette's accomplishments in the game of basketball," said Bluder before turning to her star scorer. "But, congratulations to Caitlin for being the true basketball leader in points tonight."
Bluder frequently cites Grant, a firebrand advocate for gender equality in sport, as an inspiration for her own career; indeed, Bluder had been hired by Grant in April 2000, mere months before Grant retired. Grant passed away at 85 in December 2021, during Clark's sophomore season.
Bluder, herself an AIAW athlete for most of her Northern Iowa career before graduating in 1983, later had more to say about the NCAA's selective recognition of history.
“Why would you not recognize the women that played in the '70s and '80s?" Bluder asked rhetorically. "They got it all started. They were the foundation for what we’re doing right now. And to me, it makes no sense. Maybe the NCAA will realize that now. Maybe it’ll be brought to their attention, and they'll start recognizing those women that played in the '70s. And remember, they played with a larger basketball and no 3-point line.”
"Title IX is not that long ago," Clark said later. "Fifty years is not that long ago. I think it just still shows the room that we have to improve, and where women's sports is going is a really great place."
This is not Bluder's first time sticking up for Woodard and the AIAW era. During the press conference after Clark broke Plum's record, Bluder took issue with the NCAA's recognition of Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer's career coaching wins record, or more precisely its inclusion of wins from the AIAW era, as VanDerveer began her career at Idaho in 1978.
"That's probably a really valid point," Bluder said when whether Woodard's scoring should be recognized by the NCAA like VanDerveer's AIAW-era wins. "We played basketball before the NCAA. So I don't know why we have these 'NCAA' records. So I think it makes really good sense."
Plainly speaking: we agree. The NCAA should recognize the accomplishments of Woodard and the other greats of the AIAW era; it owes it to them.
Not only would recognition of pre-certification play be a long-overdue next step in righting the organization's history of discrimination, there's also no compelling reason left not to make the historical record complete, as Clark's claim to all-time greatness as a scorer in women's college basketball is now effectively unimpeachable.
And with such ardent support of the history of women's athletics in Iowa City, it seems like a foregone conclusion that Iowa will celebrate Clark's "real record" prior to the regular-season home finale against Ohio State on Sunday — with or without the NCAA's endorsement.