In summer’s warmth, Lisa Bluder has time to chill
Newly retired Iowa women’s basketball coach reflects on a successful career and a crazy past couple of years
Lisa Bluder is looking relaxed. It’s a July morning, a perfect day and yeah, there are places she has to be and things she has to do but there aren’t PLACES SHE HAS TO BE or THINGS SHE HAS TO DO.
Because Bluder, the Iowa women’s basketball coach the past 24 years, is retired. In May, Bluder handed the reins to longtime assistant Jan Jensen to create a new era of Iowa basketball. It’s also created a new era for Bluder and her family.
Over breakfast recently at Iowa City’s Bluebird Café, Bluder chatted about how her life is shaking out these days and it’s pretty much enough to make anyone want to retire. She also spoke about the transformation of her sport over the course of her 40-year career and the whirlwind of life in the last two seasons with NCAA success and Caitlin Clark’s blazing star.
This is the first part of an interview that will run in two parts, lightly edited for clarity. The first is more about life as a newly retired coach; the second, which will post next week, gets into the weeds a bit more about basketball, Clark and 40 years of amazing change in women’s sports.
How has your summer gone? Has this been the most relaxing summer ever?
Absolutely. But I’m still busy. But it’s a different kind of busy because now I get to do what I want to do. So I like that. Normally I’d be in Mexico right now (at the FIBA U17 Women’s World Cup), I’d be in a gym all last weekend and I’d be in a gym all next weekend recruiting.
It’s so nice. I don’t have an alarm a lot of mornings. Practice begins at 8 o’clock in the summer so you’re out the door early.
I didn’t realize how stressful it was. And I didn’t realize how much I really did and you don’t really realize how crazy the hours are until you walk away from it. Then you’re like, “Holy cow! How did I do that?”
And then the last couple years?
Especially the last two years because it’s been so crazy. Last year we went until April (playing in the 2023 NCAA championship game) and then we went to all the Caitlin (national award) things. Then we had the foreign tour in August (the team traveled to Italy and Croatia in summer 2023), then we had the Crossover at Kinnick (the outdoor game at Kinnick Stadium that drew more than 55,000 people on Oct. 15), then we went until April again this year and then to the draft. It was nonstop.
In the middle of that, were there any “Oh my god” moments of things you got to do?
I feel like I’ve had a lot of those. Just spending time with Robin Roberts, or Jason Sudeikis when he started following our team. He had me and Jan and Hannah, my daughter, when we were in L.A., over to his house for cheeseburgers and then he took us to the Jimmy Buffett tribute at the Hollywood Bowl. Here I am, sitting there, and John McEnroe is sitting right there and I’m thinking, “This is unbelievable. I get to do this.”
Billie Jean King has invited us to go out to the U.S. Open. It’s just been unbelievable that I got to do this stuff. It’s incredible.
Are there simple things you’re getting to do now that you’re retired?
I’m cooking now. I always liked to cook but I never did it because I never had time. Now I enjoy being able to prepare a meal. That sounds so stupid or so lame, but it’s true.
And doing my puzzles in the morning. Wordle, Connections … I get to do those now. I took up pickleball and that’s fun.
Is there anything you find that you can do now that you couldn’t do before? Run for office? Take ukulele lessons?
None of that. I’m definitely going to go see every one of David’s games (her son, David, will be a senior at Grinnell and is on the basketball team). So November, December, January and February are covered. Some of them are in Michigan, Missouri or Wisconsin and we’re going to go to every single game.
Dave (her husband) and I actually sat down with a year calendar and came up with, “What are we going to do every month?” We really want to travel. Our first is going to be a Rhine River cruise, in September-October. Just traveling. I want to see things. There are so many places I want to go.
When you retired there was all this internet speculation about what Lisa Bluder is going to do. Have you heard any of this?
The one about being the (Indiana) Fever coach? I’ve definitely heard that. There is no way. Why? I left a great basketball job, why would I take another one? It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Any thoughts about TV work? You’re good at that.
I have talked to people about putting on a headset. But I don’t know, I don’t really want to travel like that. My friend Debbie Antonelli, she lives on the road, and Pam Ward, too. Those guys are always going. I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want travel by myself and stay in a hotel by myself. Sitting in an airport all day is not my idea of retirement. We’ll see.
How many WNBA games do you watch? And how many have you gone to?
I’ve only gone to three, and I’d like to go to another one in Indiana before the summer is over. I try to watch any time I can, any night that I’m available I’m going to watch. It’s so much fun.
How do you draw a line between wanting to watch all the games and such and what is now your new life?
That’s always going to be part of my life. Basketball will always, always be a part of my life. Of course I’m going to go to Iowa women’s games when I’m not watching David play. I don’t want to say I’m not going to have anything to do with basketball anymore. I feel I can use my platform that I have to help women’s athletics. Dr. Grant (Christine Grant, former Iowa women’s athletic director) taught me a lot about the value of promoting women’s athletics and I want to use that. I wouldn’t mind speaking, say, four times a year in areas that would be important to promote women’s athletics. That, to me, would be gratifying.
Where are you going to sit at Carver-Hawkeye?
That’s to be determined. It was funny because Caitlin asked me that question. She said, “Where are we going to sit this year?” I said, “I don’t know, we’ll have to find someplace.” She said, “I want to sit at the end of the bench.” I said, “Caitlin, they are NOT going to let us sit at the end of the bench.”
I don’t know, somewhere up in the media area probably because I don’t want to be a distraction to Jan. And I want an easy exit out of that tunnel.
Were there times when the last couple seasons ended that you sat back and thought, “What the hell just happened?”
(Laughs) Yeah, you just got swept up in it. Like when we came home from the Final Four last season and there were just tons of people at the reception at the Old Capitol. You definitely think, “What just happened?”
How did you decompress from that?
I don’t think I ever did. And I think that was the problem of last year, getting home from that and into all these award banquets for Caitlin, and that’s traveling to New York and L.A. And then we started practicing again in June. And then the foreign trip. So I never did come down from that high for two years.
Did that play a factor in your retirement?
I think it did. Dave and I like to hike and we went to Arizona and I started thinking, “OK, it’s May. This six-member new class is coming in.” And then I thought, “Oh, I don’t know if I can do it.” I was just physically and mentally tired at that point. It was going to take so much energy to have six new players to teach your system to and I just didn’t have that same feeling of “I can’t wait to get back in the gym.” I think that was a good time to say goodbye to it – when you still love it but you realize it’s hard, too.
Is there anything you think or hope Jan will do differently than you? Did you give her any specific advice?
I hope that she takes more risks than I did when I first started at Iowa. I think I limited myself in going after top recruits in the beginning.
The only advice that I gave to Jan is to be her own coach, do things your own way and don’t try to imitate anyone … but also if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Next: Fundraising for furniture, a job that paid peanuts and a once-in-a-lifetime player.
Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. She’s a past winner of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Mel Greenberg Award for her coverage of women’s basketball. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”
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Good job. Woodward would approve. I remember how he pounded on his lectern and shouted "Ak-rusee! Ak-rusee! Ak-rusee!"
This was a great interview, thank you!