Can women’s basketball sustain this popularity, this fun? Can W.Va. girls capitalize on it?
I remember way back when, while working as the sports editor of Morgantown’s Dominion Post, a representative of a sport (American Legion baseball maybe?) asked how to get more people in the stands. The request had been more about coverage, of course, but my response was this:
“You must grab folks by the collar with something special. I can write a thousand stories, but unless it’s something that catches people’s fancy, they won’t come out.”
That’s especially true in West Virginia. Want to fill up the state boys basketball tournament? Get O.J. Mayo (USC) and Patrick Patterson (Kentucky) involved. Want to fill the St. Albans gym every game? Get a Brett Nelson (Florida).
If you give fans the stars, to play off “Field of Dreams,” they will come to your sport. They’ll most certainly come to see Randy Moss and Jason Williams (NFL, NBA) play on the same DuPont high school team. They’ll show up for Jared Prickett (Kentucky) and Herbie Brooks (WVU) and so many others.
But perhaps one of the most exciting times of my sports writing career, before I joined Wheelhouse Creative LLC, was watching an explosion of girls high school basketball in the early 2000s.
As sports editor of the then-Charleston Gazette, I watched Alexis Hornbuckle and Renee Montgomery not only grab fans by the collar, but the state as well. Fans flocked to see Hornbuckle, the former Capital and South Charleston star, who won three Ostrowski Awards and stood out at Tennessee for legendary coach Pat Summitt. (I presented one of the awards to Hornbuckle and had the thrill of talking to Summitt, who wrote a congratulations message for the speech. I still cannot delete Summitt’s phone number from my cell because it was such an honor.) Hornbuckle is the only player to win an NCAA title and WNBA title in the same year (2008, the latter with the Detroit Shock.) She played in the 2007 Pan Am Games for USA.
Montgomery also won the Ostrowski Award and was an NCAA champion with UConn, a WNBA All-Star and two-time league champ. She’s now not only a broadcaster, but an activist and vice-president and part-owner of the Atlanta Dream.
Again, it was thrilling to watch girls basketball come alive at that time, much as it is thrilling to see women’s basketball flourish now in 2024.
Sports fans know of what I write. Iowa and Caitlin Clark have grabbed us all by the collars. Yet there have been other stars, like LSU’s Angel Reese, USC’s JuJu Watkins and UConn’s Paige Bueckers. Heck, WVU and standout JJ Quinerly made a splash in the ongoing women’s tournament.
And what a tournament for the women’s game. This from the NCAA BEFORE Monday night’s games:
“NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship attendance and ratings records continue to be rewritten as the opening rounds of the 2024 championship concluded (March 25) at top-16-seed First Four and first- and second-round host sites.
“With sellout crowds filling several sites, attendance for the opening rounds shattered records for the third consecutive season. A total of 292,456 fans came through the turnstiles to watch first- and second-round games, an increase of 60,779 fans over 2023, when a then-record 231,677 fans attended.
“Championship ratings also continue to soar, with millions of fans tuning into coverage across ESPN platforms, inclusive of ABC. The NCAA Women’s Selection Show on ESPN, which aired March 17, averaged 1.94 million viewers, which was up 52 percent from the 2023 Selection Show and was the most-watched edition in 20 years. Fueled by 236,000 viewers for the Arizona-Auburn game on March 21, First Four games averaged 184,000 viewers, up 24 percent from last year.”
What will be interesting to watch is if women’s basketball can keep on this trajectory. West Virginia’s girls basketball seems more popular (perhaps because of the college game), although not like it was in that early 2000s era. It was so popular at that point the Gazette pushed aside a singular honoree for Sportsman of the Year in 2004 and celebrated “Girls Basketball.”
Here’s hoping for a full return to that. We’ve seen many standouts through the years in the Mountain State. Parkersburg Catholic’s Mary Ostrowski, who was an All-American at Tennessee. John Marshall’s Amy Gamble, who also went to Tennessee. Doddridge County’s Susan Robinson, who went to Penn State. St. Joe’s Mychal Johnson, who went to Notre Dame. On and on I could go.
And these days we’re seeing standouts like Fairmont’s Marley Washenitz, who went to Pitt. Wheeling Park’s Alexis Bordas, just a junior, has been raising eyebrows with her ballhandling and 3-point shooting. She’s already a two-time Gatorade and Ostrowski Award winner and three-time first-team all-state player. This year, Cameron’s Ashlynn Van Tassell added a splash and shared the Ostrowski award. George Washington’s Zaniah Zellous has many offers from schools like WVU, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Penn State and others.
Can women’s basketball remain as popular after Clark stops bombing threes from 30 feet? Can West Virginia girls basketball continue to do well and escalate its popularity even more?
Again, here’s hoping the answer to both is yes. At least, they have a good open look at a shot.
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Mitch Vingle covered sports in West Virginia for 38 years. Follow Mitch on Twitter at @MitchVingle and be sure to check out the rest of Wheelhouse Creative’s website for your marketing and advertising needs. If interested, call us at 304-905-6005.