By MARY RICHE

DES MOINES, Iowa, July 19, 2025 — I’ve finished Christine Brennan’s book “ON HER GAME: Caitlin Clark and the Revolutions in Women’s Sports,” and it’s a great read.

Brennan is an acclaimed national sports columnist for USA Today, focusing on women’s sports, and is also a commentator for ABC, CNN and PBS News Hour.

Clark’s entrance on the WNBA scene has reminded me of Alice Paul’s entrance on the women’s suffrage scene in Washington DC in 1912. Neither Clark nor Paul received warm welcomes from the women who had been in the arenas for years before their arrival. And they both experienced what we’ve all learned at one time or another. Life is not fair.

The cover of the new book on Caitlin Clark.

The early 20th century suffragists and activist Alice Paul. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons)

Alice Paul was barely 25 years old, highly educated, trained in non-violent advocacy during her studies in London, and impatient with the campaign strategies being used by the veteran women suffragists, including and especially Carrie Chapman Catt.

In a daring move, Paul and her small circle of devoted suffragists promoted a march — a parade of supporters wanting women’s suffrage to be held on the eve of President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. It wasn’t the first march; that had happened a few months earlier in New York City. And this march was scheduled for a date less than 12 months away with little time to prepare and no time for mistakes.

Paul pulled it off; the Women’s Suffrage Parade attracted between 5,000 and 8,000 women (historians use both numbers) and supporters who marched down Pennsylvania Avenue on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration on March 3, 1913.

The march received national attention, gained support for suffrage and added to Paul’s popularity as a leader in the suffrage movement. It also deepened the tension between Paul and Catt.

Carrie Chapman Catt had been working on suffrage since 1887, and her campaign strategy “Winning Plan” targeted states, one by one, to gain suffrage. By 1913, after years of meeting with white men who were state lawmakers, only 9 states had adopted full suffrage.

Paul’s approach was bold, dangerous at times, and at odds with Catt and her supporters who had been quietly lobbying, with tea and conversation, the white male leaders in various states.

As Paul’s popularity soared after the March 3rd march, so did her grit. Both created tension between Catt and Paul that became privately unbearable and publicly tolerable. 

There was a split in the organization and the two sides faced off with Catt and her supporters lamenting the years of work they had put in for the cause, only to be sidelined by this young woman whose often-brash dismissal of the veterans was not only hurtful personally, but it was also hurting the overall cause of suffrage.

The start of World War I changed the political environment. Paul organized pickets in a “Silent Brigade” outside the White House. After Paul was arrested, jailed, beaten, and barely survived a hunger strike, there was a public outcry, and by 1918, President Wilson declared passage of suffrage was vital to the success of the war.

Paul and Catt worked together to secure passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 when women were finally granted the right to vote.  It was a truce borne of experience and the shared goal of suffrage.

I could visualize Carrie Chapman Catt feeling that life wasn’t fair, after Alice Paul burst onto the scene and gently, then abruptly, pushed her aside, including her state-by-state campaign strategies.

I could visualize Alice Paul feeling that life wasn’t fair when she and her brash style with new strategies that worked in London yet unproven in the US, so she was not welcomed or supported here. 

I can’t visualize what Caitlin is feeling about her first almost-two years in the WNBA.

I know what I’m feeling about it.

Life isn’t fair. I get it. 

And those veteran WNBA players who did not give her a warm welcome and those that are targeting her, roughing her up, have made their point. Life is not fair. She’s a rookie… the new kid… the young kid… the superstar… the incredible basketball competitor… the white girl/woman from the Heartland known as Middle America… the phenomenon known as Caitlin Clark… Why is she getting all the attention?  You are the veterans, you’ve been on the scene as skilled competitors, you are incredible basketball players, and you have been there all along.

It’s not fair.

No, it’s not.

And as upset as I get when I think of the paltry salaries all these WNBA players receive when they deserve so much more, I must take a deep, cleansing breath. 

Then I look at the current situation and find some solace that at long last, the league is getting the attention it has deserved from the very beginning.

Finally, the players are traveling on chartered jets, though I would have been happy as a clam seeing any of the WNBA starting players on one of my flights!

Finally, the games are being broadcast or streamed live.

And finally, regardless of how unfair it is, there is a player who has the combination of competitiveness, expertise, skills and magic of a Michael, Tiger, or Chris to make women’s basketball a topic of conversation in places it’s never been discussed before. For that we have Caitlin Clark to thank.

And I do.

Even if life isn’t fair.

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