A Caitlin Clark book; plans for the Register's 175th birthday; praise for good journalism
If you became hooked on watching the University of Iowa women's basketball team and Caitlin Clark's otherworldly talents, we've got a treat for you.
The Des Moines Register and the Iowa City Press-Citizen are publishing a 160-page hardcover book, "UNMATCHED: Caitlin Clark’s Remarkable Journey, From Her Iowa High School Career to Breaking Collegiate Records and Captivating the Nation."
Des Moines Register and Press-Citizen sportswriters Matt Bain, Dargan Southard and Chad Leistikow have covered Clark since her teen years at Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines. The book reprints the best of that coverage and showcases more than 100 photos.
Even the early coverage and photos of Clark, with her familiar ponytail, but younger and thinner, is prescient about how skilled she was becoming and her potential to do great things on the basketball court. And Clark was never shy about declaring her ambitions.
For a January 2020 article after she had committed to the University of Iowa, Bain asked her what she wanted from her college career. Her response, in the third paragraph:
“To win a national championship,” Clark matter-of-factly told the Register last Tuesday, like she’d been asked what color the sky is, or what she had for breakfast.
I remember seeing that quote at the time and inwardly gasping, admiring the youthful ambition and sky-high dreams, but reading it with an adult's awareness of the degree of difficulty involved and the hard knocks that life can deliver.
Later in the story Bain wrote:
A recruit like Clark can elevate a program like Iowa and make a championship feel like more of a tangible, reasonable, rational … realistic possibility.
Fans had the privilege of watching Clark's ambition and relentless work ethic push the Iowa team toward, for the rest of us, unimagined heights.
Register Sports Editor James Kramer did the heavy lifting on pulling together the text and photos for the book. I helped a bit at the end with proofing pages, and I'm proud of the book. It provides a fun trip down memory lane for Iowa women's basketball fans, old and new.
It's available by preorder at Caitlin.PictorialBook.com for $31.95, which is 20% off, plus tax and shipping. That offer expires May 12; the books ship May 17. The Register will donate a portion of the proceeds to the Caitlin Clark Foundation.
We're celebrating our anniversary — and other companies', too
July 26, 1849, marked publication of the first edition of the Iowa Star, a predecessor to the Des Moines Register, and we're planning special coverage this July to mark our 175th anniversary.
You'll hear much more about the planned coverage in coming months, but we're getting started now on one aspect. Throughout our history, we've told the stories of Iowa and Iowans. In that tradition, as part of our anniversary celebration, we want to share stories of other longtime Iowa businesses.
We're asking Iowa companies that were founded in 1924 or earlier and continue to maintain a brick-and-mortar presence in the state to provide information about their businesses by filling out an online form at DesMoinesRegister.com/OldestBusinesses. We'll compile a listing online and will spotlight a handful of the businesses in print this July.
Helping Iowans through good journalism
In February, a Lee Rood Reader's Watchdog column, published online and on the front page of the Sunday Register, reported that Iowans who were sexually abused by Boy Scout leaders might get less money as part of a nationwide settlement because of Iowa's restrictive statute of limitations for filing civil claims regarding childhood sex abuse.
The settlement uses a mix of factors to determine payment amounts and penalizes states with civil statutes of limitations that restrict who can file, Rood reported. Iowa’s statute of limitations generally requires victims to file civil cases in district courts by age 19, the lowest age set by any state, she wrote. Victims also can file suits within three years of when they made the connection between their abuse and their injuries.
On April 19, just hours before a key deadline in the national settlement litigation, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a narrowly tailored, fast-tracked bill that removes the civil statute of limitations only for those Iowa survivors of sexual abuse who are part of the Boy Scouts settlement, qualifying them for higher payments.
That legislation had stalled until Lee wrote about the issue, and soon, other media began covering the story, too. Petersen, a longtime advocate for eliminating the civil statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse, praised the media's role in bringing attention to the predicament of Iowans abused by Boy Scout leaders in their youth.
“Today’s victory is a great example of how the legislature can help people when we work together for justice and when the media shines a light on an important issue,” Petersen said.
That's what Lee does in her Reader's Watchdog column week in and week out, pressing for answers and accountability on Iowans' behalf.
Carol Hunter is the Register’s executive editor. She wants to hear your questions, story ideas or concerns at 515-284-8545, chunter@registermedia.com, or on Twitter: @carolhunter.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Fan of Caitlin Clark and Iowa women's basketball? This book's for you
