“She shot and passed and dribbled to prominence in the shadow of Nancy Lieberman and before Cheryl Miller, which is like winning tennis tournaments between Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova. So how come nobody knows Lynette Woodard the way everybody knows Chris Evert…? Well, that’s how it is in women’s basketball. You remember women’s basketball.”
So began a brief item on Lynette Woodard that ran in Sports Illustrated in July 1984. The pithy commentary at the end there was very much of its particular moment—a statement on the mainstream perception of the game and the few players afforded the space to become major stars then. But the idea feels resonant even now. The question is fair, and the answer is, too.
How come nobody knows Lynette Woodard…? Well, that’s how it is in women’s basketball.
