Let’s talk about sex
Data shows Gen Z is having less sex compared to previous generations. University of Iowa staff and students share why.
sex, destigmatizing the act in and of itself.
The glance from across the room. The spark. The chase. The messy thrill. And yet, despite the allure of romance, Generation Z isn’t having as many of those moments compared to
According to data published in the sociology journal Socius, Gen Z is having less sex compared to previous
Between 2007 and 2017, the percentage of young women aged 18 to 23 years old who had casual sex within the past month dropped from 31 to 22 percent. For young men, that value
More recent data from 2021 collected by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research’s California Health Interview Survey showed similar trends with 38 percent of young adults polled reporting they have not had sex
“The people I teach in my classes have often never come into contact with somebody who’s openly and honestly engaging in conversations about their body and their sexuality.”
Lina-Maria Murillo UI professor
in the past 12 months.
Lina-Maria Murillo, a professor at the University of Iowa who teaches in the gender, women’s, and sexuality department, said some of this decline in sexual behavior can be attributed to a lack of education.
During the height of the AIDS epidemic in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Murillo said public programming and mass media was focused on promoting safe
Now, during what Murillo described as a “conservative push” in terms of sexual education, she said abstinence-only programming is causing people to talk about sex much less.
Over the past few years, the Iowa legislature, in particular, has implemented sweeping reform to Iowa’s K-12 education system. One such change, Senate File 496, prohibits teaching gender identity and sexual orientation before seventh grade and would require schools to alert parents if their child requests to use new pronouns.
The bill also bans books describing or depicting sex acts from school libraries.
“The people I teach in my classes have often never come into contact with somebody who’s openly and honestly engaging in conversations about
Dating in a politically polarized era
University of Iowa students navigate romantic relationships as the political and ideological gender divide deepens.
Dismayed by the dating scene on campus, University of Iowa first-year student Mary McCurdy added a special request on her Tinder bio: “Please do not swipe right if you voted for Trump.”
Burned in previous relationships with Republican-leaning men, the Democrat said she has drawn a line and McCurdy broke things off a month and a half into seeing someone because she found out he voted for President Donald Trump. She took a week to self-reflect, she said, and ultimately decided her values were too different from her partner’s and ended things
Trump’s second election unveiled a massive gender divide among single male and female voters. The 2024 race to the White House was historic for many reasons, one being how differently single men and women cast their
“I knew that their political beliefs were important to me because I also think it just kind of boils down to a This wasn’t the first time this happened to McCurdy. In high school, she had been dating someone for over a year when she noticed she could no longer connect with him. His political views — which opposed McCurdy’s — were a large factor in her decision to
Navigating dating in college is even worse, McCurdy said, especially with
the political polarization a Trump presidency brings.
The pre-law student from Atlantic, Iowa, said for her, not aligning with a partner’s morals creates a disconnect, which eventually becomes very apparent in a relationship and is hard to work through.
For UI first-year student Mahogany Vanpelt, “Who did you vote for?” is the first question she asks a potential romantic partner.
Vanpelt also said her politics are her
morals, and when she votes, she casts her ballots with her morals in mind.
“I’m going to vote for someone because they align with some of my morals, and if you’re voting against that, it’s just like we’re not agreeing on a moral forefront,” she said. “So, I don’t know how a relationship could continue.”
She said aligning politically is massively important to her because of her
Cody Blissett | The Daily Iowan
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Photo illustration of doll looking at a newscast of President Donald Trump.
their body and their sexuality,” Murillo said. Politics and sex, Murillo said, are undeniably connected.
She said the loss of women’s bodily autonomy in recent years with the overturning of Roe v. Wade , among other legislative decisions, has made women more hesitant to engage in sex.
“The loss of access to abortion, the loss of access to contraception, the need for consent from parents if you are underage, that kind of level of surveillance — all of those things, in my view, have warped what it means to be sexual people,” Murillo said.
And the connection between politics and masculinity, she said, also plays a role in the declining number of young adults having sex.
She said shifting views of masculinity guided by political leaders and commentators have come about quickly and brought about a great deal of fear among women.
“In the last five to eight years, we’ve seen a radicalization of young men in this country who are listening to and watching content that is all premised on the subjugation of women,” Murillo said. “Not only in the workplace, but as partners, as mothers, as everything.”
Murillo also pointed to the emergence of digital spheres causing young adults to have less sex. With the whirlwind of change associated with social media and online communication that has sprung up over the past few years, something akin to
LESS GENERATION Z YOUNG ADULTS ARE CHOOSING TO HAVE CASUAL SEX
According to data from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Health Interview Survey, nearly four in 10 young adult Californians reported having no sexual partners in 2021.
things — people didn’t get to practice or develop or use,” Joseph said. “It’s a skill that you need to use, or else it won’t be retained.”
Joseph said since the pandemic, social interactions more broadly have been more difficult to pursue. She said the sweeping scope of the pandemic made this a collective issue as people, regardless
“It’s consuming our attention in a way that is absolutely not healthy. It’s causing this epidemic of loneliness — lack of human-to-human touch.”
Lina-Maria
a new language has emerged.
A flirtatious glance is now a like on Instagram. The brushing of hands under the table is now a swipe on Tinder.
“It’s consuming our attention in a way that is absolutely not healthy,” Murillo said. “It’s causing this epidemic of loneliness — lack of human-to-human touch.”
Greeshma Joseph, a UI second-year student, said digitization of social inter action was especially exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Social cues — the non-verbal side of
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identity and how she views life.
“Because I’m Black, and I’m dating someone, and they’re voting for someone in an election that is against everything that I am — like who I am and what I stand for. I just feel like I want to be seen,” she said. “To be loved is to be seen. And I wouldn’t feel like you see me.”
McCurdy and Vanpelt’s experi ence follows a national trend. Nearly three-quarters of college-educated single women say they would be less likely to date a Trump supporter, according to data pub lished in January by the American Survey Center.
AP VoteCast, which interviewed more than 120,000 voters across the U.S. from Oct. 28 to Nov. 5, 2024, continuing until polls closed, found most unmarried men voted for Trump, while only 39 percent of unmarried women voted for him.
A 2024 study by Innerbody found that three in five people would dump their partner because of political differences. The study found over 86 percent of fellow Democrats are dating fellow Democrats, and roughly 73 percent of Republicans are dating fellow Republicans.
of geographic location in the U.S., were isolated.
Digitization has also specifically impacted the dating scene. Joseph said with the presence of dating apps, people are less likely to go out and meet people through organic interactions.
She said this shift has caused people to develop their online social skills, putting the development of in-person communication
ity studies department, said digitization impacts dating and sex from a scientific perspective, too.
“The role of pheromones and glances and flirtation that can happen when you have sustained time in a group just don’t happen in the same way in group chats,” Greyser said.
Along with a sexual recession, Greyser explained young adults are grappling with a romance recession. She said with online flirting and romantic interaction happening via digital spaces, the “warm stage” of romance is missing.
She said the “cool stage” of a relationship would be friendships and platonic connections, while the “hot stage” includes sex and sexual relations, but the internet makes that middle ground with genuine and deeper emotional connection harder to find.
Murillo said the amalgamation of factors influencing sex and romance in the U.S. is evolving at a rapid pace, and the mass amount of information available at all times due to the access of the internet just adds another layer to the puzzle.
“That giant ball of cultural and social chaos,” Murillo said, “in some ways, has
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Polarization on the dating scene
UI communications professors said while limiting personal circles to only include people with similar views is a detriment, increased political polarization can prevent meaningful relationships across from forming the political spectrum.
The perception gap sorts people into in-groups and out-groups, creating an us versus them mentality, David Supp-Montgomerie, a UI communication studies associate professor, said, and makes us think other political parties are more extreme than they actually are.
A study by More in Common and YouGov found Americans in different political parties have a distorted image of each other. Overall, the study found Democrats and Republicans think 55 percent of those in an opposing party hold extreme political views, when only 30 percent actually do.
Supp-Montgomerie, who teaches political communication, said the perception gap perpetuates and exacerbates polarization.
College creates a space for people to meet and interact with people who have different experiences, world views, and political opinions, Supp-Montgomerie said, yet there is a tendency for people to form social groups with those who have a similar worldview to them.
“It’s become less common for young people to have friends and close acquaintances that are from a different political group than they are,” he said.
The professor said students lose out on a lot when they surround themselves with people they agree with, such as learning less and not knowing how to defend arguments.
“Social media and dating apps can enforce a kind of echo chamber where you tend to encounter people that reinforce your worldview and your way of seeing things. So, that exacerbates the problem, because then when you do encounter somebody that has a different way of thinking, it’s even more jarring,” he said.
Brian Ekdale, a UI journalism and mass communication professor, has researched
political radicalization and extremism. He said people’s political identities have always been strong but are exacerbated by self-selecting into groups people identify with, especially on social media.
“When you go on these spaces, you can construct your social networks, your friend groups, your follows, based on people whose views align with your own, and so you get this sameness.”
President of the organization, UI thirdyear student Cielo Herrera, said she came up with the idea as a way to encourage civic dialogue about politics and use the power of dialogue to bridge polarization.
“It’s no secret that the politics these days have really polarized our young adults, and especially it’s brought apart the men and women of our generation,” Herrera said.
“It’s become less common for young people to have friends and close acquaintances that are from a different political group than they are.
David Supp-Montgomerie UI communication studies associate professor
“It does seem like we’re living in an era in which political identities are really salient,” Ekdale said. “They’re really kind of a key part of how someone thinks about themselves and thinks about their relationships with others.”
Ekdale said political identity is a reflection of opinions and values, and not aligning with a romantic partner on these things can make the relationship harder.
“I would say the path to becoming less polarized, in my opinion, doesn’t start by shaming people for not wanting to date someone of a different political ideology,” he said. “I feel like that’s a symptom, not the cause.”
Bridging the political gap
Bridge Iowa, a student organization created this semester to fight political polarization on campus, hosted a political speed dating event on April 4 to counteract political polarization and the gender divide.
“Have you been struggling to find the one?” read a mass email to the UI student body advertising the event.“Tired of hearing your parents talk about how they met in college and want the experience for yourself? Do you have an amazing personality and want someone to share it with?”
“I think we are seeing a clear divide, and that divide between men and women is also being shown in politics.”
Herrer said the speed dating event brought in over 135 UI students.
Bridge’s Vice President Brianna Aleksiejczyk, a UI third-year student, said there’s a substantial separation between men and women in politics right now. She said it’s important to have curiosity about viewpoints that vary from our own.
“If we all do more to try and understand the other side, then I think we’ll come out of it better and come out of it more connected,” she said. “Because at the end of the day, everybody’s opinions are based on their experiences and the way they were raised and the things that they’ve gone through in their life.”
Both leaders of Bridge said they have seen the political gender divide play out in their personal lives and the lives of their friends, and recognizing the gap inspired the speed dating event.
“It is really difficult to connect with someone when the values are so strongly different,” she said. “I’ve seen that in my own life, and I’ve seen that in my friends’ lives, but Bridge is really about doing whatever you can to push through that, work through that, and continually hear someone out to understand. Maybe you’ll never agree, and that’s okay.”
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Murillo University of Iowa professor
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Iowa City crisis line workers seeing more calls from men with ‘incel’ ideologies
Recent trends of incel culture are closely connected with extremism and misogyny.
Jack Moore Managing News Editor jack.moore@dailyiowan.com
Roughly 16 percent of men say they feel lonely, while 15 percent of women say the same, according to 2025 data from the Pew Research Center. The difference is fewer men are willing to find help among peers and mental health resources.
Iowa is anecdotally seeing a trend of men with “incel” ideologies, which is reflected at the national level. The correlation between incels and threat assessment research has led the U.S. Secret Service to identify the group as a rising threat.
One of the most common links between mass shooters, violent extremists, and terrorists — a majority of whom are male — is misogynistic views and a history of violence toward women.
Incel, or involuntary celibate, groups often gather online, expressing frustration due to rejection from women both romantically and sexually and their anger toward men who are more popular with women. Specialists are seeing these ideologies grow everywhere — including in Johnson County.
“We are seeing more contacts from folks who identify that way,” Ryan Dickson, Crisis Helpline director for CommUnity Crisis Services, said. “It’s not the case for every guy who feels lonely, but it is something we encounter pretty often.”
CommUnity Crisis Services is a local organization driven by volunteers that assists individuals in a variety of situations. Dickson said CommUnity does not track the number of people who identify as incels who call, but anecdotally, there has been an increase over several years since he started as a volunteer in 2018.
“They are viewing relationships and interactions in a transactional way,” Dickson said. “They’re playing by the rules, and the outcomes are not meeting their expectations.”
Dickson said these individuals often get trapped in environments that reinforce their beliefs and avoid information that invalidates their beliefs.
“Many times, they can be part of a community that produces an echo chamber,” he said. “They don’t really have an avenue to challenge that through tools like empathy, understanding, and validation.”
Dickson said these ideologies can fuel loneliness, which is closely related to the growing suicide epidemic.
“I think what we have in common here between the male loneliness epidemic and suicidal ideation in general is the feeling or belief that there is no other option,” he said.
Mark Berg, founding director of the University of Iowa School of Social Science and Innovation, has researched the connections between antisocial behaviors and how they can become violent.
“People suffering from depression can place burdens on others, and they are more likely to withdraw from affection, which can be conflict-generating,” Berg said. “They’re also likely to have distorted perceptions of unfolding events and people’s intent.”
Berg said this type of behavior can lead to violence, but it also increases the risk of people experiencing depression becoming victims of violence. Berg used a data set from the U.S. Justice Department, which analyzed a sample of people in prison, and the data’s correlation with mental illness to further his research on the topic.
“We found mental illness is unique. It has a modest but consistent relationship with violent behavior,” he said. “It is not the vast majority of mentally ill people — the overwhelming majority do not engage in violence but it still is a risk factor.”
Relating to increases in gun violence, Berg said he found no direct link between mental illness and these types of crimes or mass killings beyond the connection mental illness has to violent behavior, despite efforts to improve mental health resources to stem gun violence.
However, he said more guns are being used in homicides and violent crimes across the country, which he believes is unique to the U.S. due to the accessibility of firearms.
“Many other countries across the
potential causes for the increase was a growing trend of hateful extremist content online, potentially influencing young and vulnerable people, including men. Berg said there are troubling trends among young men that deserve more attention, as gun violence and violent crime continue in the U.S.
“Men are overwhelmingly the victims of homicide. They’re overwhelmingly the perpetrators of homicide. They are more likely to appear in emergency rooms for non-fatal injuries,” Berg said. “They’re not completing college at higher rates than women. They’re dropping out of the workforce. There’s all these underlying, correlated issues here that I think deserve more attention.”
According to data from the FBI,
“It’s not the case for every guy who feels lonely, but it is something we encounter pretty often.”
Ryan Dickson Crisis Helpline director for CommUnity Crisis Services
world have populations with similar levels of mental illness,” he said. “But what makes us unique is that, unlike most every other western country in the world, we have a large private arsenal of easily accessible firearms that are proliferated in public spaces.”
While the U.S. has many anti-radicalization groups working to counter violent extremism, in the United Kingdom there is an anti-radicalization program called Act Early, which reflects growing extremism trends among young men.
The organization reported its number of referrals between 2019 and 2020 increased by 10 percent, from 5,737 referrals to 6,287. Of those referrals, 72 percent were individuals under the age of 30, and 88 percent were male.
The report indicated one of the
90 percent of homicide offenders are male. Men also accounted for 78 percent of homicide victims in 2019. Male representation in colleges has dropped to around 42 percent, down from 47 percent 10 years ago. And roughly seven million men have dropped out of the workforce.
Data reinforces these trends among men and the rate they are increasing, including the trend of loneliness. However, loneliness among men and women is relatively similar, and is a part of what drives incel culture.
Miriam Lindner, a Harvard psychology postdoctoral student, drew connections on how incels can become susceptible to extremist ideologies and behaviors, which is usually rooted in misogyny, in a 2023 paper. Lindner analyzed the correlation between online activity
and how it can amplify incel views and make violence appear attractive.
“Hateful online communities allow low-status men to engage in virtual or simulated coalition bargaining with a sympathetic audience of like-minded others, providing private but futile satisfaction,” Lindner wrote. “Existing accounts construe aggression as a response to the perceived failure to live up to male identity.”
Lindner wrote incels believe women are overpowering them in society, which fuels negative desires within men that can lead to misogynistic and extremist views.
The correlation between incels and extremists has led the FBI to identify these groups as a major domestic terrorism threat in 2021. Berg said the solution to the violence surrounding men comes down to law enforcement and the resources available to them to stop crime.
Dickson said CommUnity’s approach to this type of behavior comes from a place of empathy, even when it is challenging to relate to the person they are talking with.
“The antithesis to isolation is belonging, and that starts with being willing to hear the pain that they’re going through, validate that pain, and then an avenue for change and engagement becomes possible after we’ve done that,” he said.
Dickson said community involvement is crucial to identifying problematic behavior. He said CommUnity offers civilian training called Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, or ASIST, which helps civilians identify and handle problematic situations with loved ones.
He acknowledges the challenge people may be facing and encourages anyone experiencing depression, isolation, or harmful thoughts to receive assistance through crisis helplines at CommUnity or by calling 988.
“When you are asking about their story, it communicates that you care,” he said. “So, find ways to show that it is not a burden.”
Cody Blissett | The Daily Iowan
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You can’t win the dating game
With dating apps and hook-up culture, we are just setting ourselves up for failure.
Haya Hussain Opinions Columnist niassuhayah@dailyiowan.com
Morgan Brunner Opinions Contributer opinions@dailyiowan.com
Former relationships were built on meeting through families, friends, sending each other letters, showing up to each other’s front door with flowers, and letting your parents know you’ll have your date home by midnight.
Now, we’ve collectively devolved to “talking stages,” “building the roster,” and “ghosting culture.” I can almost guarantee most of us have experienced all these phenomena and been left feeling hopeless for love.
What we experience isn’t normal dating. Our definitions of dating have completely changed. In a study conducted by Google, more than 20 percent of 18-24-year-olds confessed that, to them, a texting conversation counted as a date.
And how many of these countless text threads — or “dates” — even amount to anything?
First-year student at the University of Iowa student, Michael McGuire, doesn’t think there’s much reward in pursuing people through these superficial ways.
“We’ve created a society of mistrust through our conventional methods of flirtation and romance. Talking through social media fails to give you a good idea of who’s actually behind the screen, and the idea of ‘building a roster’ keeps you paranoid that the other person is talking to multiple other people,” he said. “There’s no way to really know whether the person you’re interested in is actually loyal or even intends to commit to a relationship with you.”
We are constantly playing the guessing game. “Loves me? Loves me not…” has turned into, “Is he talking to other girls? Did his snap score go up? Why is his following on Instagram all girls?”
It’s masochistic. Regardless of pain we endure from the past, we don’t learn from it.
Dating is supposed to be full of love and companionship. There’s only one person who fills that hole at the right time in your life, and we all know how important it is to carefully pick that person. But instead, we participate in a game that forces us to play each other like pawns when we want, where we want, and how we want. We are killing the true meaning of love in relationships.
We barely even experience relationships anymore. Pop culture has adapted a new term: “situationships,” which are weird halfway spaces between commitment and being single. In other words, pure emotional turmoil.
McGuire personally has a lot of qualms with this.
“I’ve definitely been in more situationships than relationships, and the worst part is not being able to identify the girls I’ve had feelings for as exes or just meaningless crushes. We’ve connected and gotten to know each other, only for it to go nowhere or be a familiar fling we resort back to,” he said.
Sofia Korasick, a 19-year-old navigating her way through the new dating world on the UI campus, has been in plenty of situationships, and she, too, is getting sick of the dating environment.
“It’s fun until it’s not. You go in assuring yourself that you don’t want anything more until you realize you’ve gotten to know the person so well, and now you have committed feelings,” Korasick said.
Let’s be honest: We all play the game, but to play it, you are also being played by it. We let ourselves reject true love, true connection, and a true relationship just to get a quick fix in the moment.
What I want us to think about is what are we doing to the true meaning of love, the kind we grew up romanticizing in stories and movies.
In middle school, relationships looked a little different, and in my opinion, they were much more genuine. You would hold your crush’s hand in the hallway or maybe pass notes back to one another.
Although your love for each other may have been asserted a little early on, at least it was real.
On a college campus like the UI’s, it seems people refuse to commit because there are so many options, ones they know about and ones they don’t. But that doesn’t mean it’s OK to play with the feelings of others while you wait for the ““right one”” to come along, if they ever even will.
Kyla Klein, a 20-year-old student at the UI, shared some advice from her parents.
“You’ll never find love in college,” Klein said.
Her parents make this statement following her experiences of pain and hopelessness due to today’s loveless culture.
After talking to someone for several months and getting committed signals from him, Klein believed the relationship would develop into love. Unfortunately, she fell victim to the cruel and, sadly, common moment culture when her love interest claimed he meant none of what he said.
“It’s not healthy to become so close to someone just to become strangers
themselves.
Unfortunately, this act of ghosting has become a cultural practice – something we do when we don’t want to face the reality of a romantic situation. Either that, or we are just done pretending. It shows we don’t value each other as human beings, and it shows we don’t value ourselves.
In my experience, I fall into both categories of having ghosted someone and being ghosted myself. The trick is that when you ghost someone else, it seems OK, like there’s nothing wrong with it because you know the justification of behind your actions.
The worst part about ghosting is that you can’t get an explanation. You have to take your good heart as all the closure you will recieve.
The use of dating apps only exacerbates this cultural issue. Apps like Tinder and Hinge allow people to curate the best versions of themselves while hiding behind a screen and waiting for others to take the bait. But that’s not how the apps market themselves.
Instead, they paint a rose-colored picture for lonely singles.
For example, Tinder has been push -
Let’s be honest: We all play the game, but to play it, you are also being played by it. We let ourselves reject true love, true connection, and a true relationship just to get a quick fix in the moment. What I want us to think about is what are we doing to the true meaning of love, the kind we grew up romanticizing in stories and movies.
again,” Klein said.
We’ve normalized accepting extreme displays of love from people and then, once we are satisfied or bored, completely icing them out of our lives. This is fake love and deep affection, or more widely known as “love bombing.”
It not only ruins our perception of affection, but teaches us new, detrimental ways to express it to others.
Korasick has seen this in play.
“I wouldn’t recommend [situationships], especially if you value relationships and hope to be in a meaningful one someday. It confuses your brain and heart simultaneously and corrupts your standards and ability to trust, making future love that much harder to obtain,” Korasick said.
There’s also the matter of what I’m going to call “ghosting culture.” Ghosting someone means to cut them off entirely with no explanation. A recent study done by Forbes Health found that 76 percent of respondents have either ghosted someone or have been ghosted
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EDITORIALS reflect the majority opinion of the DI Editorial Board and not the opinion of the publisher, Student Publications Inc., or the University of Iowa.
ing a lot of sappy ads out on YouTube. In “Taxi | It Starts with a Swipe,” a beautiful girl asks an equally attractive guy, “do you believe in love at first sight?” to which he responds, “I do now” twice, because he double sent the message.
That would be cute and all if Tinder conversations even remotely transpired like this. Instead of finding connection and enjoying romantic flirtations, the humans behind profiles are entirely lost because they are reduced to meaningless swipes and notifications.
UI first-year Haven White has used several apps, and she’s noticed this distinct pattern with Tinder.
“I’ll get matches and then text them, but they won’t respond or unmatch me. Like at that point, it’s obvious you just want notifications,” she said.
White also admitted she’s been embarrassed to be on the apps. We’ve accepted these platforms as a part of our society, even seeing coworkers, family members, and friends on them. Still, talking about it is seen as embarrassing and strangely
taboo. It makes couples cringe to say they swiped right on each other.
So, the apps no longer allow for a meet-cute. Maybe Hinge still has some potential because the prompts and voice messages actually hold some substance, and the logo isn’t a sensual, teasing pink flame.
“‘Tinder’s a lot worse than Hinge’, in my opinion. It says that there’s billions of matches on there, but I run out of people all the time. And I know I’m not that picky because I never have that problem on Hinge,” White added.
White is not wrong to call Tinder out for that. The app makes some bold claims, saying it serves over 50 million users a month. How are there over 100 billion matches, yet less than a sliver of them make it past the first date? Hell, some don’t even make it to the date.
“To be honest, you’re lucky if you even get ghosted. A reply is hard to elicit nowadays, and that’s not just the apps,” White said.
There are a lot of issues with Tinder besides the limited dating pool, though. For example, the core act of swiping on real people based on looks and personality — and let’s be honest, no one’s actually reading about your guilty pleasure or favorite type of pasta — dehumanizes people. Personhood is abandoned in the wake of a matching game that gives us brief dopamine hits and confidence boosts.
It’s clear Tinder is aware of how people have started to stray from the app or just use it as hook-ups. They’ve started to resort to desperate — and false — advertisements.
If you happened to be in Fort. Lauderdale over spring break, you may have noticed it was swarming with hot-pink Tinder cabs. Fort. Lauderdale is not at all a place for love, so I think that’s confirmation enough. Day-drunk college kids loved getting in the cabs, and it was definitely a form of revenue for the company.
But at one point in time, love wasn’t capital gain or a symbol of self-assured status. Most of the generation before ours met each other much more authentically and naturally. There were no Snapchat “what you look like” warriors or Tinder “short-term fun” veterans. How do we get out of this perpetual cycle of fake love? Can we?
To love others, to love yourself, you must leave the game, which also means losing all your own pawns and pieces. But how is your stake in the game really serving you?
Just because our generation seems to have given up on love doesn’t mean you have to as well, so treat love with a little more respect, and quit the game.
Cody Blissett | The Daily Iowan
Photo illustration of a doll scrolling on Tinder.
The ‘male loneliness epidemic’ at Iowa
University of Iowa students reflect on how relationships influence political decisions.
Grace Olson News Editor grace.olson@dailyiowan.com
Kate Perez Senior Reporter news@dailyiowan.com
Young voters showed up for the 2024 election in a historic way. A voter demographic that has predominantly voted Democrat for decades showed unprecedented support for the Republican Party and President Donald Trump.
One of the driving forces behind this shift: young men.
Youth voter turnout increased this past general election cycle, with 18-29 year-olds making up 16 percent of voters in 2024 compared to 13 percent in 2020.
However, in October 2024, the Harvard Youth Poll found the gender gap between voters aged 18-29 widened by more than double, increasing from eight in spring 2024 to 20 in September 2024. Former Vice President Kamala Harris was found to have led young women voters by 30 points.
One of the driving factors behind the growing rift between Generation Z men and women is a new wave of social media content, from weightlifting videos and dieting to far-right or conservative rhetoric, which has gained the attention of many young men across the country. What all these videos have in common is themes of masculinity and dominance, whether that be in the gym, the office, or romantic relationships.
Kelly Kadera, an associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa, said Trump and those he surrounds himself with, like Elon Musk, head of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, Vice President JD Vance, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have attracted the group of young male voters who identify with “alpha male” culture and more traditional masculinity.
“A lot of emphasis on winning in business, a lot of emphasis on pushing this narrative around just kind of being macho and tough, right?” Kadera said. “A lot of the policies they espouse kind of echo these same themes, especially in the way they frame them.”
Content creators such as Andrew Tate, Ben Shapiro, and Joe Rogan are also doubling down on Trump and the “macho men” of the right. Much of this pro-masculinity content has appeared on podcasts such as “The Joe Rogan Experience” and “The Ben Shapiro Show,” whose hosts, both of whom hold conservative values, have praised President Trump over the past decade. Rogan hosted Trump on his podcast, as did popular YouTuber Logan Paul, who both have a large following of Gen-Zaged men. Rogan has also had Musk on the show multiple times.
Some of the more alt-right ideas pushed by these creators have driven a significant wedge between young men and women socially, just as much as politically. Gendered topics became a top issue for many young women who overwhelmingly voted for Harris, with 50 percent of young white women saying they’d vote for Harris and 70 percent of non-white women, according to the Harvard Youth Poll.
In contrast to much of the antiwoman messaging spread by figures like Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist, or other conservatives who don’t believe in a woman’s right to choose, a top issue for many women in the 2024 election was reproductive health care, which Harris emphasized throughout the majority of her short campaign.
Kadera said the divide between genders concerning reproductive rights is due, in part, to young men feeling neglected or pushed aside as women have hit milestones, gaining more rights in the workplace and the home over the past few decades.
“It’s not the guys who are foregoing relationships. It’s the women that are foregoing relationships, and they’re saying, ‘I don’t want to be in a relationship where somebody has really traditional views. They’re not going to treat me well. They’re going to put all these extra burdens on me,’” Kadera said.
Young women are also drifting away from young men, UI political science graduate student and teaching assistant Brody DeBettignies said, because of women’s willingness to identify as liberals and feminists, while those labels are much more stigmatized for men. He said the liberal ideas are especially rejected by the young men who feel disaffected and blame their loneliness on women not pursuing sexual or romantic relationships with them.
“Patriarchal perspectives are really growing amongst Gen Z men,” DeBettignies said. “Gen Z men were found to have more patriarchal views than even Boomers. So, I think a lot of this redefining masculinity, this kind of harkening back to these traditional standards that folks like Trump and Musk are espousing, are part of that calculation.”
Young men’s following of Trump and his squad of conservative bros and social media figures has shown
its presence on campus at the UI. Kadera, who teaches an international relations class, said she’s had several male students cite Rogan as a peer-reviewed source when handing in academic essays.
“That’s not an academic source, but that’s really very real. It’s very real to them, right?” Kadera said.
Iowa students speak on masculinity
Though first-year student and Iowa Young Americans for Freedom Vice President Hale Halvorson has only been on campus for a few months, he believes students subconsciously submit to masculine ideas and try to align with them.
For Halvorson, masculinity is a mix of physical and mental traits.
“I
politically. He said while men crave respect from other men, he thinks they want the respect of women first.
“I would say men only really need respect and support from one woman, and that woman is their wife, or hopefully their future wife,” Halvorson said. “I think a solid or a supportive wife who helps a man is the greatest thing that a man can have. Once that spot is filled, they would need more respect from other men.”
For Jaden Bartlett, a UI fourthyear student and former executive director of the nonpartisan voter registration and education organization Hawk the Vote, masculinity is less physical and more mental, including having inner confidence and groundedness.
“The mainstream view [of] mas -
think that men are kind of tired of being told that their desires for competitiveness are a bad thing. And I think when you look at more right-leaning politicians, you don’t quite get that as much.”
Hale Halvorson Iowa Young Americans for Freedom Vice President
Competitiveness, physical strength, and gentlemanliness are just some aspects of masculinity to him. The way men use these masculine traits indicates whether masculinity is positive or negative, he said.
“I think men in general have been told that any sign of aggression or competitiveness or the capacity for violence — not necessarily committing violence but the capacity for it — they were told that these are toxic traits,” Halvorson said. “I think that men are kind of tired of being told that their desires for competitiveness are a bad thing. And I think when you look at more right-leaning politicians, you don’t quite get that as much.”
Halvorson used the example of a video of U.S. Secretary of Defense Hegseth lifting weights as a display of masculinity that is positive and could inspire other men to mirror his actions. He also listed podcaster Joe Rogan and his involvement in UFC fighting as a person men might admire and aspire to be like.
“I don’t think many people are going to say, ‘Oh, Joe Rogan leans to the right, so I’m going to vote right,’” Halvorson said. “I think that it could have an impact of, ‘I’m going to look at this issue differently because Rogan thinks X.’ I think it could have an impact on them, maybe just looking at an issue differently but not necessarily changing their mind.”
In Halvorson’s opinion, masculinity turns toxic when men do not have an outlet or way to express themselves. Traditional methods of expression, like being chivalrous, have been taken away from men in recent years because some women no longer want to be on the receiving end of gentlemanly actions, like door-opening, leading them to take extreme measures to prove their manliness, he said.
“They don’t have to be a gentleman anymore, so they don’t need to do anything,” Halvorson said. “Young men, they’ve run out of ways to be masculine. They don’t have the gentleman aspect, and they don’t have the competitive-driven aspect, either. So, I think it kind of leaves them without a way to express themselves, [and] it leads to them saying, ‘Oh, I need to show that somehow I’m a man,’ [and] do something to show that they’re strong.”
When it comes to male loneliness, Halvorson believes the trend could play a role in how people lean
culinity is like street fighting, fist fighting, type of grounding yourself,” Bartlett said. “I actually think that it’s the opposite of really what masculinity is, which is being able to have emotional intelligence and understand your emotions and respond in ways that are not aggravating and critical in that you’re able to critically analyze situations and not just be enslaved to your emotions.”
Bartlett said in his experience, masculinity becomes negative when it is an identity a person is trying to convince others they have, whether it be through physical display or the way one talks about other groups of people.
“I think the most obvious example is when you hear the ways that it’s normalized for a lot of men to talk about women … trying to con -
vince others that they’re a real man because of how they’re choosing to speak about other people,” Bartlett said. “And that, to me, is the biggest indicator of you may not be as confident in your masculinity as you’re putting off because that’s what comes through in how they talk.”
As for relationships, Bartlett thinks people see getting a girlfriend, boyfriend, or partner as a way for their lives to feel complete.
“That mindset impacts probably a lot more than they think, and that’s probably why they feel the need to maybe turn to more aggressive means when they’re not receiving any luck in their romantic interests,” Bartlett said.
He said he believes men care about what women and men think about them but crave the affirmations of men.
The desire for those affirmations can lead to men viewing themselves in the context of other men and how they are performing, Bartlett said.
“I think that they value that affirmation more than they actually value treating the people they’re pursuing well,” Bartlett said. “That’s why you see men behaving so poorly a lot of the time in romantic settings, because they are really benefiting more from the affirmation that they receive because of it rather than the actual relationship. Even if that’s something maybe they don’t realize up front, it might be more of a subconscious thing.”
As a left-leaning political science major, Bartlett said the way to bring right-leaning men who might be falling into toxic masculinity traits is to reframe what masculinity looks like and the way it can work in politics.
“You need to recruit people to the cause by showing them why and convincing them that this is the way to build a respectable, empathetic society. It’s by giving people autonomy and not by subjecting them and perpetuating harmful things like misogyny and sexism,” Bartlett said. “That starts with redefining the way we view masculinity.”
Cody Blissett | The Daily Iowan
Photo illustration of a doll playing video games on a couch with alcoholic beverages.
More Gen Z women saying ‘I Don’t’
Marriage rates in Gen Z are noticeably lower than those of previous generations.
Grace Olson News Editor grace.olson@dailyiowan.com
Hope Minor has no plans to ever get married.
The 22-year-old University of Iowa student said she has seen too many marriages fail and too many women trapped in abusive or unloving relationships for her to consider the option.
Minor, however, strongly believes in love — both platonic and romantic.
“There’s nothing to marriage, in my opinion, anymore,” she said.
The fourth-year student said she has her eyes on different goals than some of her peers who are approaching graduation. Popular sayings surrounding women about to graduate from college, such as ‘Mrs. Degree’ or ‘ring by spring’ don’t resonate with Minor as she looks to prioritize her career and relationships with her friends.
“I’m moving soon after graduation. If I were with somebody, I might be incentivized to move somewhere else,” Minor said. “[Marriage right after college is] just crazy. I don’t get it.”
Minor is not alone in her feelings about marriage. Recently, fewer and fewer Generation Z women are choosing to tie the knot.
A December 2024 study from the Marriage Foundation found, based on current trends, only a little over half of Gen Z will ever get married. This is in stark contrast to older generations, in which over half of all couples got married.
Mary Noonan, an associate professor at the UI who researches gender and family, said this shift for Gen Z is indicative of the dismantling of many societal and gender norms.
“Gen Z is much more open to alternative paths besides marriage, whether it’s a greater acceptance of singlehood — greater acceptance of cohabitation,” she said. “If we think about the
these lifestyles. We’ve reached pretty historic numbers in terms of older single women saying, ‘I’m not looking for love and marriage anymore. I’m going to restruc ture my life in a way that centers chosen family, com munities of care.’”
Minor is one of these women who is looking to surround herself with strong female friendships and her chosen family.
“I would rather have five friends around me who I love very dearly than be stuck in a relationship with someone where we both hate each other, but we’re in it because we got married or because we just can’t be alone,” she said.
Noonan also noted education and financial stability as possible reasons why young women may choose to remain single. Accord ing to the Pew Research Center, 47 percent of Gen Z women have bache lor’s degrees compared to 37 percent of men. Consequently, Noonan said many women are entering the workforce out of college with higher positions and bet ter-paying jobs than their male counterparts.
In older generations, Noonan said women would often get married due to less financial freedom, as women had less earning power before the 1970s. Now that transactional type of rela tionship is far less relevant and many women, like Minor, don’t see marriage as a necessary life milestone.
“I would rather have five friends around me who I love very dearly than be stuck in a relationship with someone where we both hate each other, but we’re in it because we got married or because we just can’t be alone .”
Hope Minor University of Iowa student
Baby Boomer generation, they were much more traditional — dating, marriage, and then kids. So, I think the Gen Z generation is not feeling as confined, maybe, by those social pressures.”
Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz, an associate professor at the UI, said many women have been redefining what family means for them beyond the typical heteronormative “nuclear family” model that has been pushed in media and society for decades.
“It’s not just that young women are reticent about marriage and childbirth,” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “It’s that older single women, also who have maybe already been married and gotten divorced or have already had children, are also rejecting
Sage Hollich, a 21-year-old UI student, has been dating her boyfriend for almost three years now and plans to get married and move in with him as soon as she graduates. After years of struggling with dating apps and “talking stages,” Hollich’s boyfriend finally caught her eye after he made an effort to take her on a date and see her in person.
“A lot of guys will try and talk to you for a really long time before they see you,” she said. “He was more adamant about getting together and meeting me, and it was really interesting because I hadn’t seen that before. Most of the time, the guys would chat with me for a month or two, and then we get together, possibly, or not even. It would fizzle out.”
maturity and aren’t looking for anything serious.
“I feel like definitely, women normally date up in age,” Hollich said.
The politics of marriage
Beyond lifestyle choices, Minor said recent legislation, such as the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Iowa’s six-week abortion ban, has also led her away from pursuing a typical family structure.
“I just think that there’s a lot of fear around having kids because maternal mortality keeps increasing, and we keep not doing a damn thing about it,” she said. “I fear more than anything getting pregnant because that can be a death sentence.”
Fixmer-Oraiz said the political divide between men and women in terms of opinions on reproductive rights has been a major driving factor behind women opting out of marriage.
“We see young women trending more liberal than men is part of what has fueled this gap in a desire for straight marriage, and it’s increasingly clear that conservatism has been overt and explicit about its hostility to women’s rights,” she said. “That’s a tough pill to swallow when you’re a woman and you’re thinking about your dating life, right? Who’s interested in dating somebody who fundamentally doesn’t believe that [women] should come to the table as a full and equal participant in our democracy?”
Recent discussions surrounding pronatalism and President Donald Trump’s interest in incentivizing women to have children are also a turn-off for women who are not interested in starting a family, Fixmer-Oraiz said.
“There’s a long history of political, social, and cultural pressure, placed especially on white, middle-class, and wealthy women to have children and raise them to ‘inherit the nation,’” she said. “Typically, we see spikes in pronatalist sentiment aligning with fears over declining birth rates. You’re seeing it now, fears over demographic changes that suggest white people might not be the majority in the United States now or in the future.”
The Trump administration is offering a $5,000 cash bonus for having a baby; however, Fixmer-Oraiz said amount is negligible when you factor in hospital bills and the costs of raising a child.
Instead, she said parents would be more likely to have children in a country that promotes maternal safety and supports children.
“If you want to talk about creating the conditions under which people think it’s financially viable to have children, you start by giving them decent, high-quality, affordable, if not completely free, health care,” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “You start with policies that support families — free higher education, gun control. Young people are reasonably concerned about numerous things, like mass shootings and violence. They’re concerned about climate, they’re concerned about the rollback in their own reproductive rights.”
Cody Blissett | The Daily Iowan
Photo illustration of two dolls driving down the street.
Cody Blissett | The Daily Iowan
Photo illustration of two dolls laying beside one another on a heartshaped pillow.
Coralville Fire Department runs on volunteers
With only five full-time staff members, the department relies on more than 30 trained volunteers.
Emma Jane News Reporter news@dailyiowan.com
When the alarm sounds at the Coralville Fire Department, it’s not always a career firefighter who responds. More often than not, it’s one of the department’s volunteer firefighters, a crew of over 30 people whose commitment to the job is driven by serving the community rather than receiving a paycheck.
Gary Savona, a lieutenant who has been with the department for nearly 30 years, said the Coralville Fire Department has only five paid positions — a chief, assistant chief, two captains, and himself. Without the crew of 32 volunteers who have completed their year-long academy training and 21 who are currently in the process, Savona said the department would likely have to shut its doors.
“The volunteers are the bread and butter of this operation,” Savona said.
Savona said the volunteer firefighters attend a four-hour training session weekly for approximately a year. At the end of that year, they earn firefighter 1 and 2 certifications, a hazardous materials certification, and are allowed to work in situations classified as “Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health.”
“While they’re training, they can come on the engine with us, they run calls with us,” Savona said. “But they can’t go into a structure fire.”
The volunteers, both certified and in-training, are seamlessly integrated into the department’s schedule alongside its five full-time firefighters, Savona said.
“You would never know the difference between a volunteer and a paid guy,” Savona said.
For Drew Kazerani, a volunteer firefighter who completed his training last April, the motivation comes from serving the community where he grew up. Kazerani, who also works full-time in the rehabilitation department at St. Luke’s Hospital, said the year-long training was undeniably grueling, but it also built a strong sense of camaraderie among the volunteers in his class.
“I love coming here, being with the group,” Kazerani said. “They make you feel welcome.”
That same sense of camaraderie and community is what drew Gabriel Alizaidy to train as a volunteer firefighter. After moving to Coralville from Chicago, he was looking to make friends and give back. As a volunteer,
Alizaidy said, he found both.
Alizaidy, who graduated in the same class as Kazerani, said one of the most challenging parts of training was performing strenuous physical tasks while breathing through an oxygen tank.
“The feeling is so foreign that there’s nothing that can prepare you,” Alizaidy said.
Though he already had a background in fitness through his work in research and development for a men’s health company, Alizaidy found the firefighter training uniquely intense.
“No amount of gym stuff could have prepared me. You can run miles every single day. You’re not going to be prepared for it,” Alizaidy said.
It’s a level of difficulty that has only deepened his respect for his fellow volunteers, Alizaidy said, especially the women, who he said often set the bar.
“Women are just as strong, if not stronger,” Alizaidy said. “They’re badass, they’re very, very smart, and they put their heart and soul into it. So, the stigma where firefighters have to be men — we’re definitely shattering that.”
Tara O’Malley, a volunteer
firefighter who started at the same time as Kazerani and Alizaidy, said she has long been interested in training as a volunteer firefighter but initially felt intimidated entering a male-dominated and physically demanding field. But now, O’Malley said she feels and is treated like one of the guys.
“All it takes is motivation, more than anything,” O’Malley said. “I do the same amount of training as these guys.”
Savona said the male and female volunteers complete the same training in the same uniform and gear side by side.
O’Malley said working in an emergency room has instilled in her a focus on serving others, which drew her to train as a volunteer firefighter.
“Public service in general is just always something I wanted to do,” O’Malley said. “This is a pretty badass way to do it.”
For Mackenzie Rabenstine, a first-year psychology student at the University of Iowa, beginning her training as a volunteer firefighter is carrying on a family legacy.
“My dad was a volunteer firefighter
when he was younger,” Rabenstine said, adding that her grandfather was a volunteer firefighter as well. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but I didn’t have any time to do it in high school. So, I came here, and I saw the opportunity, and I took it, and I wanted to give back to the community.”
Rabenstine, who just began her training in February, described the working environment at the fire department as warm and welcoming.
“I was anxious that I wasn’t going to make any friends, or that I wasn’t going to know anybody,” Rabenstine said. “But there’s several people from the university also in my candidate class.”
From 19-year-old Rabenstine to a volunteer in his mid-70s, Savona said the Coralville Fire Department thrives on the wide range of strengths each firefighter brings to the team.
“If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’s going to live its whole life thinking it’s stupid,” Savona said. “Everybody has their own skills and their own competencies, and everything is helpful. We need everybody.”
Coffee Emporium undergoes rebrand as Midnight Coffee
The coffee shop in downtown Iowa City has switched up its name, logo, and several menu items.
Madison Schuler News Reporter
news@dailyiowan.com
No matter the destination, season, or time, students walking around Iowa City are often seen clutching a cup of coffee in their hand.
The cups vary depending on whether the drink is hot or iced, if it’s plastic or reusable, or a size small or large. These varieties also extend to the coffee shop choices are available throughout Iowa City, offering residents and guests a wide range of options to choose from.
Starbucks cups can be easily distinguished by the prominent green siren slapped on them. Encounter Cafe, The JavaHouse, and several others can also be recognized by the quirky designs and logos printed on their cups.
Coffee Emporium, a popular spot with students from the University of
white caps with a white logo of a coffee cup next to it.
However, regulars recently recognized a major change to the Coffee Emporium location on Linn Street in Iowa City.
The company had undergone a rebranding complete with a new name, menu, and logo.
Now, Midnight Coffee has stepped into a new chapter as it replaces the several Coffee Emporium locations throughout Eastern Iowa in towns such as North Liberty, Tiffin, and Coralville.
Midnight Coffee Owner Alex Nelson and his wife purchased the chain in August 2024 from the previous owners, aiming to unify its four locations under a cohesive brand while preserving the local coffee shop vibe.
“We never wanted to just slap a new name on it and call it good. We wanted to kind of try to elevate the brand and make some changes,”
partnerships, such as switching to local vendors for milk and pastries.
“We’re not a big, huge brand by any means, and we want to work with more local companies and local businesses,” Nelson said.
The inspiration for the new name came from Nelson’s other business, the Midnight Gem, a local wedding event center. In addition, the name was chosen to evoke a dark, moody aesthetic that stands out from typical local coffee shop names while maintaining the original brand personality.
Along with the rebranding, Nelson and his team remodeled the shops, introduced a new food menu, and launched deals such as a 20 percent discount on all drinks after 2 p.m. and a $14.99 lunch special.
The inside of the Iowa City location underwent several changes for a more darker, modern feel with open spaces, a new mural, and more seating options.
been positive, with many noting the effort put into the rebranding and the improved quality of food and drinks.
Looking toward the future, Nelson said they plan to develop local partnerships and community engagement, along with potentially expanding the business outside Johnson County.
“I think we really want to kind of keep growing on what we’re already doing, so if we grew outside of this area … We would probably try to copy the same model,” Nelson said. “Not necessarily try to just copy and paste everything we’re doing here but really focus on the community that we’re in and try to grow that way.”
Hannah Schaufele, a UI firstyear student, said the company has rebranded extremely well, with the transition flowing and environment remaining consistent.
As new customers and regulars connect at Midnight Coffee, Nelson said the majority of the feedback has
“I love how calm it feels inside, and the coffee seems to be better than it was before,” Schaufele said. However, she did have one minor issue with the new name change.
“My only negative is that it’s called Midnight Coffee, but it’s not open to midnight,” Schaufele said.
A customer of Midnight Coffee Ava Steiner believes the rebranding has made the coffee shop generic and no longer unique among other in Iowa City.
“I personally, without knowing why they changed, think Coffee Emporium lost a lot of its charm when they rebranded,” Steiner said. “There was something really cute about the fireplace, art on walls, and chalkboard menus, but now it kind of blends in with every other coffee shop in Iowa City.”
Second-year UI student Alayna Mull believes Midnight Coffee and Coffee Emporium are ultimately similar.
“I loved how cozy Coffee Emporium was, especially later in the day, and it has carried on so far and will hopefully continue,” Mull said.
Regardless of the smooth transition, Mull said she did notice some changes, such as the downsizing of the food menu.
Nonetheless, Mull believes the rebranding will positively impact her customer experience by giving more benefit options such as punch cards.
“The [punch card] makes me want to come more often, plus the cozy ‘midnight’ feel with the fireplaces, couches, and more outlets,” Mull said.
John Charlton | The Daily Iowan
Volunteer Coralville firefighter Drew Kazerani equips a self-contained breathing apparatus from a fire truck inside of the Fire Station 1 building in Coralville on April 18. The Coralville Fire Department only has five paid positions.
Madison Frette | The Daily Iowan
Midnight Coffee is pictured in Iowa City on April 23. Midnight Coffee, formerly known as Coffee Emporium, recently underwent a rebrand.
GOP targets DEI programs in higher education
Lawmakers in the state of Iowa have passed legislation banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in both private universities and local governments.
Liam Halawith Politics Editor liam.halawith@dailyiowan.com
Chuy Renteria, of West Liberty, quit his job at the University of Iowa’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the summer of 2023 because he could “see the writing on the wall.”
Now, the division has been first renamed and now is shut down, the proof of its existence being scrubbed from university websites.
Iowa lawmakers banned DEI programs in 2024, and the UI closed its DEI offices — which had been renamed the Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity in an effort to comply with the state law — in 2025. Now, Iowa lawmakers are considering a proposal that would ban the initiatives in private universities that receive state dollars, local governments, state government, and community colleges.
Universities across the country, like the UI, have DEI divisions to help students who have not traditionally been given access to higher education. Some local governments have DEI divisions to help ensure they are adequately serving their diverse communities. These initiatives have made these institutions the target of Republican lawmakers in recent years.
This bill is not the legislatures’ first to aim its crosshairs at DEI in higher education. In 2024, Iowa House Republicans amended the education appropriations package at the end of the session to include bans on DEI in Iowa’s public universities. The legislation codified board policy to eliminate DEI programs that are not required by law or for accreditation.
Since then, all three regent universities have eliminated their DEI offices, with the UI first renaming and restructuring the office and then closing the office for good in March.
Now, the university is working to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order barring federal funding for DEI. To do so, they’ve been scrubbing their website of mentions of diversity and scanning grants and contracts for mentions of diversity.
Renteria was the assistant director of Inclusive Education and Strategic Initiatives in the division — which offered voluntary diversity training — the same initiatives that have drawn the ire of Republican lawmakers who oppose DEI practices.
Renteria worked for the UI’s DEI office until the summer of 2023, when he quit in the middle of a meeting. Renteria said he “saw the writing on the wall” after a meeting with the leadership team in which it was clear the UI would no longer offer courses about transgender identities.
He said the staff in the division knew something was coming; he could sense the political winds were shifting and that their services were at risk.
Renteria said the department had done lots of work to ensure no one felt like they were being forced to take DEI training. The training was optional, and they only gave presentations when they were invited by the department or student group holding the presentation.
They gave presentations on the fundamentals of DEI and what the terms mean and how they apply to more than race. Renteria said it can apply to all sorts of characteristics like age and even the number of siblings someone has.
But that did not matter, Renteria said, as his department was the subject of conservative lawmakers’ scrutiny.
“We were trying to be very ginger
and moving the goalposts,” Renteria said. “And they moved the goalposts again, and they just finally pulled the trigger.”
How DEI became a top issue
DEI programs only came to be within the last few decades as an extension of affirmative action,
UI Political Science Professor Tim Hagle said.
They came about to further affirmative action policies in universities and outreach to the communities that were given access to higher education by affirmative action, he said.
Lina-Maria Murillo, an expert in gender and minority studies from Iowa City and assistant professor at the UI, said the programs came from the end of segregationist policies in the 1950s, which created the Civil Rights Movement and calls for affirmative action because students of color were denied the right to access higher education institutions before.
“[Segregation] created an uneven playing field such that certain people were not able to have the same opportunities,” Murillo said. “As racialized people, we’re not able to have the same opportunities as other folks.”
Now, DEI has become a key talking point for conservatives who think the practices are unfair, Hagle said.
“It eventually became a winning issue for them, and then something that they saw is that we need to stop this and keep governments from doing it,” Hagle said. “Because to a certain extent, you’re thinking about the government that it should be fair to everybody, regardless of your race or ethnicity or even your ideological orientation.”
In recent years, Republicans in Iowa and nationwide have attempted to make reforms to the country’s higher education system.
U.S. House Republicans introduced a bill last year that would have made significant reforms to student loans, Pell Grants, and financing for universities dependent on federal aid.
Trump and Republicans in the House and Senate are determined to root out DEI programs in colleges, with Trump’s nominee for Secre -
tary of Education, Linda McMahon, vowing to work with lawmakers to get rid of these initiatives. Trump has not only targeted DEI in higher education but also in the federal government and any programs funded with federal dollars.
DEI programs offer support
Jodi Linley, an expert in DEI programs in higher education from Iowa City, said DEI programs offer students a view of cultures other than their own to help them create understanding and prepare for a diverse workforce.
“Research has shown that interacting with peers in college who are different from oneself and taking diversity courses have long-term benefits,” Linley wrote in an email to The Daily Iowan
These programs can foster skills like civic engagement, leadership, volunteering, and reduce bias, Linley said, especially for white students.
The experiences students have with DEI programs are designed to prepare them to live and work in a global society.
“Employers have long indicated that they value degrees from colleges that expose students to a wide range of viewpoints,” Linley said.
Linley said for students of color and LGBTQ+ students, sharing common experiences with identity-based conflict, hostility, and marginalization has impacted their learning and development at university. Linley said this helps create a sense of community.
“Campus initiatives that are designed to foster equity, inclusion, and success among minoritized students result in outcomes such as feeling a sense of belonging and community, developing an authentic sense of self, and gaining support from peers, faculty, and staff, all of which are related to persistence,” Linley said.
Lawmakers are targeting DEI programs throughout the U.S. whose main goal is to offer support to marginalized populations in their communities, Linley said. They help create a sense of belonging for students who don’t fit in with the primarily white populations and help retain those students.
“It provides spaces of community connection for, in particular, students of color and other folks who might feel otherwise like part of a minority on our campus so that they could come together and find spaces of collectivity and connection,” Murillo said.
Republican-controlled states across the U.S. have also looked to shutter DEI programs in higher education, mostly focusing on public education.
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education , 14 Republican-led states have signed anti-DEI legislation into law, and 86 bills have been introduced, including in Congress, to eliminate DEI programs.
This year, Iowa Republicans introduced a handful of bills focused on rooting out DEI programs in Iowa.
Iowa lawmakers push for anti-DEI legislation
Emboldened by Trump’s presidency and focus on the issue, Iowa Republicans have introduced a
handful of legislative initiatives focused on banning DEI programs in Iowa.
Only one anti-DEI bill remains alive and available for consideration by lawmakers this session after a series of legislative deadlines killed other bills.
The bill, House File 856, would prohibit DEI offices and programs in state and local governments, public universities, community colleges, and private universities that receive Iowa Tuition Grant dollars.
The bill has passed the Iowa House, along party lines, and awaits a vote in the Iowa Senate, which has a companion bill for the legislation. As lawmakers barrel toward the end of the session, it is unclear if the bill will get the support to cross the finish line.
Iowa Rep. Henry Stone, R-Forest City, managed the bill on the House floor and served on the committee that drafted the legislation. He said as an Asian American, he understands dealing with prejudice and racism, but he said the state needs to go back to “treating people by the content of their character.”
“DEI is destroying the fabric of our society. It has created more divisiveness, animosity, and resentment between people,” Stone wrote in an email to the DI . “DEI training programs emphasizing systemic racism or privilege go on to foster division by putting everyone into groups as oppressors or oppressed. And that is simply not true. We need to get away from DEI and get back to merit, excellence, and intelligence.”
Iowa Rep. Rob Johnson, D-Des Moines, was one of the many House Democrats who spoke against the bill during a long debate on March 18. Johnson said in an interview with the DI that DEI programs aim to give people opportunities to succeed.
“It is about being able to put everybody at the table, give everybody equal access — it’s an opportunity for everyone,” Johnson said. “And when we say we are against that, to me, that is not what America is about. That’s not what Iowa is about.”
Iowa Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, who chairs the Iowa House’s Black Caucus, said the anti-DEI legislation has created an unwelcoming environment in Iowa as the state is looking to grow its workforce to support its economy.
“Diversity, equity, inclusion looks at all of the ways that we are different, and it gives us, as a country and as a state, a way to prosper, a way to coexist across diversity in its broadest form,” Wilburn said. “Anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion bills create an atmosphere of unwelcomeness for folks across all the protected classes.” Renteria said the rise of DEI legislation since they left the UI’s DEI division has been unsurprising given the headwinds they could sense while at the department.
Now, Renteria said, the UI is erasing history by scrubbing the web of these programs.
“We’re pretending like these things didn’t happen,” Renteria said. “We’re scrubbing all these descriptions of these units and what they did from the internet to make it harder. And while doing that, I believe that we’re doing a lot of damage that’s going to take a long, long time to reverse.”
Ava Neumaier | The Daily Iowan
Chuy Renteria stands in the former DEI offices in the Old Capitol Mall on April 25. Renteria used to facilitate DEI training at the University of Iowa, but left his position because of anti-DEI rhetoric.
Kathy Le | The Daily Iowan
The entrance of the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office is seen in Iowa City on
Iowa’s newest way to learn NIL
“NIL: Simulated Agency Experience” gives non-athletes hands-on experience.
Students present a name, image, and likeness, or NIL, strategy personalized for Iowa diver Makayla
Daniel Matheson, in the English-Philosophy Building on April 29. Hughbanks is a senior graduating
Chris Meglio Sports Reporter sports@dailyiowan.com
After decades of begging, arguing, and some then-illegal activity, college athletes finally got what they so desperately wanted.
Now in its fourth year since becoming a legal action, name, image, and likeness, or NIL, has brought valuable opportunities for college athletes to be compensated for playing their respective sport. This includes earning money
through commercials, brand deals, sponsorships, and endorsements, as well as being paid directly by the school.
Several benefits have followed as a result. The student-athletes can focus more on their sport and schoolwork and provide for their families. But the NIL era is still in its early stages, and besides those who are directly involved with a collegiate team, not many people outside of that are properly educated on the subject.
With that, the University of Iowa implemented a course called “NIL: Sim -
ulated Agency Experience,” or SAE, that allows non-athletes to learn about the NIL space through hands-on experience by working with voluntary student-athletes.
“I tried to create a course that would give students a taste of what actually representing student athletes in NIL deals is like,” SAE Professor Daniel Matheson said. “My goal then by the end of the semester is that they will have learned a lot
Success in the steeplechase
Luke Knepp recently competed in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in Lima, Peru, for the world championships.
Morgan Burhans Sports Reporter sports@dailyiowan.com
In his first 3,000-meter steeplechase in an Iowa track and field uniform, second-year Luke Knepp delivered a jaw-dropping performance that made history. Knepp captured second place in the Bryan Clay Invitational with a personal best of 8:39.54, a time that landed him a second-place spot in program history and second in the Big Ten.
Despite popular belief, his impressive time did not come without perseverance, dedication, and grit. Many people would believe an astounding mark like this would mean Knepp has been training and competing in the steeplechase race for years. Shockingly, he ran his first 3,000-meter steeplechase last year.
His first-ever time running the steeplechase was in a Division III meet in the Quad Cities, where he didn’t just compete casually but instead broke the all-time
meet record, resulting in the Hawkeye coaching staff quickly taking notice.
“We obviously realized he’s got some talent, but maybe even far more talent than we thought,” Coach Randy Hasenbank said.
Knepp’s success at this meet qualified him for a spot at nationals, where he posted second place at the USA U20 Championships. This mark secured a spot at the World Junior Championships in Lima, Peru.
In the span of about five months, Knepp went from never racing in the steeplechase to competing in the world championships, where he finished in 29th.
Last weekend, Knepp ran the steeplechase for the first time in an Iowa uniform at the Bryan Clay Invita
tional. Despite his incredible result that landed him in the Hawkeye record books, Knepp had been fighting sickness and dealing with injuries for two months leading up to the race.
about what’s happening in the NIL space overall, and in addition, they will learn a little bit about what it’s like to represent athletes, and any sort of talent, in the pursuit of their professional goals.
“[The participating student] might want to be a sports agent, and this class gets them as close as they can without actually doing the real work for the athlete,” Matheson added.
Matheson is a professor of instruction and an adjunct professor in the College
EXPERIENCE | 3B
How Iowa softball assistant coach Sammy Diaz has adjusted to her seemingly ever-changing role.
Jackson Miller Sports Reporter sports@dailyiowan.com
May 5, 2024, may have been the last time Sammy Diaz wore a uniform as an Iowa softball player, but it would not be her last appearance with the program.
Diaz now roams the baselines as Iowa’s first base coach, a role she never would have expected when she took the job in the fall.
Diaz started every game at first base for the Hawkeyes in her final two seasons, earning All-Big Ten defensive team honors during the 2024 season. Additionally, Diaz ranked second on the squad with 21 runs batted in and boasted a .990 fielding percentage without recording a single error.
Months after her final game as a player, Diaz was asked to return to the Hawkeyes as part of the coaching staff. Her initial role wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for a new coach, but Diaz’s job would quickly rise to prominence. Before the 2024-25 season, head coach Renee Gillispie decided to step down due to a medical issue. Assistant coach Brian Levin took over as the interim head coach, but the adversity didn’t end there for the Iowa coaching staff.
Following a series in Alabama in early March, Levin called a team meeting and questioned the team’s culture, saying he was no longer going to coach the team due to a few players deciding to kneel for the national anthem.
Levin was officially let go by the program later that week, and assistant coach Karl Gollan had to take over as the acting head coach. These moves also caused a shift in Diaz’s role, as she is now one of three total coaches on the staff.
“It was challenging at first,” Diaz said. “But I feel like being around Karl [Gollan], I’m learning from the best.”
Just one year removed from her playing career, Diaz has been working with lots of her teammates whom she played with for multiple years. The chance to coach her former teammates has been tough at times but also a rewarding experience.
“At first, it was a little challenging, not going to lie,” Diaz said. “Just because they were my former teammates, along with my friends, but I feel like they do such an amazing job of balancing them both. On the
Matheson
Iowa’s Luke Knepp competes in the
Des Moines on April 24.
-
Samantha DeFily | The Daily Iowan
Hughbanks during the “NIL: Simulated Agency Experience” course, instructed by
with a student pilot certificate.
Baseball
Friday, May 2
Washington Seattle, Washington
6 p.m.
Saturday, May 3
Washington Seattle, Washington
6 p.m.
Softball
Wednesday, April 30
Northern Iowa Iowa City, Iowa
5:30 p.m.
Friday, May 2
Rutgers Iowa City, Iowa
5 p.m.
Saturday, May 3
Rutgers Iowa City, Iowa
5 p.m.
Track and Field
Friday, May 2, through
Saturday, May 3
Musco Twilight Iowa City, Iowa
Saturday, May 3
Desert Heat Classic Tuscon, Arizona
WHAT YOU’VE MISSED
Robert Morris transfer Alvaro Folgueiras committed to the Iowa men’s basketball team on April 20, his agent told ESPN on Sunday evening. The sophomore reportedly chose the Hawkeyes over Big East foes Providence and Villanova, schools he visited the weekend before. The 6-foot-9 forward played two seasons for the Colonials, posting 14.1 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game in 2024-25, earning him Horizon Player of the Year. Folgueiras guided Robert Morris to a 26-9 record, the Horizon League regular season and conference tournament titles, and the school’s first NCAA tournament in 10 years. The Colonials were faced with a daunting matchup against No. 2-seeded Alabama but held their own and narrowly fell, 91-80. Folgueiras chipped in 15 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists in the defeat.
Everything wrong with college athletics
Colin Votzmeyer Sports Editor colin.votzmeyer@dailyiowan.com
Before college kids can legally have a drink or make a few bucks at the casino, they’re chasing millions of dollars to play football, traveling the country like rockstars in search of the most lucrative deals.
Over the last decade, college athletics have evolved from the next level to the highest level, programs suddenly defined by dollars, not rings. The student-athlete is now an obsolete term, “athlete” simply the proper name.
“Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL,” former Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones once infamously Tweeted. “We ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.”
That’s all come to a head over the last year and especially in the last week. Tennessee star quarterback Nico Iamaleava, likely to be one of college football’s best quarterbacks this season, left the Volunteers because, apparently, the $2.4 million he was set to make wasn’t enough.
needs,” Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general of the Antitrust Division in the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a statement, per The New York Times
The principles of the lawsuit are certainly understandable, the decision boosting the competitiveness of smaller programs. But it suddenly expedites the process of jumping ship, making it much easier and more attractive to do so without the repercussions of sitting out. Now, when something is just slightly off, players can skip town and play at the next spot.
Per NBC Sports, the total number of Football Bowl Subdivision players who transferred doubled from 1,561 in 2018-19 to 3,700 last year. Across all divisions, more than 11,000 NCAA football players hit the portal in just 2023-24.
This insane rate of turnover ruins the integrity of the game, hindering loyalty to programs and making college sports much more transactional. That uproots the tradition of fighting for a team, fanbase, and city that is otherwise much more common in professional sports. Iowa built its reputation and loyalty, but not many more programs can do that now.
Follow the money
The sophomore is known for providing a big presence in the paint, but Folgueiras can score from all over the floor, evidenced by his scorching-hot 41.3 percent mark from threepoint range last season. Hailing from Málaga, Spain, Folgueiras spent his prep career with DME Academy in Florida before beginning his collegiate career. Prior to that, Folgueiras gained plenty of experience playing in Spain, leading the Spaniards to silver medals in both the 2022 FIBA U17 and 2023 FIBA U18 National Championships. He also represented Spain in the 2024 FIBA U20 EuroBasket in Gdynia, Poland. Folgueiras becomes the seventh player, and first center, to commit to new Iowa basketball coach Ben McCollum, joining Bennett Stirtz, Cam Manyawu, Tavion Banks, Kael Combs, Isaiah Howard, and Brendan Hausen. Folgueiras will have two full seasons of eligibility remaining at Iowa.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The record doesn’t mean anything in baseball. The worst team in the major leagues is still going to win 60 or 50 games. Our season isn’t 162 [games], but in 50 games you are going to have a day when things don’t go your way”
Iamaleava wanted $4 million a year. Tennessee didn’t do it, and he left for a UCLA program that went 5-7 in its first year in the Big Ten. Any program will have to scoop change off the street to pay him that kind of money.
The shake-up in Iamaleava’s career warrants a discussion about the current state of college athletics, namely football and basketball, that has twisted what was their great potential into something that’s missing a few tweaks.
Transferring is too easy
On May 30, 2024, the settlement of an antitrust lawsuit with the NCAA no longer required athletes to sit out a year upon transferring schools, in essence opening the floodgates without looking at the consequences down the line.
“Free from anticompetitive rules that unfairly limit their mobility, Division I college athletes will now be able to choose the institutions that best meet their academic, personal, and professional development
The same issue arises with name, image, and likeness — and with paying players in general. Students are not transferring for academic or professional needs as Kanter said; they’re transferring to find more money. Money makes anyone disloyal, and with how lucrative college athletics has become, players jump at the sniff of a bit more cash no matter what school is offering it.
Iamaleava is the case in point here. College-aged kids are chasing multi-million-dollar deals instead of just playing football. Tennessee was undoubtedly the better spot. So, what’s the incentive to play hard, win games, and give the fans a good product? Who cares — as long as the money is there. Indeed, the love for and integrity of the game have severely diminished as a result. What made college sports so unique — the authenticity and true community behind the game — have now been erased with 20-year-olds making decisions like professional stars.
Look at Bryce Underwood, too. Once
committed to LSU for $1.5 million a year for four years, the opportunity would’ve given him experience in one of the country’s best quarterback rooms that has produced the likes of Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels.
But Michigan — 8-5 last season under new head coach Sherrone Moore after a national championship the year before — swooped in and offered him a four-year, $10 million deal with help from Tom Brady, Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports, and even Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
Just reading that sounds like the contents of a professional sports deal, but these are college kids. The money in sports makes sense, but agents are necessary to fix this — as is some regulation such as caps, control on the numbers, and a leveling of the playing field. Anything beats the free-flowing state it is in.
Besides, where is the loyalty? Players can go to whoever is willing to pay enough, and there’s less incentive to play for a championship and more to play for the dollar signs. It’s selfish, and it takes the team element out of sports.
One and done
While basketball-related, the one-and-done rule deserves more attention than it gets for how restricting it is on college hoops. Requiring hoopers to only play one year post-high school graduation before becoming NBA draft-eligible, the one-and-done rule makes a fantastic product of close games, rivalries, and young stars so much harder to watch — and the NBA much more favorable. This year, we got Cooper Flagg of Duke, a generational hooper we all tuned in to see. Next year, he’s gone. There’s no incentive for fans to stay and watch each player progress through the storylines that make professional sports so attractive. It’s a business decision. I’ll just go see him in the league now because most fans can’t keep up with the high turnover year by year that makes the NCAA little more than a pipeline to the NBA.
The three-year requirement in college football is what makes it so great. Fans are already excited to see Arch Manning, Ryan Williams, and Jeremiyah Love chase the trophy next year and even another year after that.
There’s a more cohesive constant journey toward the end goal feasible in football, with all its problems, that college basketball doesn’t have.
Who is the greatest golf player of all time?
Tiger Woods
A handful of names come to mind when talking about the best players in the history of golf.
But, if asked, many advocates of the sport boil the conversation down to two individuals: Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus.
commanding Woods was over the sport during his time.
From 1998 to 2005, Woods refused to miss a single cut in PGA Tour events, marking 142 tournaments over that span.
The fact that Woods played better than a good portion of the competition 142 weekends in a row is mind boggling.
Not only was Woods consistently competing, but he was winning events. Woods sits tied with Sam Snead for the most PGA Tour event titles at 82.
To put this in perspective, the next highest active golfer on that list is Rory McIlroy with 29.
- Iowa baseball head coach Rick Heller after a midweek loss to Western Illinois on April 22.
STAT OF THE WEEK
Iowa baseball’s ranking after its series
I believe Woods deserves to lead that GOAT conversation because of the sheer and absolute dominance he showed in his prime years. The main argument for Nicklaus over Woods is the number of major championships won, as Nicklaus has three more titles than Woods with 18.
While Woods has not yet officially retired, many fans of the sport don’t see him ever catching that number. This is a great argument, but it doesn’t show how much more
The number of championships is the main argument in most of the popular sports.
But considering Woods and Nicklaus are that close in comparison forces a deeper look to separate the two. And when looking at who was the more dominant golfer in their primes, there is no one with a better resume than Woods.
He is the youngest ever to win the Masters at 21, and Woods did it by 12 strokes. Need I say more?
If you run a web search for who the best golfer of all time is, you’ll probably come back with a short list that includes Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus. While Woods has done plenty for the sport through a heck of a career, Nicklaus remains the greatest golfer of all time.
That’s not to say Woods is a bad or even mediocre golfer, but the numbers clearly show Nicklaus as an all-time favorite. For starters, there’s his record-setting 18 major championships, three more than Woods’ 15, and his status as a runner-up in 19 major championships, also a record.
Nine years before Woods had even been born, Nicklaus had become, at age 26 in 1966, the youngest player to win all four golf majors.
Even after the recognition of Woods later breaking that record,
Nicklaus has plenty of other stats that back him up. Not only has Nicklaus won a Grand Slam — the collective name given to the British Open, Masters Tournament, U.S. Open, and PGA Championship — he’s done it three times. At the very least, he goes toe-to-toe with Woods in most major categories, but what really sets him apart is the aforementioned two records.
Woods may have the higher winning percentage on the PGA Tour at 22.9 percent compared to Nicklaus’ 12.5 percent, but Nicklaus has more major wins, and with a difference of three, it’s not all that close, either.
The final divider is how each golfer has contributed to golf off the course. There’s no doubt that Woods has done plenty for the sport, but he doesn’t have the Congressional Gold Medal that Nicklaus does, nor was he instrumental in bringing golf back to the Olympics in 2016 for the first time since the 1904 St. Louis games. Even if we ignore Nicklaus’ passion for golf and unfailing generosity in contributing to the sport, the numbers clearly show him as the best golfer of all time. And the numbers don’t lie.
Jake Olson Sports Reporter
Jack Birmingham Sports Reporter
Jack Nicklaus
Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla., on Monday, Jan. 1, 2024. Iamaleava entered the transfer portal and has since committed to UCLA.
of Law while serving as the director of the Sport and Rec reation Management program. Last year, he approached the Iowa Athletics department with the idea of an NIL-based class and was given the green light to start the course. This is the first semester in which SAE is being taught.
“This class is so different from other law classes because of the group activities and guest speakers,” SAE participant and law student Lauren Keating said. “Typical law classes have you read cases or other mate rials, and a professor lectures at you for about an hour and 15 minutes while randomly calling on people to answer questions.”
The class is based heavily on participation, Keating said. Students are required to engage with guest speakers, be active in group projects, and have dis cussions.
“We just finished up having guest speakers, and they were all very question-based. So, if we wanted to know something, we needed to ask for it,” Keat ing said. “Also, with our end of year project, we are working in groups, so every idea needs to be discussed and researched as a group before we do anything else,” she said.
The three-credit course is listed on the university’s ICON website under SRM:4240, but it has a restriction label attached to the application. In order to join the course, students had to express to Matheson why they wanted to take his class, and from there he hand-picked his participants out of the pool.
Matheson designed it that way for two reasons: to make sure upper-level students who expressed interest had first dibs before they graduated, and to host a mix of different majors from different skill sets and viewpoints. That way, Matheson said, the students can learn from one another.
The 30-person class hosts law students, journalism students, business students, and everything in-between.
“I took this class because I want to become a sports lawyer in the future,” Keating said.
“The tides with collegiate sports are moving so fast that new information and changes are happening every single day, so it’s important to learn as much as possible about the processes of NIL before we go out and work in the field.”
Throughout the first part of the course, Matheson welcomed several guest speakers from a variety of organizations to his class, from SWARM and the local sports marketing department at Hy-Vee to some of the bigger talent agencies in the field like William Morris Endeavor.
Along with the guest speakers is a group of Iowa student-athletes who aren’t registered for
Before the meet, Knepp said he focused on believing in himself despite all doubts.
“I was dealing with so many illnesses and injuries, so I wasn’t really worried about what I was going to run,” Knepp said. “Just getting a mark out there, trying to qualify for regionals right away.”
the course but voluntarily participate. That group includes men’s basketball’s Drew Thelwell, women’s gymnastics’ Adeline Klenin, women’s diving’s Makalya Hughbanks, spirit squad’s Mackenzie Beckmann, and women’s soccer’s Kelli McGroarty.
The students, split up into groups, compose NIL-based projects throughout the semester and will present them to their represented student athletes toward the tail end of the class.
“I believe the athletes benefit because they have a group of people trying to help them,” Keating said. “While not all of our athletes will retain eligibil -
Knepp’s time left many people shocked, and fifth-year Yohana Yual was one of them.
“He stepped on the track and did something pretty special for his first collegiate race … To run 8:39, that was definitely one of the best performances I’ve ever seen,” Yual said.
Yual also competed in the 3,000-meter steeplechase last weekend. He claimed the fifth-best steeplechase in program
field it’s business time, and off the field we can be friends.” Diaz’s ability to balance professionalism and fun with her teammates and friends has gained plenty of praise and respect from the players.
“It’s really nice because you’re not usually lucky enough to have someone just come out of playing,” catcher Desiree Rivera said. “She’s familiar with the new things going on with the game, and she was able to transition smoothly into being a coach. All the girls respect her, not only as a friend but as a coach.”
Star pitcher Jalen Adams shares the same sentiment, crediting Diaz’s strong leadership skills.
“She was a big leader on the team last year,” Adams added. “She was our main captain, so I feel like she’s just taken that
ity after this year, we actively work to find local or bigger companies they could consider working with in the future.
“Many students, especially in smaller sports, aren’t taught what to do in terms of reaching out to brands, building their own brand, or negotiating their contracts so, one of the hopes of this class is we can present them with ideas to get them started so they have a better footing on where to start so they can jumpstart their personal brands,” she added.
This class is a unique opportunity to learn about the new wave of collegiate sports. And for that reason, it will continue to take place every spring
history with a time of 8:53.35.
“We actually raced back to back. So, I finished my race, and for probably 10 minutes, I had a faster time than him, which is funny,” Yual said.
Despite his setbacks, Knepp attributes his success and motivation to his coaches throughout his career, specifically crediting his coaches at Pleasant Valley High School in Bettendorf, Iowa.
“They just told me to believe in myself, even when I don’t,” Knepp said.
Knepp also believes the Iowa coaching staff does a wonderful job of setting him up for success.
“Just give us a lot of good workouts to make sure we’re ready for every competition,” Knepp said. “I know, he [Hasenbank] knows what he’s doing.”
While Knepp feels the impact from the Iowa coaching staff on his performance and mindset, the impact goes both ways. The Iowa track and field program has felt his heavy presence in a very short period.
“Anytime you have a guy that’s committed to the sport, committed to getting better, committed to … achieving ultimate success. When you have that in practice and around you, it makes it so you guys are just all working hard in tandem with each other,” Yual said.
His impact is not only felt on the track but outside of the oval as well.
role and exaggerated it more. Being a coach, she has that respect, and I feel like we all truly respect her so much. She’s put in the work behind all of the things she says to us, so it makes it that much easier to have confidence in her.”
semester for the foreseeable future, as it’s gained substantial feedback just one semester in. Matheson had a vision when he created this course, and that vision goes well beyond what is taking place inside his classroom.
“Maybe in two, three, five, 10 years from now, I see some of the students from this class working maybe in the NIL space,” Matheson said. “See some of these students that have maybe got their initial inspiration or saw a pathway for themselves into the NIL space in their careers and make that happen. That would be a dream for me. I may not realize that full vision for a while, but that’s ok. I’ll be patient.”
“The guys love him, the whole team. They all get along quite well,” Hasenbank said. “Luke is, he’s one of those personalities, easy to talk to, easy to be around, and so a lot of fun.” Knepp, his teammates, and his coaches know the possibilities of success he has ahead of him. The second-year’s list of goals are lengthy, ranging from All-American honors to eventually competing in the Olympics.
“Luke definitely wants to go as far as becoming a professional, and I don’t think there’s anything stopping him from doing that,” Yual said. “It’s just a matter of staying healthy and being patient.” Hasenbank is excited for his future as a Hawkeye.
“He’s still got a lot of life ahead of him as far as college eligibility, which is very exciting. So, I think he can reach his goals for sure,” Hasenbank said.
Jerod Ringwald | hawkeyesports.com
Iowa Hawkeyes’ Luke Knepp competes in the 3,000 Meter Run during the Jimmy Grant Invitational at the Hawkeye Indoor Track in Iowa City, Iowa, on Saturday, December 14, 2024.
Samantha DeFily | The Daily Iowan
A student takes notes on a client meeting presentation during the “NIL: Simulated Agency Experience” course, instructed by Daniel Matheson, in the English-Philosophy Building on April 29. This course teaches students about name, image, and likeness, or NIL, and what it is like to represent collegiate athletes in NIL deals through a simulated agency environment.
PREVIEWING WHAT’S TO COME
The Iowa football team gathered at Kinnick Stadium for spring practice on April 26. This marks Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz’s 27th season leading the team.
Inside Iowa City’s
farm-to-table
operations
Various businesses across Iowa City choose to source goods locally, promoting sustainability in their operations.
Family Therapy
UI students plan to run 339 miles across Iowa
Relay Iowa is the longest annual relay race in the U.S.
Lily Kopp Arts Reporter arts@dailyiowan.com
Relay Iowa is an annual relay run in which teams of up to 12 people run across Iowa over a weekend, this year from June 6-8. The path for the run spans 339 miles from Sioux City, Iowa, to Dubuque, Iowa, making it the longest relay run in the U.S.
Esti Brady, Alice Conroy, and Charlie Duffy are three University of Iowa students ready to accept the challenge of this intrastate relay run.
Their team, which has been labeled Legs Misérables, is smaller than most, with only five runners. The other two runners are Ignatius Brady, Esti’s father, and Chad Weyant.
At just 23 and 21 years old, respectively, the three students have already accomplished a lot athletically. They like to go on casual half-marathon runs, enter random races for fun, and find running slower mile times is actually harder than running at their usual pace.
“I went on a 15-mile run with Charlie a couple of weeks ago, and it killed
UI students use art as a medium for speech
Student organizations use art during protests to communicate their messages.
By Lily Kopp Arts Reporter arts@dailyiowan.com
Freedom of speech has always been important to students — especially students who protest on college campuses.
At the heart of these protests, art is a medium for organizations to easily spread their message. Bring communities together, and highlight the talent of members of these organizations who may otherwise not be able to participate.
Throughout the 2024-25 academic year, students at the University of Iowa have been speaking out against current policies going into effect at the university, including a decline in funding for certain departments, the removal of living learning communities, and the closure of the Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity.
These organizations provide roles for all who want to participate. Students have been able to get active by creating posters and buttons used at protests or to advertise future protests. In some cases, student organizations had booths where protestors could add to art projects.
“Art is important because it can be shared so easily,” photographer and member of the Artivists of Iowa Samm Yu said. “Art is so effective in person and on social media, whether that's wheat pasting or print making or just creating an infographic. I also think art helps use people's talents that might not otherwise feel like they have a place in protest movements or protest circles.”
Artivists of Iowa is a group that demonstrates the intersection of art and activism using several artistic methods, including block printing and graphic design. Yu is the
Grant Darnel Arts Reporter arts@dailyiowan.com
Cliche
In retrospect, I think I should have been able to tell from the very first scene that “Sinners” would be a mixed bag.
The film begins with a trope, perhaps one of the oldest in storytelling: voiceover exposition. As we’re presented with a series of occasionally frightening images, we’re informed that our world hosts rare individuals who play music so “true” they can transcend, well, pretty much everything. Through this ability, they can summon all kinds of spirits — some good and some bad.
I couldn’t describe my viewing experience better if I tried.
Let’s start with the strong elements. Thanks to the great Ludwig Göransson, “Sinners” has the best score I’ve heard all year. From the Western influences to the way it aligned with certain on-screen actions, Göransson's music was one of the highlights of the film. At a few select moments, the score elevated scene transitions so well that all I could do was sit slack-jawed and let it wash over me.
Music in general is one of the film’s strongest elements. Any time a character broke out an instrument, I knew the following scene would be likely one of the best in the movie. There was a particular one-take sequence in the middle that I’ll have a hard time not thinking about for
only member of Artivists based in Iowa City Iowa, while the rest of the group is based in Cedar Rapids. Their art is used for several purposes. Sometimes, the artists make banners or teach people how to make prints to be used at protests around Iowa. On the other hand, the art can also be used as a fundraising technique, creating merchandise and prints to sell as a means to an end.
Artivists has also collaborated with stores in downtown Iowa City such as Raygun, which houses several pieces of Artivists of Iowa’s merchandise.
On top of simply making prints to use at a protest for themselves or to be sold as a fundraiser, the creation of art is a way to involve everyone in the process. In some cases, there are people who cannot physically attend protests, such as people with disabilities or people who are immunocompromised. For these participants, the act of making the art is a way for them to join in community with these organizations.
In this case, Artivists for Iowa uses a “teach a man to fish” mantra. Hosting printmaking session allows activists to establish a safe environment for creating art and teaching participants lessons they can pass on.
For other organizations on campus, creating art as a group is a main source of art for protest.
Epiphany Jones and Ramata Traore promoted Take Back the Night, an annual rally working to end sexual and domestic violence, on April 22. Their table on the Pentacrest featured a blank banner and containers of colorful permanent markers. The banner was displayed at the rally the following day.
“Here we have our little community art,
the next week.
I also have to commend the costume design. It was wise to dress Smoke in blue and Stack in red, and every time they were on screen, I desperately wanted their suits and hats for myself.
Despite the uneven exposition, I was digging the first half. It wasn’t perfect, but I hoped the buildup to the second half’s carnage would be worth it.
Once again, I was half right.
me,” Conroy said. “By mile 13, I was nonverbal. I was not speaking anymore. I was so mad, but it was slower than I was used to. It's a whole different kind of running than I'm used to.”
The three runners usually run much faster, with Brady claiming that running slower than a 9:30-minute mile physically hurts their body. Duffy bragged about running 40 miles on the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center track at a 7:35-minute pace.
Because of their previous feats, Relay Iowa was underwhelming for Brady, who has run the relay in the past. They claimed there was a disproportionate amount of sleeping and mileage.
“My dad and I came up with the idea, what if we just cut the number of people on a team and amped up the miles like a ton, like double or triple, so that people could sleep more and run more?” Brady said.
Now, instead of running 25-30 miles, each team member would be running around 70 miles over the course of the weekend.
To the typical person, this mileage may sound daunting, but to these run-
ners, long distances are preferred.
“It’s definitely the most meditative part of my life, for sure. That's when I'm at the most peace, when I'm running on a long run,” Brady said.
Despite the general runner's high, all three runners like to have some fun when they enter races, especially when running so many miles that can almost become mindless.
“I want to run one mile at like subfive pace and everything else normal … I'll try and throw myself something funny because I can't realistically do 70 miles and not lose my mind,” Duffy said.
The team joked about different challenges they could set for themselves, including running miles backward, blindfolded and in the dark, or drinking a beer every five miles.
Online refer Read more about Relay Iowa at dailyiowan.com.
a project we have that anybody's welcome to come and draw anything or write down anything that they feel that they want to,”
Epiphany Jones said.
On the banner, a key showed colors representing different experiences so passersby could add to the banner with their respective colors and drawings.
“The idea is to show, with all the art and the colors, that [sexual and domestic violence] impacts so many people and in so many different ways,” Jones said.
Besides art that can be transported, many student organizations exercise their freedom of speech through chalk mesages which are often found on the Pentacrest and T. Anne Cleary Walkway.
When the horror elements take over, the film loses a lot of personality. The spiritual, music-driven, western-esque first half felt incredibly original, but as soon as “Sinners” became a bona fide horror fest, tropes started to abound. The film began to feel like something I’d seen a million times before.
Save for select sequences, this remained true throughout the second and third acts. Jumpscares were relied upon as the primary scare tactic, eventually giving way to straight-up action à la James Cameron’s “Aliens.”
But the film had one more trick up its sleeve.
I’ll admit I didn’t see the final scene coming. I liked what it was going for, but having it largely relegated to a mid-credits scene after half the theater had left was a weird choice. I couldn’t think of a reason why they did it like that.
That confused feeling describes much of my experience with this film. It's incredible when it does its own thing, but when it relies on played-out genre tropes and muddled creative decisions, it loses me.
Still, “Sinners” is a solid watch. It might be worth going to the theater for the onetake music sequences alone.
Charlie Hickman Arts Editor charlie.hickman@dailyiowan.com
We’re going to be talking about “Sinners” for a long time. Ryan Coogler’s new southern gothic tale of vampires and the blues feels like the sort of blockbuster filmmaking we could use more of right now.
Like any great crowd-pleasing adventure film, the structure is familiar. In “Sinners,” twin gangsters, amusingly named Smoke and Stack, open a blues hall in the Mississippi Delta circa 1930.
The story becomes a siege defense when a musically inclined Irish vampire interrupts the party and seeks to invade the brothers’ club. A lot of horror movies are about people in a building trying to keep something scary out of said building, but Coogler’s filmmaking makes this iteration on a tried and true plot device a must-watch.
Instead of relying on jump scares, though the few present are well-earned, Coogler builds tension by playing with our expectations for a vampire story and a break-in story. There isn’t much physically preventing the vampires from getting inside, only an ancient rule stipulating vampires must be invited in to enter any building.
Much of the second half of the film
“We planned some of the locations where the messages would be best, but not exactly what we were going to write,” Traore said. Traore and Jones displayed their chalk art on the Pentacrest sidewalk along Clinton Street, where there is a lot of foot and car traffic, a prime spot for promoting. Although art can be used to help other communities or push movements forward, it can also create personal pride.
“I can create really beautiful art that represents a lot of different types of people, like LGBTQ identifying people, people of various racial backgrounds, disabilities, whatever it might be. I feel like it's changed over time, but it's always very fulfilling,” Yu said.
consists of excellent musical sequences, duelling Irish jigs and empassioned blues performances, as the vampires attempt to convince characters on the inside of the club to invite them in.
All stories contain tropes, hence why they became tropes, but the way Coogler meshes vampire storytelling, horror filmmaking, musical sequences, and movie star performances from Michael B. Jordan and Hailee Steinfeld is unmatched.
Several sequences made my jaw drop in sheer awe and had me asking, “How did they pull that off?” A one-take musical sequence in the middle of the film was so earth-shatteringly sick I felt like I was floating out of my seat in the theater.
Beyond being a well-executed genre film, “Sinners” also manages to say something important. Coogler’s filmmaking is bursting with visual ideas, but the movie is thematically rich, too. Coogler’s vampires are cultural colonists, and it’s no mistake that the first three we’re introduced to are white, but his metaphor never detracts from the gruesome horror. This is what perfect big-budget filmmaking should be to me: movie stardriven crowd-pleasers with invigorating visual style and something to say. So many films starring equally famous actors with equally large budgets are settling for mindless entertainment right now. Coogler challenges this trend and should be lauded for it.
“Sinners” can be enjoyed as a rollercoaster vampire film or as an interesting character study about the cultural relevance of blues music. Either way, “Sinners” is destined to become a classic, so go see it in a theater.
THE BLACK ANGEL
What farm to table means in Iowa City
The Encounter Cafe, Get Fresh Cafe, Yotopia, and more discuss partnerships with local farms.
Hannah Childers Arts Reporter arts@dailyiowan.com
Isabelle Lubguban Arts Reporter arts@dailyiowan.com
Local businesses The Encounter Cafe, Get Fresh Cafe, and Yotopia do not have much in common on the surface. But their partnership with Country View Dairy, a dairy farm in Hawkeye, Iowa, is the connecting tissue uniting these locations.
When Veronica Tessler, owner of frozen yogurt shop Yotopia, started her business back in 2011, it was always her goal to be a sustainable business and utilize local ingredients.
“I am the great-granddaughter of dairy farmers, so it’s in my blood to be doing this kind of work,” Tessler said.
She partnered with Country View Dairy in 2011 with the help of Jason Grimm, the current executive director of the Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development organization. Tessler continues to use Country View’s products to this day.
“We love working with and supporting an Iowa farm — a family farm,” Tessler said. “It just felt like the right thing to do, and we’ve been really satisfied with the partnership.”
In addition to its partnership with Country View Dairy, Yotopia partners with Molly’s Cupcakes to stock its toppings bar with cookie dough and “Molly’s Middles,” which are cupcake cutouts.
Yotopia also strives to use local fruits like strawberries when they are in season, sometimes going through as many as 40 pounds of them in two days, Tessler said.
“Last year, we went on our summer staff outing to Wilson’s Orchard and picked berries ourselves,” Tessler said.
Tessler also takes pride in Yotopia’s use of sustainable products, offering reusable frozen yogurt cups for patrons who wish to cut down on single-use items and using energy-saving soft serve machines.
“We had a matching grant with the city about eight or 10 years ago that allowed
us to replace our single-pane, leaky windows with double-pane, energyefficient windows, which cut down on our energy consumption,” Tessler added.
Tessler noted how recently more and more customers are curious about where their food comes from.
Events like the city’s annual Farm to Street Dinner, for example, garner large amounts of local attention; tickets for this year’s in August are already sold out. This six-course dinner has been increasing awareness for local food connections since 2016.
“We’ve been around for 14 years, and the tagline ‘support local’ has been just that for a long time, but people are [still] asking the question, ‘Where does your
Edited by Will Shortz No. 0326
food come from?’’’ Tessler said.
The Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development organization, or Iowa Valley RC&D, has been around for even longer, founded in 1998. According to Grimm, the nonprofit organization works in two initiatives called farmer development and value chain development.
“Our value chain development initiative works with helping develop new markets for the farmers we work with as well as really trying to connect the dots between the farm and the end consumer through working with food hub distribution companies and buyers across the state of Iowa,” Grimm said.
Iowa Valley RC&D has established
PUZZLE SOLUTIONS ON 3B
programs such as Grow: Johnson County, a program that plants and distributes food to agencies.
“We raise probably around 20 different vegetables, fruits and crops each year,” Grimm said. “The program focuses on all that we grow with that program that are distributed freely throughout Johnson County’s food assistance agencies, from pantries, meal programs, daycares, etc.”
Grow: Johnson County manages six acres onthe Johnson County Historic Poor Farm, engaging in sustainable production practices like composting and low pesticide use.
electronically since 1988
13 Great Basin tribe
14 Historic Chinese general
22 Forested moon in “Return of the Jedi” 24 Tampa Bay N.F.L.er
26 Actress Rodriguez of “Jane the Virgin” 28 Timeworn
29 “Terrible” ages
30 Not mad
33 Fabric that George Costanza said he’d drape himself in if it were socially acceptable
36 Pioneering game console, for short
37 747 or A380
38 Tad 39 ___-relief
40 Baby bear
41 Downward force on earth, informally
42 “I saw,” to Caesar
43 “My stars!”
44 Headwear for Emily in Paris
48 British politico Corbyn
49 Ad Council production, in brief
51 Spin doctors
52 “I’d like a brewski”
53 Negligent
55 Like some signs
56 Run away (with)
58 Cry after pranking someone
61 Adorable
63 “Time …”
64 Slugger’s stat
65 Not online, online
66 Sounds in spas
67 Blouse, e.g.
Wyatt Goodale | The Daily Iowan
Barista Alexis Garza makes coffee drinks using local milk at The Encounter Cafe in Iowa City on April 23. The Encounter Cafe gets its milk from an Iowa farm.
Iowa Valley RC&D brings these sustainable practices to the Johnson County community by supporting the Johnson County Foodshed.
“We help the businesses and farms that we work with bring local foods and products into the Johnson County Foodshed to ensure that there’s a reliable, local food source available either at farmers’ markets or restaurants,” Grimm said.
“We bottle in glass, we’ve done that from the beginning,” Zimmermann said. “They’re reusable, glass is highly recyclable, and there’s much less carbon footprint. No microplastics are getting into your food products.”
Before starting her business, she used to manage NewBo City Market in Coralville, and that experience connected her with many local farmers. It also inspired her to start Get Fresh. “I used to run the day-
Another local Iowa City business that prioritizes sustainability is Get Fresh Café. Owner Wendy Zimmermann believes in using compostable materials, housing a compost bin in her café. Their cups, lids, straws, and paper bags are all compostable.
to-day operations, and I saw a need for beverages other than coffee and lemonade,” Zimmermann said. “I got to know a lot of farmers and producers in the area.”
Her business also partners with Country View Dairy for yogurt for their smoothies. When in season, Get Fresh likes to use local fruits and vegetables in its smoothies. Zimmermann looks forward to using local fruits and vegetables when they come into season.
“We’ll sit down and talk to our farmers in January when they’re starting to plan ,and they’ll say, “Oh, you like this kind
CITIES INVOLVED IN FARM-TO-TABLE FOOD
Of the five businesses involved in our reporting, there are seven cities around the state of Iowa involved in sourcing their food production.
of kale? OK, we’re going to plant more of this,’” Zimmermann said.
“Imagine having a tomato fresh out of the garden that’s just hours old.”
In addition to using local food sources, Get Fresh participates in outreach programs, going to businesses and schools to teach them about local food sources.
FOOD from 3C
Wyatt Goodale | The Daily Iowan
Yotopia employee Tailor Barner fills a pint of frozen yogurt in downtown Iowa City on April 22. Yotopia uses local dairy to make its frozen yogurt.
Map by Amy Scott | The Daily Iowan
The Daily Iowan
WEDNESDAY,
APRIL
30 | INDIANA FEVER VS. BRAZIL | CARVER-HAWKEYE ARENA
PREGAME CAITLIN CLARK’S HOMECOMING
The Caitlin Clark Effect is returning to Carver-Hawkeye Arena on May 4.
The Daily Iowan
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The Daily Iowan (USPS 143-360), the student newspaper at the University of Iowa, is published by Student Publications, Inc., E131 Adler Journalism Building, Iowa City, Iowa 52242. Published in print weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, Fridays of Hawkeye football game weekends (Pregame), and year-round on dailyiowan.com.
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1. Caitlin Clark’s return to Carver
This game would not exist without the remarkable achievements of Caitlin Clark. Clark played for the Iowa women’s basketball team from 2020-24, becoming one of the most recognizable athletes in the world in the process. Before Clark’s arrival, the Hawkeyes often played in front of sparse crowds inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena, but her play resulted in Iowa selling out each home game during Clark’s senior season in 2023-24, a first for the program. After reaching the NCAA title game in 2023, Clark entered her senior campaign determined to reach the mountaintop. She led the Hawkeyes to a program-record 34 victories while posting 31.6 points, 8.9 assists, and 7.4 rebounds per contest. Though Iowa again fell short in the national title game against South Carolina, Clark more than made her mark on not only Hawkeye women’s basketball, but also the entire sport.
Clark will have the chance to play
The Fever looks to give Clark
in front of a raucous sell-out crowd at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
2. A new-look Fever
Indiana ended an eight-year play off drought in 2024, in part due to Clark’s play late in the year. Though they qualified for the postseason, the Fever still posted a mediocre 20-20 record. Wanting to capitalize on their growing popularity that came with Clark’s arrival, Indiana fired head coach Christie Sides and replaced her with Connecticut Sun Coach Stephanie White.
De Olivera, who led the squad in scoring through three games at the 2026 FIBA world cup qualifying round contests in August. De Olivera posted 17. 7 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game, but her efforts were for naught as Brazil went only 1-2 in those games, including a 87-66 drubbing at the hands of Hungary.
White, who is from Indiana, won Indiana Miss Basketball in 1995 and played for Purdue from 1995-99. She previously coached the Fever for two seasons before leaving for the college ranks at Vanderbilt. Now, she returns to her home state with the hopes of continuing Indiana’s resurgence into WNBA contention.
In addition to adding White, the Fever have also been aggressive in free agency and in the trade market. Notable signings include six-time WNBA All-Star DeWanna Bonner, two-time All-Star Natasha Howard, and veteran guard Sophie Cunningham via a trade with the Phoenix Mercury.
3. Emanuely de Olivera
Arguably the most important player for the Brazilians is power
Brazil will have to find scoring outside of de Olivera if they want to spoil this party, but expect de Olviera to make things difficult inside for Indiana.
4. The WNBA taking notice
ketball history at both the college and high school ranks. The crowd inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena will likely be roaring throughout the game, and the level of support could potentially catch the eye of WNBA executives. The league has already added two teams, but they may consider adding another to make things even.
5. A full-circle moment for Dantas
The chances of this happening may be slim, but Clark’s arrival to the WNBA has resulted in increased support for the league throughout the state of Iowa, with many fans going as far to make long treks to Indianapolis to watch Clark and the Fever.
That enthusiasm has led some to believe that the WNBA could potentially expand to Iowa. The evidence? This exhibition game sold out within minutes, a sign of how passionate the state is about Clark and women’s basketball. Outsiders may argue the whole fandom is recent, but Iowa
This game will serve as a bit of a full circle moment for Fever center Damiris Dantas, a Brazil native who previously played on the Brazilian National Team early in her career. Dantas helped the squad to a bronze medal at the 2011 Pan American Games and was also a member of the team that captured the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship for Women.
Dantas was drafted No. 12 overall by the Minnesota Lynx in 2012 and has played for three WNBA teams since, including six non-consecutive seasons in Minnesota. Dantas signed with the Fever ahead of the 2024 season and played in 20 games, posting 4.5 points and 2.2 rebounds per contest.
Isabella Tisdale | The Daily Iowan
Fans observe a women’s basketball game between Iowa and then-No. 4 Southern California at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Feb. 2. The sold-out Indiana Fever game is at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on May 4.
Clark
De Olivera
Dantas
Caitlin Clark returns to Carver-Hawkeye Arena
No. 22’s return reflects her impact on the women’s basketball landscape as a whole.
Chris Meglio Sports Reporter sports@dailyiowan.com
Iowa fans certainly miss the Caitlin Clark show. And on May 4, this show returns to Iowa City one more time.
The phenom from West Des Moines, Iowa, had hoop dreams since childhood. Her “Future Dreams” worksheet from second grade featured several basketball goals such as earning a basketball scholarship, meeting Maya Moore, and getting into the WNBA.
She did all those things.
Nowhere on that paper did it say she wanted to uplift an entire sport and captivate the next generation of women hoopers. But she’s doing that, too.
When the Indiana Fever take on the Brazilian National Team at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on May 4, she’ll be reminded of that.
“I always had big dreams and big aspirations ever since I was a young kid,” Clark told David Letterman during a recent appearance on his Netflix special “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.” “I don’t think you could ever really imagine it to be on this level. I think I kind of exceeded my expectations.”
Clark grew up around the game of basketball. She started off tagging along with her older brother, Blake’s, practices, where her dad, Brent, was the coach. And when she started playing at five years old, there were no girls leagues around, so she played on her dad’s team along with her younger brother, Colin.
Her skills were pretty glaring early on.
“She literally, I would say, would score quite a few goals in soccer and in the same way with basketball,” Brent said in the “Her” documentary about Clark’s impact on women’s basketball. “She would pull up from the free throw line on a six- or seven-foot hoop and make it pretty consistently.”
There were never enough hoops on the court for her, though. She always wanted to play with Blake and his friends at home, though she was often physically outmatched. Her mom Anne’s advice to her: “If you want to play with them, you’ve got to find a way to hold your own.”
And so she found a way — not just against her brother but against all boys. She began to dominate the boys league through her last few years and even won the league MVP one season.
“I played against [Clark] in games when we were in the first or second grade,” former
Iowa men’s basketball player and Waukee, Iowa, native Payton Sandfort recalled in February of 2024 via Eliot Clough of Rivals.
“It wasn’t fun. I think we got the best of her when we were younger, and then she started to get better.
“I remember she [beat] us in the semifinal in the tournament,” he added. “I was just devastated.”
She first started playing against other girls on the All Iowa Attack AAU team as a sixth grader, playing several years ahead of her age group, and she still dominated. Her first letter of interest came from Missouri State ahead of
“I always had big dreams and big aspirations ever since I was a young kid. I don’t think you could ever really imagine it to be on this level. I think I kind of exceeded my expectations .”
Caitlin Clark
Indiana Fever guard on a David Letterman Netflix special
the seventh grade.
And by the time she got to Dowling Catholic High School in 2016, she was a five-star prospect balancing varsity basketball and soccer through her first two years. Her focus was fixated on basketball, so much that she used to
shoot around right before soccer games. Her teammates weren’t too fond of that.
Offers from several Power Five schools began to flow in. She eventually cut her list down to three schools: Iowa, Iowa State, and Notre Dame. And while she first verbally
Ayrton Breckenridge | The Daily Iowan
Iowa guard Caitlin Clark celebrates during an NCAA Tournament Second Round game between then-No. 1 Iowa and then-No. 8 West Virginia at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City on March 25, 2024. The Hawkeyes defeated the Mountaineers, 64-54.
Sandfort
committed to the Fighting Irish, she flipped to Iowa with an official announcement on social media ahead of her senior season.
Upon her commitment, she made a promise to then-head coach Lisa Bluder and the Hawkeye faithful: Bring Iowa back to the Final Four.
“She loves seeking challenges,” Clark’s former high school coach Kristin Meyer said. “She wants to go after those challenges. And she just loves the excitement of achieving a challenge or overcoming the odds.”
Her collegiate career began in 2020 in front of zero fans due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And with that, her historic freshman season nearly went unnoticed.
In 30 games played, Clark led the country in scoring with 26.6 points along with 7.1 assists and 5.9 rebounds on her way to being named Big Ten Freshman of the Year. She became the first freshman ever to win the Dawn Staley Award, given to the best guard in the country. The Hawkeyes lost to UConn in the Sweet 16 of the 2021
NCAA tournament.
She took a step up in her sophomore season, and her 46-point explosion against Michigan was the birth of a collegiate superstar.
On Feb. 6, 2022, in a road game in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Clark scored 33 points through the last 13 minutes, 21 points in the last six minutes, carrying the team from a 22-point deficit to a five-point contest.
“And still lost,” she joked with Letterman. Michigan took the victory, 98-90. But that game will forever be known as the “Caitlin Clark game.”
“I remember we didn’t have everybody active that game, but Coach Bluder wasn’t even that mad that we didn’t win,” Clark said. “She was staring at the TV [at the airport] like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ Everyone was just kind of in awe.”
Her 2021-22 campaign concluded with another Dawn Staley Award and her first Big Ten Player of the Year award after posting averages of 27 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists across 32 games.
Iowa went on to win the Big Ten tournament for the first time since 2019 and placed as a second seed in the NCAA tournament; however, a 64-62 devastating second-round loss to No. 10 Creighton cut the Final Four aspirations in half.
“From your greatest failures can come your greatest successes,” Clark said of the 2022 NCAA tournament loss via Dargan Southard of the Des Moines Register . “We thought we were going to get to the Final Four.”
Then came her junior season — the year Clark became a global icon. She won the 2022-23 Naismith Women’s College Player of the Year and the Wooden Award after averaging 27.8 points, 8.6 assists, and 7.1 rebounds and led Iowa to a then-programbest 31 wins.
Every game was nearly sold out. Her iconic No. 22 jersey filled up the stands, home or away. She was the face of college basketball, and all eyes were fixed on her.
A year after the tragic upset to Creighton, Clark made good on her promise and led No. 2 Iowa back to the Final Four for the first time since 1993. There, the Hawkeyes matched up with the defending champion South Carolina.
The Hawkeyes went in as heavy underdogs. But No. 22 put on her cape and saved the day with a 41-point performance to lead Iowa to the 77-73 victory and the program’s first-ever national championship appearance.
“She was on point,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley said of Clark after the Final Four matchup via Hawk Fanatic. “I mean, she was everything that we saw on
Gabby Drees | The Daily Iowan
Iowa guard Caitlin Clark and head coach Lisa Bluder hug after a basketball game between then-No. 2 Iowa and then-No. 5 Indiana during the Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament Championship Game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on March 6, 2022. Iowa took home the Big Ten
Daniel McGregor-Huyer | The Daily Iowan
Iowa guard Caitlin Clark attempts shot during a 2023 NCAA women’s Final Four game between then-No. 1 South Carolina and then-No. 2 Iowa at American Airlines Arena in Dallas, Texas, on March 31, 2023. Clark scored 41 points.
Bluder
Staley
film. She was everything, like assists, points, turnovers, all of them. She ran the gamut of who she is as a player.”
She put up a 30-piece in the national championship game against Angel Reese and LSU, but it wasn’t enough to get over the hump. The Tigers took the 102-85 victory in front of a then-women’s col lege basketball record of 16.1 million viewers.
dreams. And it only got stronger in her final year with Iowa.
Clark went into the 2023-24 season as an all-time great women’s college basketball player. By the end of the season, she had arguably the greatest collegiate basketball career of all time.
“I’m telling you this is brutal. It is really tough to walk out of that locker room today,” an emotional Bluder said. “But I am very thankful for the season we had, and I don’t want anything to take away from that. We played in the national championship game.”
With tears streaming down her face and a Gatorade towel wrapped around her neck, Clark, as vulnerable as the public had ever seen her, made it clear what kind of impact she hopes to have on the game of basketball.
“I want my legacy to be the impact that I can have on young kids and people in the state of Iowa,” she said. “I was just that young girl, so all you have to do is dream, and you can be in moments like this.”
At that point, the impact she made on the sport was already beyond her wildest
Per game, she posted 31.6 points, 8.9 assists, and 7.4 rebounds as the Hawkeyes logged a newprogram record of 34 wins. And with her sec ond Naismith Player of the Year honor, Clark became the eighth player to win the award twice, the first since Brittney Griner in 2012 and 2013.
Many prestigious scoring records were broken throughout that season. Her 2,813th point passed Megan Gustafson to become Iowa’s all-time leading scorer; her 3,528th point passed Kelsey Plum to become wom en’s college basketball’s all-time leading scorer; and her 3,668th point passed Pete Maravich to become college basketball’s all-time leading scorer.
Clark was nicknamed “Ponytail Pete” due to ther resemblance to Maravich in her game. But nobody could’ve predicted her passing the LSU legend. Not even the
Isabella Tisdale | The Daily Iowan
The crowd cheers as Caitlin Clark scores a three-point basket to make her the NCAA record holder for points during a basketball game between No. 4 Iowa and Michigan at Carver Hawkeye Arena on Feb. 15, 2024. The previous record was held by Washington’s Kelsey Plum.
Reese
Maravich
Griner
ana struggled out of the gate. The team got off to a 1-8 start to the season and were sitting at the bottom of the WNBA standings; however, Clark showed flashes of superstar potential.
In her very first professional game, she put up 20 points on the Connecticut Sun in a 92-71 losing effort. And in her sixth game against the Los Angeles Sparks, she led the Fever to a 78-73 win behind a near triple-double of 11 points, 10 rebounds, and eight assists, along with four steals.
“Obviously, it was a big adjustment going from the college level to the professional level,” she said. “There’s a lot of areas you have to learn and that you have to learn very quickly.”
It wasn’t until the 12th game of the season — a 85-83 win over the Washington Mystics — when the Fever took off, going 19-12 the rest of the way to earn the sixth seed in the 2024 Playoffs.
The rookie guard put up a 19-point, 13-assist, 12-rebound triple-double on Sabrina Ionescu, Brianna Stewart, and the eventual 2024 WNBA Champion New York Liberty in an 83-78 midseason win. And in a 101-93 loss to the Dallas Wings the following week, her 19-assist game broke the league record for most assists in a game.
Clark averaged 19.2 points, 8.4 assists, 5.7 rebounds, and 1.3 steals per game through the regular season — her 337 total assists being a single-season record. She ran away with the Rookie of the Year award, was named a First Team All-WNBA member, and finished fourth in MVP voting.
“I feel like I can continue to show up and be the same person that I am,” she said. “And then as a player, just continuing to improve every single day and help this organization get even better.”
freshman high school teacher who once told her, “You are Pete Maravich.”
“Honestly, it wasn’t something I ever really thought about too much,” Clark told Rowe of the scoring records. “It’s just something that’s come with my four years of playing basketball and being myself.
“I’ve just been so fortunate to have a coach that has allowed me to be me,” she added. “Ever since I stepped foot on campus, she believed in me so much, and she never said, ‘Do this,’ or, ‘Don’t do that.’ It was more like, ‘Be yourself.’”
Earning a No. 1 seed for the NCAA tournament, Clark and Co. put together one of the most memorable runs in recent tournament history. The Hawkeyes made it to the Sweet Sixteen and got their revenge on LSU with a 94-87 victory.
Then came Paige Bueckers and UConn. In a Final Four thriller that came down to the very last second, Clark’s 21-point, nine-rebound, seven-assist performance helped Iowa come out with the 71-69 victory, setting up a rematch with South Carolina for the title.
This time, the Gamecocks got the best of them. Clark’s 30-point performance wasn’t enough, and Iowa suffered the 87-75 loss. Teary-eyed and all, she walked off the court wearing her Black and Gold cape for the final time.
Her impact on the game during her time at Iowa, however, will remain forever.
“I just want to congratulate Iowa on an incredible season, and I want to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport,”
Staley said during the trophy presentation.
“She carried a heavy load for our sport, and it’s not going to stop here at the collegiate tour. But when she is the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft, she’s going to lift that league up as well.
“Caitlin Clark, if you’re out there, you are one of the GOATs of our game,” she added.
And she was right. Because Clark is one of the greatest collegiate players of all-time. And with the first pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft, the Indiana Fever selected the NCAA all-time leading scorer. Truly a franchise-altering moment from the jump.
Well, sort of.
When Clark declared for the draft in late-February 2024, the Fever saw an immediate increase in activity across all social media pages, and tickets doubled in price with fans anticipating she’d be the first overall pick. The “Caitlin Clark Effect” was in full throttle.
The season finally came around, and Indi-
“Caitlin Clark, if you’re out there, you are one of the GOATs of our game .”
Dawn Staley South Carolina head coach
But it was her impact off the court that really stood out. The Fever averaged 4,066 fans per home game in 2023, the second-lowest in the league, and skyrocketed to to 17,035 fans per contest, the next closest team being the New York Liberty with 12,729 fans. And their average road attendance of 15,131 fans exceeded every other team’s home attendance.
There were six teams that moved their games against Indiana to bigger arenas. There were also six teams that finished with an average of at least 10,000 fans at home. No team reached five-figure averages in 2023.
The league’s viewership grew by over 100 percent across all streaming platforms. Its 54 million unique viewers was a league-record.
“We can’t put a bushel-barrel over this flame,” Bluder told Letterman. “You don’t say ‘whoa’ to a racehorse. You got to let her go. There is a fine line you have to walk when you’re coaching a player like her.”
At the end of the day, basketball is a show business. And there’s no show that draws an audience like the Caitlin Clark show.
One last show in Iowa City.
Grace Smith | The Daily Iowan
Iowa guard Caitlin Clark celebrates after the senior recognition during a basketball game with No. 6 Iowa and No. 2 Ohio State inside a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 3, 2024. Clark broke the all-time NCAA record during this game, which was previously held by Pete Maravich.
Excitement builds anticipating the return
Fans are ready for Caitlin Clark the Indiana Fever’s upcoming exhibition game in Iowa City.
Jack Birmingham Sports Reporter sports@dailyiowan.com
A number of Iowa fans never saw the Caitlin Clark experience live, but after a full year since her departure to the WNBA, May 4 will change that.
Only a select few of Hawkeye faithful secured tickets to the Indiana Fever exhibition game against the Brazilian National Team, hosted at Iowa’s own Carver-Hawkeye Arena. And they’re in for one more look at what No. 22’s impact on Iowa City was really like.
Such a contest, which was announced on Jan. 30 in news releases by both the Fever and HawkeyeSports, will mark the return of legendary Hawkeye Caitlin Clark, who was selected by the Fever as the No. 1 draft pick last year, kicking
off a record-breaking rookie season in the pros. Clark, of course, became hugely popular for her unique deep shooting ability and equally flashy passes, fueling a career that led Iowa, then coached by Lisa Bluder, to the national championship game in back-to-back seasons. This meant when Clark’s homecoming was announced, fans were eager to get tickets, which sold out to the general public within 37 minutes of release.
For students, pricing and access had less barriers but were nevertheless gratifying to procure. In particular, current first-years at Iowa who haven’t been at Iowa for a full season of Caitlin Clark expressed excitement at getting to see the superstar play.
First-year students Brielle Major and Chase Nunemaker both bought tickets to the exhibition, both noting Clark as a key reason for
doing so.
“Freshmen like us, we didn’t get to see Caitlin Clark,” Major said. “I feel like that’s the main reason why we’re so excited to go, is because we never got to see her.”
“Freshmen like us, we didn’t get to see Caitlin Clark. I feel like that’s the main reason why we’re so excited to go.”
Brielle Major UI first-year student
Nunemaker said even for those who have seen Clark play at Carver, the impact of her return is going to be big.
“I think it’s not only Caitlin Clark, but it mostly is because this is where she came from,” Nunemaker said. “The people that got to watch her in college get to see her again because she’s probably never going to play at Carver again.”
Nunemaker also said the contest is just a more recent example of Clark putting the WNBA, and indeed women’s sports as a whole, at the front of people’s minds.
“This is a really special opportunity, but it’s also a good way to promote the WNBA,” Nunemaker said. “I haven’t watched a WNBA game, but because I am a Caitlin Clark fan and Iowa fan, I want to see her play, especially at Carver, compared to driving down and seeing her play at her home stadium. So, I think this is a good opportunity for everybody to get recognized.”
Major said just the presence of Clark, regardless of whether there’s a game going or not, is enough to keep fans energized. Her jersey retirement after Iowa’s game against USC this season is a prime example.
“I think it’ll be really loud,” Major said. “Whenever she was there, people were just loud overall knowing that she was in the building, not even because she was playing. The minute she came out, the place got so loud.”
While Nunemaker and Major both noted the relative ease of getting tickets and pricing around $75, the same cannot be said for general admission tickets, which, upon selling out in just over half an hour, began being listed on resell websites like StubHub for up to $1,600.
Nunemaker ultimately said Clark has made a big impact with the Fever game being a great example of this.
“We went to almost every single women’s home game, and it was crazy,” Nunemaker said. “Especially the USC game when Caitlin Clark was there. I think that game was as loud or louder than some of the football games. I think this game is going to be even louder. If Caitlin Clark makes a deep three again, I think the place is going to erupt.”
With exhibition games like the one set for May 4 few and far between, many are looking forward to what could be Clark’s final showing at Carver, an encore performance kicking off what could be a monumental second season as a pro.
“Everybody’s going to be so excited to see her again,” Nunemaker said. “I think this is really huge for Caitlin Clark because she gets to play here one more time.”
Cody Blissett | The Daily Iowan
Ruby Bekkedahl, Lauren Duet, and Addy Auer Billings, from Montana, pose for a portrait before a basketball game between No. 11 Iowa and No. 6 Michigan State at the TIAA Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Ind. on March 6.
INDIANA FEVER 2025 REGULAR SEASON SCHEDULE
Tanner Henningsen
• Fourth-year
• Interdepartmental studies
Brad Schultz Assistant Sports Editor brad.schultz@dailyiowan.com
The Daily Iowan your most memorable game as a student manager?
Tanner Henningsen: I can’t pick just one game, but the first ones that come to mind are Caitlin’s buzzer -beater against Indiana in 2023, beating South Carolina in the Final Four in 2023, beating LSU in the Elite Eight in 2024, and beating USC on CC’s jersey retirement night in 2025. There are so many other great ones, but those ones really stand out.
Women’s basketball student managers talk Clark era
ment, Carver was electric — unlike anything I had experienced before. Playing in front of a loud, sold-out crowd gave our team the energy we needed to pull off a hard-fought win against one of the best teams in the country. The joy on the faces of the players and coaching staff was unforgettable, and it was incredibly rewarding to see them have a moment like that after all the day-to-day work that often goes unnoticed.
What does an event like the Indiana Fever’s exhibition game mean for the University of Iowa?
team had on women’s basketball. The immediate sellout was an indication of the fanbase that remains here at Iowa and supports women’s basketball like no other. It celebrates the success of former players and reinforces the school’s reputation as a leader in women’s basketball. Overall, it’s a moment of pride for the university and a celebration of how far the program has come.
How significant is it to see Caitlin Clark come back and play a game in Carver-Hawkeye Arena?
on a show for the fans who haven’t seen her play in months.
Riedl: It’s going to be incredible; the support she has here is unbelievable, and the entirety of Carver is going to be a sea of Clark jerseys. I wouldn’t be surprised if Caitlin puts up some big-time numbers in a gym she’s familiar with and with the crowd behind her. It’s a full-circle moment for for the university and all the fans and a reminder of how much she means to the University of Iowa.
Matthew Riedl: There were a lot of memorable games during my year as a student manager, but without a doubt, the win over a top-ranked USC team tops the list. With CC22 in the building for her jersey retire-
Henningsen: It’s huge. Everyone who knows the Fever knows Iowa, but getting some people from Indiana to come over to see Iowa City will be great. It’s also a great recruiting tool, not just for women’s basketball but for all sports at Iowa. Riedl: I think it’s really cool and speaks to the impact Caitlin and the rest of that
Henningsen: It’s going to be electric. It’ll be interesting seeing her playing in CHA with a completely new group of teammates from the ones she had in college, but hopefully the fans treat them like Hawks and show them what it’s like to play in front of a sold-out Iowa crowd on a nightly basis. I’m sure she’ll hit some logo threes and put
Read more online
The Daily Iowan talked with the women’s basketball student managers for a few minutes. Catch the full interview and their responses at dailyiowan.com.
A guide to maximizing the Caitlin Clark return
The
Iowa icon returns to Carver-Hawkeye Arena for an exhibition on May 4.
Colin Votzmeyer Sports Editor colin.votzmeyer@dailyiowan.com
As Caitlin Clark makes her coveted return to Iowa City, thousands of Iowa fans will, too — and there’s a method to maximizing the experience. Clark, the former Iowa women’s basketball player who led the Hawkeyes to back-to-back NCAA runner-up titles, has impacted the sport on all levels. And she’ll continue to do so after a stellar rookie season in the WNBA, joining the Indiana Fever to kick off her sophomore campaign in an unconventional exhibition on May 4.
Tipping off at 12:30 p.m. against the Brazil National Team inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena, the exhibition will bring thousands of Hawkeye fans back to Iowa City to get a unique glimpse of the star a year after her departure from the program. With that, many will come without ever having seen No. 22 in action. But there are hotspots in town to maxmize it all.
Before the game
Bluebird Diner is a flawless breakfast
option if you can squeeze in, but a table is tough to secure in the morning due to high demand, limited seating, and a rule you can only put your name down in person. But Bluebird does have the best breakfast and brunch in Iowa City with a staple environment, especially at the bar. I’d recommend the Bluebird Breggfest Sammy and a cinnamon roll, but whatever you order, find a way to get their hash browns on your plate.
If you’re taking a more serious approach to the pregame, tailgating is always an option for big events in Iowa City athletics — especially assuming we get that peak early
Iowa City’s top five must-visit spots
A curated guide to the city’s most iconic, fun, and unforgettable places to eat.
May weather.
Micky’s Irish Pub is also a good spot, and it will be for lunch, dinner, and drinks. The restaurant on Dubuque Street serves breakfast, but you could push it up against tip-off and tap into a flexible lunch menu with a Burger Basket or Conglomeration. It’s a great “Iowa City bar” environment to have a few beers or a mule with the added bonus of not being oversaturated by college kids.
During the game
If you somehow survived the lottery and resale scrambles to secure a ticket, that’s where you’ve got to take the most advantage. Seeing Clark in person is a difficult feat with demand so high over her two-year peak, so the generic answer is to get a Carver Cone and just enjoy the game. But to truly maximize the Caitlin Clark experience takes a bit more.
To truly soak in a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena and Caitlin Clark environment, get down around the floor before or after the game. Easy access and open space around the court — that not a lot of college environments allow — make for both good pictures and a realistic look at the magnitude of No. 22’s impact. A walk up the tunnel in the northwest corner between timeouts does the same.
If you didn’t secure a ticket,
and not many did, the game will be broadcast on FOX.
The best places to catch a sports game in Iowa City are always DC’s Sports Bar and the classic option of Micky’s.
But a sunny Sunday around campus might make simply sitting outside and enjoying the weather the best pick above all.
After the game
There’s something for everyone in Iowa City’s nightlife even on a Sunday evening.
College students often keep the sports vibe going with dollar slices of pizza and an array of TVs at The Airliner. But a
good casual sit-down spot is The Iowa Chop House on Washington Street if you’re willing to spend a bit more money, which would justify the filet mignon. But if you’re hitting the road right after the game, a quick pick-up from the grill at Bread Garden Market will do. From the burger to the burrito, Bread Garden is a sleeper food spot in town. Of course, there’s always the opportunity to come back as Iowa women’s basketball starts back up in November. But to see Caitlin Clark again, the Fever open the WNBA season hosting the Chicago Sky on May 17, and then they will play in Chicago — just three hours from Iowa City.
Ava Neumaier | The Daily Iowan Iowa fans watch the NCAA Championship game between No. 1 Iowa and No. 1 South Carolina at The Airliner on April 7, 2024.
Photo illustration by Marandah Mangra-Dutcher | The Daily Iowan
