Indiana’s first Miss Basketball on Caitlin Clark and 50 years of progress

We’ve hit a head-spinning milestone in the history and development of women’s basketball in Indiana. This week, Indianapolis is hosting the WNBA All-Star Game and all of its related festivities, coming amid an unprecedented surge in popularity for women’s basketball. The top vote-getter for the game is Caitin Clark of the Indiana Fever—a team that now sells out an 18,000-seat arena for nearly every game. The international media is here, and everyone is talking about the potential for players’ salaries to significantly rise. 

Exactly 50 years ago, Judi Warren was preparing to enter her senior year at Warsaw High School. She didn’t know that she was on the precipice of history.  The Indiana High School Athletic Association had officially sanctioned girls basketball, which meant it would have its first statewide girls basketball champion at the end of the season. Warren would end up a transformational figure in the state’s most popular sport, becoming the first Miss Basketball and helping kick-start the rapid growth and evolution of the game for Hoosier girls and women.

She’s our guest this week to provide a first-hand account of how girls who played the game in the early 1970s had to fight for respect, funding and even decent practice time—and then how quickly attitudes changed after she guided Warsaw to the first state championship. She then became one of the early recipients of a college basketball scholarship, helped nurture talent through basketball camps, and became a coach—returning to the state finals with Carmel High School. In these ways, she understands the path that has led to this moment as Indy hosts the All-Star Game. She also weighs in on the impact of the WNBA and Caitlin Clark in particular. 

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