IOWA CITY, Iowa — With the basketball from her off-balance 3-pointer still falling through the net, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark sprinted off the court to behind the basket at Carver-Hawkeye Arena and flexed before a sold-out crowd on Senior Day.
The celebration last season turned into hysteria when Clark’s buzzer-beater toppled No. 2 Indiana 86-85. Players, coaches and fans mobbed one another. About a minute into the madness, Clark wheeled toward midcourt and saw 48-year-old Lisa Brinkmeyer, a former Drake basketball player, sitting in the stands. Brinkmeyer previously worked at the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, and the two knew each other from Clark’s high school days.
“Lisa!” Clark yelled. And they embraced.
“That shot meant so much to so many,” said Iowa associate head coach Jan Jensen, who coached Brinkmeyer at Drake. “(Brinkmeyer’s) husband said something so poignant to me. The next day, he called me and said, ‘This year has been so tough on our family, but for that 30 seconds, we all forgot she had cancer.’”
Brinkmeyer died from brain cancer four months later. But in one touching gesture, Clark’s compassion symbolically married Iowa’s electrifying present with respect for the past. In 1993, Brinkmeyer was the state’s final six-on-six Miss…
