WASHINGTON — It was, to borrow from sports parlance, an unforced error.
Jill Biden, the first lady, attended the N.C.A.A. women’s championship game last weekend, sitting in the stands with college basketball players and telling them about how far female athletes had come. On Monday, she was still so excited that she said she hoped to invite Louisiana State, the team that had wrested the title from Iowa on Sunday, 102-85, to the White House.
“But, you know,” she added, “I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game.”
And with that, Dr. Biden stumbled into the fraught tradition of White House sports invitations, which have become more politicized by the year as the forces of race, social justice, gender and politics continue to reshape the realms of athletics and fandom.
Sports fans, newscasters and the athletes themselves quickly pointed out to the first lady that White House invitations were only to be extended to winners. But the game was about more than just who won and who lost.
The story featured Angel Reese, the star forward for L.S.U., who led her team’s efforts to topple Iowa and their premier guard, Caitlin Clark. Ms. Reese is Black and Ms. Clark is white. And Ms. Clark, the consensus national player of the year…
