Only Dance In Iowa A History Of Six-player Girls' Basketball

Iowa six-player girls' basketball was the most successful sporting activity for girls in American history, at its zenith involving more than 70 percent of the girls in the state. The state tournament was so popularregularly drawing fifteen thousand fans, more than the boys' tourneythat officials declined a lucrative broadcasting offer from ABC'sWide World of Sportsrather than forfeit the Iowa Girls' High School Athletic Union's control of the game.The Only Dance in Iowachronicles the one-hundred-year history of this Iowa tradition, long a symbol of the state's independence and the people's rural pride. Max McElwain shows how, well before the passage of Title IX in 1972, Iowa six-player girls' basketball was, asSports Illustratedgushed, "a utopia for girls' athletics." He also demonstrates how, ironically enough, the fallout from Title IX in many ways led to six-girl basketball's demise. Through interviews, careful ethnography, and detailed historical analysis, McElwain exposes the intricate political, sociological, and historical dynamics of this cultural phenomenon. His book reveals how six-girl basketball, flourishing with the passionate support of Iowa's small towns, school districts, and media, came to represent the state's strong traditional beliefs and the public school system's determination to maintain its identity in the face of national educational trends.The Only Dance in Iowais as much a study of this disappearing culture as of the game it claimed as its own.McElwain, Max is the author of 'Only Dance In Iowa A History Of Six-player Girls' Basketball', published 2004 under ISBN 9780803282995 and ISBN 0803282990.