Kerr: We're living in the era of kick-ass women

During this past Super Bowl Sunday, featuring two immensely talented and entertaining football teams, I found myself obsessed with a female college basketball player. That’s a sentence I never expected to write in my life. Such is the universal appeal of University of Iowa guard Caitlin Clark. I can’t pretend to know much about women’s basketball, and until recently I was just casually aware of Clark’s existence. But that week, as she closed in on the NCAA’s all-time women’s scoring record, her name kept popping up everywhere I looked. The extensive coverage reminded me of baseball great Hank Aaron’s home run chase decades ago.

This 22-year-old Iowa native has been single-handedly drawing huge crowds in arenas across the country, and repeatedly steps up to the moment. She leads the nation in scoring, averaging 32 points a game, and already appears in national TV commercials with the likes of former NBA superstar Reggie Miller.

Clark is a killer from 3-point range and a maestro of the passing game, and she brings a pirate’s swagger to the court. Like soccer hero Megan Rapinoe, she’s becoming the face of her sport, transcending into mainstream America.

Even Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the very week he was preparing for what became one of the most legendary performances of his career, was asked about Clark’s exploits during a pre-Super Bowl press conference. He turned out to be a big fanboy of the budding young superstar, and started to call her “one of the best women’s basketball” before catching himself and amending his comment to − “one of the best college basketball players to ever play!”

Clark needed 39 points against Nebraska to break the milestone on Super Bowl Sunday. She wound up falling short, scoring “only” 31 in an upset loss. But that just enabled her accomplish the feat in front of her home fans in Iowa this past Thursday, exploding for a school-record 49 points along with 13 assists. Fittingly, she shattered the old mark with an insane shot almost from mid-court – and then proceeded to score 41 more.

The funny thing is, I was also struck by the total domination of female musicians during the Grammy Awards ceremony held the previous Sunday. As a guy whose sonic preference is rooted in the heydays of Springsteen, Seger, Mellencamp and Petty, I’m not exactly in tune with today’s music and so didn’t watch the televised show since I don’t know most of the current artists. But the following morning, I saw that women had pretty much swept all the major awards.

In addition, the live performances generating the most buzz afterward were also from kick-ass women, especially 80-year-old legend Joni Mitchell’s rendition of “Both Sides Now” and Miley Cyrus strutting the stage singing “Flowers,” her potent empowerment anthem. The duet of Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs on the classic “Fast Car” also received lots of love, and even that was mainly because of Chapman’s long overdue return to the spotlight.

Obviously, we had amazing women performers before this century. Even when I was rocking out to Springsteen and Mellencamp in my youth, I always had time for such powerhouses as the glorious Pat Benatar and the pioneering Wilson sisters of the band Heart. But they were more the exception than the rule.

Today it seems as though almost all the interesting new music I hear is being created by female artists. Taylor Swift, who just became the first singer in history to win four Best Album Grammy Awards, gets the most attention now as, essentially, the queen of the entire planet. But we’re also being treated to amazing stuff from ladies like Cyrus, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Lizzo, Olivia Rodrigo and the remarkable Billie Eilish. There are many others who should probably be listed here, but these are the ones with whom I’m most familiar.

If we’re being honest, these women are way more fascinating than most of their male counterparts right now.

While such domination hasn’t yet carried over into the film industry, it seems like women are making huge strides there as well. Actress/producer Margot Robbie and director/writer Greta Gerwig teamed up to make “Barbie” one of the most original and astounding successes in cinematic history. Now Robbie’s production company LuckyChap has just entered into a major deal with Warner Brothers to create other projects.

Academy Award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon is a longtime favorite in our household, but she’s also racked up an impressive run as executive producer of high-quality TV series including “Big Little Lies,” “The Morning Show,” “Daisy Jones and the Six,” and the docuseries “Surf Girls Hawaii,” which my wife likes a lot.

Right now, we’re both hooked on the latest compelling season of “True Detective,” featuring two badass female leads – former boxing champ Kali Reis and Hollywood royalty Jodie Foster, who also produced the series. They portray Alaskan cops who drink, brawl, fornicate voraciously and dispense justice the way they see fit – traits usually personified by rugged male stars.

Again, these women are not the first to accomplish such things, but they seem to be doing so in ever-expanding numbers. And achieving astonishing heights. Getting back to Clark, for instance, who can dispute she’s currently the most recognizable college athlete, regardless of gender, in the entire country? In fact, who even comes close?

And when has a female athlete ever before been able to make such a claim?

Maybe this is all resonating with me because I have a daughter now, and a granddaughter. If they’re able to grow up seeing women doing things unimaginable even a hundred years ago, maybe they can pursue their own goals unfettered by the expectations and shackles of previous generations of women.

D. Allan Kerr is an ex-dockworker, former newspaperman and U.S. Navy veteran living in Kittery, Maine.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kerr: We're living in the era of kick-ass women