Iowa has the longest running state high school girl's basketball tournament in the country, but for most of that history girls did not play the game we know today.
According to research by Karen Mason of the Iowa Women's Archives, girls in Iowa have been playing 6-on-6 basketball since the early 1900's. During this hour of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe talks with Mason and University of Iowa American Studies lecturer Jennifer Sterling about the game and a new exhibit that is touring the state this summer.
Alongside the Smithsonian's Hometown Teams exhibiton, the exhibit 6-on-6 Basketball and the Legacy of Girls' and Women's Sport in Iowa, has stops scheduled in Jefferson, Ames, and Conrad, and Mason is looking for women who played basketball to come tell their story.