DANIEL FINNEY

Dear Coach Bluder: You helped more than you knew

Daniel P. Finney
dafinney@dmreg.com

Dear Lisa Bluder,

Hi, Coach! Congratulations on your recent induction into The Des Moines Sunday Register Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.

Lisa Bluder, former Drake women's basketball coach and current coach at the University of Iowa, helped a young reporter cope with his childhood struggles.

The honor, of course, is well-deserved.

I’ve written many times that you and your friends and longtime assistants, Jan Jensen and Jenni Fitzgerald, are some of the finest people I’ve ever met.

I wanted to take a moment to tell you why.

We met when I was 19 years old, a sophomore at Drake University during the 1994-95 academic year.

Iowan Lisa Bluder made winning career choice, joins Register Hall

I was the sports editor of the student newspaper. You were in your fifth year coaching the Bulldogs.

I picked the women’s basketball beat because it was the best show on campus. The men’s basketball team was mired in the same mediocrity that had hounded the team since Maury John left for Iowa State University.

Center Tricia Wakely shook off defenders on the way to inside baskets the way the rest of us shiver on a cold day. Left-handed guard Kiersten Miller had a way of snaking her arm around opposing ball handlers and popping the ball loose for steals and points.

Forward Kristi Kinne baffled defenders with her patented cross-over dribble, and guard Julie Rittgers swished three-pointers years before Steph Curry made it fashionable.

That team won the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, beating Southwest Missouri State on their home floor in Springfield, Mo. They went on to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Watching those games remains among the fondest memories of my paragraph-stacking career.

One of Register columnist Daniel Finney's most cherished possessions is an autographed copy of this photo after Drake beat Iowa in 1996. Pictured are Kiersten Miller, Tammi Blackstone, Keisha Cox and Lisa Brinkmeyer.

But there was more to my affection for you and your team than the breathtaking athletic ability.

I grew up in a chaotic household. My dad struggled with heart disease in his final years, making the strongest male role model in my early life fragile. He died in 1988, when I was 13.

My mom was even more problematic. She was a product of the “Mother’s Little Helper” generation, as coined in the song by the Rolling Stones.

The lyrics refer to the heavy narcotics women of her generation were prescribed by doctors to maintain the facade of being a perfect mother and homemaker.

Her erratic behavior fueled by the drugs, combined with whatever undiagnosed mental health issues she struggled with, made her a terrifying figure when I was a boy. She died in 1990 after a fall downstairs.

My psychologist and I work to untangle the ramifications of those adverse childhood experiences to this day.

But one thing I know for sure was there was an absolute, paralyzing fear of women. I struggled to relate to my peers.

It took years for Mom 2.0, the kindly east Des Moines hairdresser who raised me after my first mom died, to get me to accept her love as real and unconditional.

Yet with rare exception, up to the point that I started to cover your teams, I had a real problem with women. The anger and confusion left over from my childhood experiences with my mom warped my perspective.

I viewed women as a threat that should be feared, avoided and not trusted. This isn’t rational thinking, of course. And it led to some unpleasant behavior in both romantic and platonic relationships with women.

But covering your teams, I was exposed to women very different than my mother: strong, confident, skilled, passionate and driven.

Suddenly, I was surrounded by all these powerful women who were kind, genuine and earnest. And they were led by you, Jan and Jenni, women whose character was obvious by both words and actions.

I often wondered what my first mother's life would have been like if she had grown up in the Title IX era and had coaches like you, Jan and Jenni to show her a path for a young woman — one where she could be strong and powerful and accomplish more with a positive attitude and hard work rather than prescription drugs and emotional manipulation.

You and your teams showed me that for all those dark, sad outcomes in the past, there were so many brighter, happier and realistic stories that I was missing because a collection of thinking errors drove me to dread interactions with women, rather than cherish them.

Those years at Drake were so rich with women who helped me grow and expand my perspective.

Most games, I sat next to Jane Burns, a legendary sports writer and editor for The Des Moines Register. She became my journalism big sister.

I learned more from her in the three years we covered that team together than I did practically from anyone in my career.

And there was Jean Berger, now head of the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, who served as senior women’s administrator in the Drake athletic department. I never met a more organized, dedicated and kinder woman.

As a coach, you know your actions reach far beyond the locker room and court. You help guide the futures of young people every day.

But you probably didn’t know that the example you set, the actions you took and the kindness you showed helped heal a frightened, confused aspiring newsman more than 20 years ago.

I will always be in your debt because you showed me a better way to be. You and your teams gave me hope and helped me make peace with an old ache.

I still struggle with my attitudes and actions as I relate to women and so many other things in this life. We're all works in progress.

But thanks to friendships with people such as Lisa Bluder, that work is in a much better place than it ever could have been without you.

With love and hope,

Daniel P. Finney

Daniel P. Finney, metro columnist for the Des Moines Register. Follow him at @newsmanone on Twitter.

Daniel P. Finney, the Register's Metro Voice columnist, is a Drake University alumnus who grew up in Winterset and east Des Moines. Reach him at 515-284-8144 or dafinney@dmreg.com. Twitter@newsmanone.