Lisa Bluder, who coached the Iowa women's basketball team to the past two NCAA championship games, announced Monday that she is retiring after 24 years leading the Hawkeyes.
Her longtime assistant, Jan Jensen, was selected as her successor.
Bluder made the announcement five weeks after Iowa lost to South Carolina in the national title game and superstar Caitlin Clark ended her college career.
“There is no denying that this past season was incredible for so many reasons, and we could not have accomplished our achievements without all of you,” Bluder said in an open letter to fans. "After the season ended, I spent time with our student-athletes and coaches reviewing the season and preparing those moving on for what comes next.
“With that also came personal contemplation about what this journey has meant to me, how to best champion this program, and what the future looks like for my family and me. After then taking some time away with my husband, David, it became clear to me that I am ready to step aside.”
The 63-year-old Bluder retires as the all-time Big Ten coaching wins leader with a 528-254 record at Iowa, including 65-12 the past two years with Clark leading the way. She was 716-359 including her 10 seasons at Drake.
“I'm happy for her. I called her and talked to her on the phone,” said Clark on Tuesday. “I think she probably put a lot of thought into it. I couldn't be more happy for her. I mean I probably took a couple years off of her career, her having to coach me. The program is going to be in really good shape with Coach J taking over. ”
Jensen, 55, was associate head coach under Bluder for 20 years and was with Bluder for a total of 24 at Iowa and eight at Drake. Jensen is a beloved figure in the Hawkeye State. She was one of the highest-scoring players ever in six-on-six basketball at Elk Horn-Kimballton and was an All-America player for Drake in Des Moines. She has spent her entire coaching career in the state.
“There is no better person to lead this program than Jan Jensen and I am thrilled she will have the opportunity to build on the foundation established," Bluder said. "I’m committed to help her, and her staff, in whatever capacity they need moving forward.”
Jensen, who played her senior season at Drake with Bluder as her coach, said she is elated to begin her first head coaching job.
“I have been so blessed to have enjoyed an incredible ride with Lisa,” Jensen said. “That ride started when I was her player and continued for 33 years as I had the privilege to work alongside of her. I can’t thank Lisa enough for her mentorship, leadership, and most of all her friendship. I am so proud of all we accomplished and grateful for all the memories we created."
The Hawkeyes won two shared Big Ten regular-season championships and five conference tournament titles and made 18 NCAA Tournament appearances under Bluder, who had only one losing season.
The arrival of Clark, whose primary Iowa recruiter was Jensen, elevated the program and played a primary role in raising the profile of the women's game in the United States with her dynamic offensive game.
Clark became the NCAA Division I career scoring leader for both men and women and set many other records as she dazzled fans with her long-distance 3-pointers and precision passing. She started every game from 2020-24, with Iowa going 109-30. She was the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever and will play her first regular-season game Tuesday at Connecticut.
Bluder's 2023 team was Iowa's first to make a Final Four and championship game, and with Clark and a veteran supporting cast returning, the Hawkeyes repeated the feat this past season. They came up short both times, losing to LSU in 2023 and South Carolina last month.
Kate Martin, who spent the past six seasons at Iowa and is now with the Las Vegas Aces of the WNBA, said she was shocked to hear Bluder was retiring. Martin found out during a scheduled media availability with the Aces.
“She’s coached at Iowa for as long as I’ve been alive," Martin said, "so she deserves a break and she deserves whatever she’s going to have in her future. And, you know, it’s family time, relaxation.”
Martin added, laughing, “Lord knows we put her through enough so I’m really happy for her. She will be missed. She’s one of the greatest of all time.”
AP Basketball Writer Doug Feinberg contributed to this story.
AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball
FILE - Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder, left, stands with associate head coach Jan Jensen, right, before an NCAA college basketball game against Nebraska, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024, in Iowa City, Iowa. Bluder announced Monday, May 13, 2024, she is retiring after leading the Hawkeyes for 24 seasons. Jensen, longtime assistant to Bluder, was named the new head coach of the Iowa women's basketball team. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
Iowa women's NCAA college basketball head coach Lisa Bluder arrives on the Red Carpet before the world premiere and screening of Episode 1 of the upcoming ESPN+ Original Series Full Court Press, Monday, May 6, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
Iowa women's NCAA college basketball head coach Lisa Bluder arrives on the Red Carpet before the world premiere and screening of Episode 1 of the upcoming ESPN+ Original Series Full Court Press, Monday, May 6, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump laced into Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats on Thursday in a pointed and at times bitter speech as he headlined the annual Al Smith charity dinner in New York.
Trump, in remarks that often felt more like a rally speech than a comedy bit, repeatedly criticized Harris over her decision to skip the event, breaking with presidential tradition as she campaigned in Wisconsin. She recorded a video that was played onscreen instead.
“You should have told her the funds were going to bail out the looters and rioters in Minneapolis and then she’d be here,” Trump quipped, urging Catholics to vote for him in response.
“You gotta remember that I’m here and she’s not," he said.
The white-tie dinner raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and has traditionally offered candidates from both parties the chance to trade lighthearted barbs, poke fun at themselves, and show that they can get along — or at least pretend to — for one night in the election's final stretch.
It's often the last time the two nominees share a stage before Election Day.
Trump delivered a number of one-liners that drew hearty laughs. But he also questioned the mental fitness of Harris and President Joe Biden, commented on second gentleman Doug Emhoff's extramarital affair during his previous marriage, and made a joke about transgender women that echoed his frequent mocking of trans athletes on the campaign trail.
He said at one point that he would offer a couple of self-deprecating jokes before abandoning the effort. “Nope. I’ve got nothing,” he said to laughs.
“I just don’t see the point of taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me," he said, referencing his survival of two assassination attempts this year.
Of Biden, he said, “If the Democrats really wanted to have someone not be with us this evening, they would have sent Joe Biden."
Later, he said the current occupant of the White House “can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have the mental faculties of a child. This is a person that has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris.”
In the video she recorded for the occasion, Harris appeared alongside comedian and actress Molly Shannon, who reprised her long-running “Saturday Night Live” character Mary Katherine Gallagher, an awkward Catholic schoolgirl. She also poked fun at Trump for comments he made in Michigan, saying that mocking Catholics in the video would be “like criticizing Detroit in Detroit.”
Harris’ campaign had previously said that, with less than three weeks before Election Day, they wanted her to spend as much time as possible campaigning in battleground states that will decide the election, rather than detouring to heavily Democratic New York. Her team has told organizers that she would be willing to attend the dinner as president if she wins.
Trump was joined at the dinner by his wife, Melania, who has been an infrequent presence on the campaign trail.
The dais included a mix of Trump allies and foes, with various entanglements. They included New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a successful civil fraud case against Trump and his business. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who endorsed Trump after dropping his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, attended with his wife, Cheryl Hines.
New York’s embattled Mayor Eric Adams and other top city officials, as well as business leaders and sports and media personalities, were also in attendance. Adams was charged last month with accepting illegal campaign contributions and lavish overseas trips from Turkish officials and businesspeople — a case that was mentioned repeatedly, including by Trump.
Trump has claimed, without evidence, that Adams was targeted by authorities because he criticized Biden’s migrant policies.
“Mayor Adams: Good luck with everything,” Trump said, adding that what Adams faces is “peanuts” compared to his own legal woes.
He also went after former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was repeatedly booed by the crowd.
“To be honest, he was a terrible mayor," Trump said before offering a profanity at a religion-themed event. "I don’t give a s—- if this is comedy or not.”
The dinner was emceed by comedian Jim Gaffigan, who plays Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz on “Saturday Night Live.”
Gaffigan has a history of criticizing Trump. In 2020, he wrote on X, then named Twitter, that “We need to wake up. We need to call trump the con man and thief that he is.”
He largely kept his focus Thursday on others, including Adams, whom he introduced as “brought to you by Turkish Airlines.”
But he offered some hits, including when he referenced allegations that the Trump Organization in the 1970s discriminated against Black renters in its buildings.
“If Vice President Harris wins this election, not only would she be the first female president, a Black woman would occupy the White House, a former Trump residence,” Gaffigan said. “Obviously you wouldn't be renting to her. I mean, that would never happen anyway. Maybe if Doug did the signing.”
Trump's tone echoed his appearance in 2016, when he was joined by his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and delivered a particularly nasty speech, calling her “corrupt.”
“Hillary believes that it’s vital to deceive the people by having one public policy and a totally different policy in private,” he said to jeers. “For example, here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.”
Mary Callahan Erdoes, vice chair of the foundation, alluded to that when she introduced Trump, suggesting she hoped for something less caustic.
“You never disappoint. Your wit is absolutely fabulous. And all of us together are going to hope for the best,” she said to laughs.
Trump, too, referenced the performance onstage, saying that, in 2016, he "went overboard. That was like terrible. And I knew I was in trouble midway through."
That didn't stop him, however, from similar attacks.
The Harris campaign responded to Trump's speech with a statement saying it would remind “Americans how unstable he’s become.”
“He may refuse to release his medical records, but every day he makes it clear to the American people that he is not up to the job,” said spokesperson Ammar Moussa.
Trump's sense of humor is often cited by his supporters as key to his appeal. While he infamously glowered through former President Barack Obama’s jokes at his expense during the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, he also sometimes pokes fun at himself.
At several rallies this year, he has remarked on his hair after catching a glimpse of himself onscreen.
“What the hell can you do? There’s nothing I can do about it. We’re stuck with it," he joked at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, last month.
Both Trump and Biden, who is Catholic, spoke at a virtual version of the fundraiser in 2020, which was moved online due to concerns over large gatherings at the height of the pandemic.
The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner is named for the former New York governor, a Democrat who was the first Catholic to receive a major-party nomination for president when he unsuccessfully ran for the White House in 1928.
The event has become a tradition for presidential candidates since Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy appeared together in 1960. In 1996, the Archdiocese of New York decided not to invite then-President Bill Clinton and his Republican challenger, Bob Dole, reportedly because Clinton vetoed a late-term abortion ban.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., and Cardinal Timothy Dolan listen. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., listens at the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arrives for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Michael Bloomberg arrives for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump arrive for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
House Speaker Mike Johnson of La., arrives for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, center, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, arrive for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., and Cardinal Timothy Dolan gesture as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump watches at the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump atalks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., at the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump arrive for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waves at Trenton-Mercer Airport, in Mercer County, N.J., before departing en route to Milwaukee, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
FILE - Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris shake hands before the start of an ABC News presidential debate at the National Constitution Center, Sept. 10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
