A few months ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Iowa women’s basketball’s associate head coach Jan Jensen. If anybody gets the opportunity to talk to Jensen, let alone for all of 67 minutes — I highly recommend it.
While we’re well into the 2023-24 season, I wanted to share our conversation on some topics that still remain relevant today.
A national superstar inspiring the next generation. The visible bond and love the team had for each other. And a coaching staff that sacrificed for each other and reached goals set 23 years prior. A special relationship, and a mutual appreciation between a team and it’s fanbase.
Iowa women’s basketball is one-of-a-kind, and it all begins with the people. Perhaps nobody exemplifies the program like Associate Head Coach Jan Jensen.
POST GURU:
During our interview in late August, I asked Jan if she had her own RAYGUN shirt, what would it say?
After minutes of contemplation, and after I turned the camera off, a lightbulb went off.
And the rest was history:
The Hawkeyes have won quite a few games behind some elite post-play.
Jensen works with the post players on the team. In recent years, fans have enjoyed elite post-play from the likes of Megan Gustafson and Monika Czinano. Both are two of the three top scorers the university’s ever had.
The Hawkeyes may have another elite post on their hands in Hannah Stuelke, who won Big Ten sixth player of the year as a true freshman.
“Number one — I get way too much credit,” Jensen said in a one-on-one interview. “Honestly, I’m not saying that to be a nice person but it’s true.”
“The first thing you just have to get a kid that wants to be down there. I mean, they really have to want to be there.”
“There’s a difference in, ‘I can get on the floor if I play the post’ versus ‘I want to be down there.’ And if you want to be down there, we can work with that.”
Jensen won’t take credit for the success the program has seen — but I’ll give her a great deal of it. But, where does her coaching excellence come from?
The Kimbalton, Iowa native played the position herself. If you think Caitlin Clark can put a ball through a hoop — Coach J will blow you away. Jensen averaged 66 points per game in 1987 and led the entire country in scoring.
From there she played her college basketball at Drake where she led the nation in scoring yet again her senior year. Her coach was Lisa Bluder — whom she eventually joined as an assistant on the Bulldog bench and followed to Iowa City in 2000.
Jensen’s developed nine all-Big Ten post-players at Iowa — including two in the last five seasons. But the list of quality posts to play for Jensen go back much further.
In 2004, Jennie Lillis became an All Big-Ten player, and went on to become Drake’s head coach in 2012 and eventually earned the head coaching job at Oklahoma.
Jensen’s posts have earned 20 all-conference honors. From Megan Skouby, Morgan Johnson, Bethany Doolittle and Megan Gustafson and nearly everyone in between — the Hawkeyes have an argument for being “Post U.”
However, Jensen swears up and down there’s no secret scroll in the bowels of Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
“There’s really no magic with it,” Jensen said. “They’re the ones that do all the work. I just get a front row seat to watch. If you work hard and you have a good motor — we can work with that,” Jensen said.
Jensen’s had head coaching offers on the men’s and women’s side of college athletics. But she’s elected to bypass each and every of them over 24 years to stay with Coach Bluder and the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Jensen shared with me she never considered opportunities in the pros due to the difference in culture. The WNBA is a cut-throat business — most draft picks don’t even make the teams they’re drafted to. Most salaries aren’t enough to live off of, and opportunities can be on a week-to-week basis.
“I love the rings and all of that, but I love going to coffee with Monika and talking about what she’s going to be when she grows up,” Jensen said.
THE RUN:
After Jensen turned down the opportunity to be the head coach at Drake and teamed up with Jenni Fitzgerald and Lisa Bluder, there was long term goal in mind: Getting to a Final Four.
“When you make those decisions and you make sacrifices — decisions to stay or go, and when it happens you have such great satisfaction,” Jensen said.
For 23 years, the Hawkeyes made the NCAA tournament 17 times. Two sweet sixteens, and one elite eight.
And on March 26, 2023, Iowa reached the Final Four for the first time since 1993. A night in Seattle that served as a breakthrough 23 years in the making.
However, that morning, Jensen’s father Dale passed away at 86.
“I’ll never forget the moment when we won it,” Jensen said. “We always pick a kid to slap the bracket and Caitlin was like, ‘Come over and do it with me’ — and that gets me choked up.”
“Because you have this family that’s pulling you up. You have this group of people that are recognizing that moment. No coach ever slaps the bracket because your time’s gone. Everyone was like, ‘We did this for you and your dad.’”
Jensen took little credit for pushing through the agony that day. But that same humility is why the Hawkeyes love playing for the one they call Coach J.
“Coach J is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met,” Kate Martin said. ‘When you’re having a conversation with her, she will make you feel like there’s no one else that is around. She’s amazing.”
“I’ve never met a more loving person than Coach J,” Gabbie Marshall added. “She knows what she’s talking about, she knows what she’s doing — she’s always going to be there for us.”
“Jan could’ve been the head coach of Drake University,” head coach Lisa Bluder said. “But we had a dream — we wanted to go to a Final Four, we wanted to fill Carver.”
Bluder and Jensen have fulfilled those dreams and then some over their 23-plus years together. But that night in Seattle serves as a driving force to climb that same mountain again — with Jensen’s late parents in mind.
“I was telling my spouse Julie that sometime I’d like to have a year like that where it’s not weighted,” Jensen said. “My mom told be before she passed away, she said life is for the living, and I always remembered that.”
Natty Weekend:
Of course, we all know what happened. Iowa takes down undefeated South Carolina in an instant classic. 48 hours later Iowa goes from a a heavy underdog to get to the national championship, to favored to winning it.
“In that 48 hours, that’s the NCAA March Madness,” Jensen said. “I think the amount of energy that it took to beat South Carolina — and never have been there while knowing you had 1-2 hours to prepare a game plan that’s much different, it’s a lot.”
Of course, Iowa’s run fell just short of the top. Iowa lost to LSU 102-85 in a game that was a statistical anomaly. The Tigers knocked down 64% of their three point attempts — 30% above their average last season.
McKenna Warnock and Monika Czinano got in foul trouble and played just 47 minutes combined in the final game of their careers. It was just recently that the NCAA reviewed the officiating was “below expectations”.
“I mean, we went to the pinnacle, we gave it all we had,” Jensen said. “I would have loved to have won it, but looking back at that weekend is just a lot of gratitude.”
Jan’s charitable efforts:
Jensen is openly gay and is married to Julie Fitzpatrick. The two have a son, Jack, and a daughter, Janie.
When Jensen worked under Bluder in the 1990s, hardly any college athletes or coaches acknowledged their orientation — which gave Jensen pause as to whether that would affect the program. Reportedly, she offered her resignation to Bluder, who declined.
The rest was history — and Jensen and Bluder have been tied at the hip. In 2020, Jensen was recognized by DSM magazine as one of five LGBTQ Legacy leaders. And Jensen has used her status and financial stability to create positive change.
She’s a lead funder of the United Way of Johnson County, an organization that assists underserved populations. She’s co-chaired multiple campaigns that raised over $2.5 million in funds in 2014, and over $2 million in 2006.
“I think giving back is part of how I grew up,” Jensen said. “I grew up on a farm in southwest Iowa and farmers are, I think, kind of known for hard work, but also taking care of their communities.”
“I’ve had a blessed life, all because I love basketball. There’s so many people that haven’t been given the opportunities that I have. So when I get an opportunity to share, I just feel like that’s part of what God wants me to do with the platform — is if I can give back in any way.”
Jensen also had say in how the Crossover at Kinnick would be planned. To her, it was important to make the tickets just $10 per adult.
“I thought of all these people that can never afford a ticket,” Jensen said. “That’s out of all these folks that are listening to their radios in the car or watching TV, but could never dream of coming to Carver-Hawkeye Arena to watch our games.”
“The percentage of kids that go to school hungry, the percentage of kids that go that without the transportation of buses cannot get there because their families are working two jobs. I get emotional just to think how lucky was I that I had an upbringing that I did. I got the best seats — I get paid to watch it right? Giving back it’s the least I can do for the things I’ve been given.”
Jan’s Hawkeyes are 9-1 on the season, and will open up Big Ten play Sunday against Wisconsin.
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