In Iowa girls' sports teams matter. The annual state girls' basketball tournament in Des Moines is a major event. People from a lot of the surrounding small communities follow us. While basketball in and of itself enjoys great popularity throughout the Midwest, the attention paid to Iowa's girls' sports in unique. But the game is much more than a test of athletic ability - the girls themselves insist on the importance of learning teamwork and having fun.
Basketball is a tradition, a heritage, a festival.
Basketball also provides Iowa girls with the opportunity to develop leadership skills evidenced in the high proportion of women active across the state in business, voluntary activities, and politics. Throughout the state's history, Iowans have been social reformist in orientation, having enacted the first prohibition law in the country, for example, and taken a strong stand against slavery. In keeping with this heritage and a reliance on the value of local autonomy, Iowa lacks a statewide, codified curriculum for its nationally recognized public school system, preferring instead to rely on district-level initiatives for determining the quality and content of education in a specific locale. Iowa's political precinct caucuses embody democracy on a grassroots level. Before the presidential party caucuses, Iowans across the state with friends and neighbors and even presidential candidates to discuss party platform issues.