WNBA Reflects, Advances Gains for Women

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The branded blue and green T-shirts are washed and folded, stored on a closet shelf for another year. The stylish waist-length sweatshirt with blue-and-white cuffs may come out for a college game, but the colors are wrong for the Golden Gophers women’s basketball team whose pre-season games will start up in November.

As the WNBA finals sprint to an exhilarating conclusion in the league’s 30th season, the first series ever to go to seven games, I am reflecting on the dashed dreams for this year’s Minnesota Lynx and how the chaos and camaraderie, the elation and energy, mirror the ups and downs of daily life.

We began with high hopes last spring, confident in the ability of our storied coach and No. 2 draft pick Oliva Miles, who would win accolades all season; then suddenly, on a Tuesday evening in September, it was over. The top-ranked Minnesota Lynx would not be adding a fifth championship banner to the Target Center rafters, along with the five retired jersey numbers from past glory days.

Maybe folks who have followed sports for decades would have taken the loss more in stride. Experience would have told them that the emotional roller coaster (“the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat,” as Jim McKay used to intone on ABC’s Wide World of Sports) is an inevitable part of following a favorite team.

But for me — and I suspect many older female fans for whom youth “sports” consisted of cheerleading and dance classes — the embarrassing, abrupt end to the Lynx’s season on September 29 was a crash, an unexpected comedown. The No. 1 seed among the WNBA’s 15 teams, the coach who earned top honors for an unprecedented fifth time, the comeback, however tentative, of our star player from double ankle surgery, the surge of “The Rookie,” also named to “best of” honors this year.

We had it all, but I never thought we’d win it all.

  • Too short a bench, given the loss of two starters (one to Dallas, one to Portland) and two key bench players (one to Seattle, another to Dallas), all due to wide-ranging free agency in 2025.
  • Too much of a tendency for Cheryl Reeve, our all-time winningest coach — another honor she garnered this season — to pick strategic, team-centered players rather than tall ones. (Think Angel Reese, whom the Lynx passed on back in 2024.)

I certainly expected to get past the first round, despite four losses in six games leading up to the playoffs. Despite the bad luck of having to face our nemesis in the 2024 finals as our first playoff opponent. In a bitter, controversial conclusion, the New York Liberty beat us in overtime of Game 5 in 2024 when Lynx star Napheesa Collier, then 28, talking about how “pressure was privilege,” was in her prime.

“Failure is the fuel that drives you forward.”

— Breanna Stewart

Instead, the eighth-seeded Liberty, powered by 6-4 guard and former UConn star Breanna Stewart, fresh off a triumphant Team USA win at the FIBA Women’s World Cup in Berlin, swept us in a three-game series: 91–75 at home and 87–71 in Brooklyn. Given New York’s height and depth — a 6-6 starting center, a 6-11 backup center, any number of bench players who can reliably make 3-point shots — we couldn’t touch them.

“Season ends in historic sweep,” my local paper’s headline declared the next day. “Lynx are first top seed to lose in opening round since WNBA went to current playoff format in 2022.”

The morning after the game, I had my regular monthly breakfast with a longtime friend, ironically at the very restaurant where my husband and I had watched the Lynx lose the night before. I was distracted and out of sorts, unable to listen well or, at times, even to follow the conversation.

Why was I so off? Why did it matter so much? Because the Lynx and the WNBA represent more than basketball to their fans. These athletes matter because they’re making history — including standing firm on a 2026 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that raises salaries, rewards retired veteran players and requires a pregnant player to consent before she’s traded, among other equity initiatives.

These athletes matter because of the strength and courage, the ferocity and gumption they display in every game: sacrificing their bodies to block a shot, faceplanting on the floor, trash talking an opponent to get inside her head (a skill that Reese, of the Atlanta Dream, claims can’t be taught). “When you can step out of your comfort zone and be uncomfortable, you see what you’re made of and who you are,” said legendary Seattle point guard Sue Bird before retiring in 2022. I wish I had been more encouraged to do that as a girl.

Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve
The new CBA took 17 months to finalize.

Whether fans are recent converts like me or loyal season-ticket holders who’ve hung in since arenas were half empty, we’re all taking notice of the game’s growing physicality and sharp competitive edge, as well as the star power of players who amplify their image on social media.

According to The Athletic’s “No Off-Season” podcast (which I use to boost my basketball IQ and follow teams beyond the Lynx), more than 91 million viewers tuned in for the 2026 season — doubling the WNBA’s television reach just a year before.

“With each generation, we push the game forward,” declared an ad for the “W,” as fans call it, before Game 4 of the finals featuring the Atlanta Dream and the Golden State Valkyries, widely considered the two strongest defensive teams. No more dank, inferior weight rooms, or playing games in school gymnasiums, or putting up with undersized arenas, like the Atlanta Dream’s Gateway Center that seats only 3,500 people.

The Dream’s home games for this year’s playoffs moved to the 17,000-seat State Farm Arena, home to the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. And the arena filled. True, Game 6 had to be rescheduled from the evening to early afternoon, to accommodate the men’s team, and that caused some predictable cries of sexism. But when nearly five times as many fans get to experience the women’s game in person? I’ll take that as a win.

“Believe in yourself, even when others doubt you.”

— Candace Parker

My fervent following of women’s basketball has become a running joke among my friends. They’ve learned that a quick question will elicit a detailed, impassioned answer and that I’ll schedule our get-togethers around WNBA and NCAA women’s basketball. They understand that the game holds deeper meaning for me than sports, that I embrace it as a feminist, as a sure sign of women’s progress and as an athletic older woman who had too few opportunities — and too little daring — to play the game herself.

My health club has a special rate and restricted hours for seniors, which initially I resented. Now, as I have grown to accept my own advancing age and encroaching physical limitations, I embrace the chance to work out among my peers. Every time I’m strength training, I note the number of older women bucking the messages we were raised with — be skinny, be small, don’t sweat or take up space — by pushing ourselves to be as powerful as possible at our ages.

Female athletes inspired that.

A Bar of Their Own in Minneapolis welcomes male customers but broadcasts only women’s sports.

Walk into A Bar of Their Own, the women’s sports bar on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis, and you’ll see photos of Lynx assistant coach Lindsay Whalen, focused and intense, as a University of Minnesota record-setting point guard. There’s a muscular shot of former Lynx standout Maya Moore palming a basketball, strong deltoid muscles giving shape to her shoulders, in a pose that pays homage to Chicago Bulls great Michael Jordan. Both Hall of Fame athletes, Whalen and Moore stretch the boundaries of what being a woman means, from cautious and acquiescent femininity to the self-confidence, determination and consistent practice that being a competitor requires.

It’s tempting to write off sports figures as just that — people who entertain but don’t enlighten us. For the Minnesota Lynx, however, that isn’t true. I’ve cheered at games this past season that began with a moment of silence for Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the two Minnesota protesters gunned down by ICE agents during the racist and violent and offensively branded Operation Metro Surge in January. At another game we honored groundbreaking state Representative Karen Clark (DFL-Minneapolis), a fighter for marriage equality and many other progressive causes who was the first openly lesbian member to serve in the Minnesota Legislature.

We had a moment of silence in June 2025 when a madman impersonating a police officer murdered Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, and their family dog at the front door of their home.

“I want my legacy to be the joy I brought to others.”

— Caitlin Clark

The WNBA historically has spoken out on social issues, including Black Lives Matter, reproductive justice and this year, the question of whether trans women should be allowed to play collegiate and professional women’s sports. “Women’s sports itself remains somewhat of an act of protest, even after the passing of Title IX,” wrote San Francisco Guardian columnist Andrew Lawrence after Minneapolis police officers suffocated George Floyd on a public street in May 2020, which inspired protests throughout the league. “The WNBA has been fighting for respect since its inception.”

As a straight, white, cisgender senior enamored with a league built on the talents and tenacity of Black, queer women, I listen, I learn. I sometimes disagree or get discouraged. But I see hope in the faces of the little girls and young women in the arena who will pick up the basketball, carry the torch — and challenge themselves and our society in ways that my generation could only dream of.

What I Learned From My ‘Week Without Driving’

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How would your life change if driving wasn’t an option?

That is the question posed by Week Without Driving, an annual campaign — running the first week of October in 2026 — that aims to help those of us who do own a car interrogate our transportation habits. And learn to practice new ones.

Launched in 2021 as a Disability Movement Initiative, #WeekWithoutDriving encourages registered participants to put themselves in the shoes of people who can’t afford a vehicle, who have aged out of driving, who don’t qualify for a driver’s license or who are physically unable to drive.

“For people who can grab their keys and go, transportation often isn’t a major concern,” says the Week Without Driving homepage. “But for those of us who can’t drive or can’t afford to, transportation is something we think about daily.”

As the owner of a plug-in Prius and an active transportation advocate who aims to drive as little as possible, I decided to design my own Week Without Driving ahead of the actual event. I tracked my progress — and my setbacks — along with a few learnings that I hope will help others navigate the challenge.

Week Without Driving challenges you to rely on riding the bus, walking, biking/scooting or asking for rides to understand what it takes to get where you need to go without driving.

Prepare for a series of decisions.

In hindsight, I was smart to start my self-imposed Week Without Driving on a Sunday — when traffic is lighter and the world moves more slowly, when I could savor moving outdoors in the 70-degree sunshine.

I was scheduled to meet a friend for an outdoor brunch at W.A. Frost, long considered to have the best patio dining in St. Paul. Since I was headed that way, why not pick up a few groceries at my favorite food co-op? Both are on a Bus Rapid Transit line that stops three blocks from my house.

Photos by Amy Gage

And so began my planning for the first day of not driving:

  • I consulted the bus schedule the night before and put the options in my iPhone calendar.
  • I dressed carefully, ensuring that I wore shoes I could move in, but not too casually given the potential formality of a Sunday brunch.
  • And I skipped an 8 a.m. yoga class because I would have had to drive there after spending 45 minutes walking my two dogs. I opted instead to work in the kitchen and do my own hip-stretching routine at home.

None of it was hard to do — in fact, choosing to walk the 8 blocks between the restaurant and food co-op energized me after the leisurely meal — but active transportation did require more time and initiative than simply hopping in my car.

Would my willingness hold for the next six days of Week Without Driving? Truth be told, it didn’t. Walking that much (24,000 steps on my first day) eventually wore me down, and both transit and biking proved harder to manage on a couple of busy weekdays.

“Some short car trips are necessary; for example, health and mobility issues might limit our ability to walk. Other times, driving is convenient,” says the Environmental Protection Agency.

Aim to both inspire and inform.

People who refuse to take mass transit — or to walk or bike on at least some of their errands and activities — generally have little experience with active transportation.

Day 2 of my self-imposed Week Without Driving was rainy and chilly, and I probably would have driven had I been less committed to this challenge. Instead, I donned my raincoat and Oboz hiking shoes (the best) and walked to a neighborhood coffee shop to meet a fellow Planned Parenthood volunteer.

After I told him that I had to catch a bus in 70 minutes for another commitment — information that I like to share at the top of a meeting, so as not to appear rude when I have to bolt away — he said he rarely uses the city bus line a block from his house. He drove to this meeting a walkable distance from where he lives. He and his family even drove to the Minnesota State Fair last summer and paid 40 bucks to park on someone’s lawn because they didn’t want to wait in line for the event’s free bus network.

Later that afternoon, my banker expressed surprise that I had walked to our meeting during a heavy rainstorm. He told me he had driven to work rather than walk less than a mile because his legs were tired from refereeing his children’s soccer games the day before.

At age 69, I get it. I also understand that personal actions alone won’t solve the climate crisis. But first, can we agree that Americans’ obsession with driving is an unhealthy practice, both for our bodies and our environment?

I-94 in St. Paul (left); student housing near the University of St. Thomas

Consider:

  • The Environmental Protection Agency, even in the anti-climate Trump administration, encourages biking or walking to activities under a mile away. “Car trips of under a mile add up to about 10 billion miles per year,” the EPA says.
  • St. Paul’s Climate Action and Resilience Plan calls for 40% of all trips within the city to be taken by bus, bike or transit by 2030. That’s only four years away.
  • A 2025 study from the World Resources Institute says that “living car-free,” making a commitment to “walk, bike or take transit more,” and carpooling or bundling your errands into one trip when you do have to drive rank among the top 10 ways that individuals can make climate-friendly choices.

I mentioned none of this to the banker: Virtue signaling and shaming don’t motivate anyone to change. But maybe by cheerfully shrugging off a rainy walk, or explaining the convenience of Metro Transit’s BRT system to the Planned Parenthood volunteer when he inquired, I inspired them to rethink their choices.

“Transportation is often discussed as a service gap, but it is also a dignity issue. Mobility is not merely getting from point A to point B. It is the freedom to remain part of the world,” says age-friendly advocate Dave Beal.

Allow exceptions and grant yourself grace.

By 5 p.m. on the second day of my self-imposed Week Without Driving, I have 22,685 steps, and I’m done. I cancel my plans to hear “James” author Percival Everett at the University of St. Thomas that evening — it’s chilly and damp out, and it would have meant walking another couple of miles to and from campus — and instead settle in for the evening.

That highlights another reality of car-free living: You can’t overschedule your time, a habit that I find more difficult to manage as I age.

The next day, my husband and I ran errands in the Prius because I couldn’t persuade him to bike or take the bus. Excuses come easily when driving is more convenient. Still, Week Without Driving “is not a purity test,” a friend at the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota reminds me; in fact, the initiative’s guidelines assure participants that they didn’t “fail the challenge” if they set foot in a car.

Three factors make active transportation possible for me:

  • I am strong and healthy, thanks to a lifetime of health insurance coverage and parents who encouraged physical fitness, helping me develop a love of movement.
  • I live in an urban neighborhood conducive to not driving. Four bus lines and one light-rail train are within reasonable walking distance of my home, and the bicycle infrastructure slowly is improving.
  • I have the means to afford two bikes, various exercise shoes, a gym membership and strength-training equipment in my basement.

Not everyone enjoys all those advantages. Week Without Driving seeks to remind privileged people — those who have reliable transportation options and the physical means to move — what life is like for people who, for a variety of reasons, cannot drive.

The initiative asks us to advocate for systems change that will improve mobility, which the Mobility Lab, a research center in Arlington, Virginia, defines as having the time to get where you need to go, the ability to afford those transportation options and the safety to walk, bike or take transit.

“Living by a bus that comes once an hour isn’t mobility,” the Mobility Lab says, which is one reason why so many suburbanites drive everywhere. “Owning a car in a city with congested highways isn’t mobility either. To have mobility is to have access.”

Food for thought as we all prepare to vote this election season. Mobility, like other forms of equity, won’t just happen unless we work for it.

Advice on Being a Grandparent: Don’t Give Advice!

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It’s been over a year since Arthur’s birth on July 22, 2025 — and I still smile when I see how my home has morphed into a grandma’s house. A little here, a little there: one purchase, one donated castoff, one lucky discovery at a time. The metal wagon with fat wheels, perfect for storing toys in the garage and then hauling them around the yard, was my best “alley find” yet.

The metamorphosis of what had functioned as our empty-nest house in the city, 40 miles from the small town where my husband and I raised our children, has happened gradually, mirroring the time it has taken me to evolve from anxious grandparent to active, engaged Grandma.

A green Duplo dinosaur adorned with red and blue Duplo blocks — saved from our own boys’ childhoods — has replaced the decorative candle in the living room. The plants on a window ledge in my workout area in the basement have made way for Fisher Price toys that a friend passed along once her grandkids had outgrown them.

Because my husband and I had children in our 30s, which our son did as well, we haven’t had to invest much in baby supplies. At 75 and 69, respectively, we are old for first-time grandparents. Friends and neighbors who have been on this path for years are only too happy to offload old toys, a plastic backyard chair, a baby-sized comforter, even a crib. For the essentials — a highchair and a three-wheeled Thule jogging stroller, my proudest purchase and a delightful way for Arthur and his athletic grandmother to spend time together — Facebook Marketplace has been a godsend.

“Don’t buy any toys without checking with the parents,” said Mary Carlsen, a professor emerita of social work and family studies at St. Olaf College, whom I knew as a “soccer mom” way back when. “Young people have strong opinions about them these days.” That prompted me to lay out the various toys and thick-page books I had accumulated so my son and daughter-in-law could review them and approve.

A more broad-based version of that advice came from my neighbor Kate Barr, who has two grandchildren. “As [your children] learn to be parents, I advocate that you follow their lead on parenting,” she said, in response to a query that I emailed to experienced grandparents two days before Arthur’s birth. “I’ve never been in the ‘grandmother who spoils the grandkid’ camp.”

“It’s hard to remember sometimes to respect boundaries and not just step in and take over. These are your kids’ kids, not your kids.”

Our son insisted that the four older adults who would routinely provide care for Arthur — his dad and me, along with his mother-in-law and her youngest sister, Aunt Carol — take a grandparenting class at a center in Edina where Nate and his wife had taken a daylong parenting class.

“I had no idea there were grandparent classes,” said my childhood friend Janey Gislason, who helped us through the birth of both our sons. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”

Neither did I. But in hindsight, it makes sense; our younger son was 30 when Arthur was born, which meant I hadn’t fed or changed a baby in nearly three decades. At the time, however, I viewed it as a cheeky demand, one I would not have presumed to make of my own parents — who raised five children — or of my stepmother, who was the most caring and competent grandparent of them all.

I detailed in my blog’s New Year’s letter back in January some of what the class taught us about how parenting trends have changed:

  • No baby blankets for sleeping, due to fears of suffocation. Instead, you zip the baby into a “sleeping sack” that costs up to $45.
  • No stuffed animals in the crib, which had helped my son (and me, so many decades ago) feel nurtured and secure.
  • Although Arthur initially resisted “tummy time,” it was required to help him “develop the muscles of the head, neck and upper back.” I never did intentional tummy time when my boys were babies, and they’re both huge and healthy. But no matter. As one of my sisters succinctly put it: “Learn to know which subjects to keep your mouth shut about.”

A year later, as I reviewed the notes I took in class, one comment from the teacher stood out: “About half the people in any class have been ‘voluntold’ to come,” she said to a round of laughter. At the time, I rolled my eyes. Now I get it.

Millennial adults aren’t having children until their late 30s and early 40s, and they have fewer than the Midwestern, middle-income, small-town families in which my husband and I were raised. Do you value each child more when you don’t have as many? Are you more careful with each precious package because babies’ arrivals are now carefully planned around work and other “adulting” considerations?

Whatever the social or emotional reasons, the power dynamic has shifted between parents and their grown children. The wisdom and expertise that I sought from my own parents, the idea that our baby’s grandparents had something to teach us — Mom urging me to soothe Sam and Nate by holding them cheek to cheek against my face, Dad advising me on circumcision for the boys — is as outdated as a copper penny. And worth about as much.

Our children are in charge. “If I want to be allowed any alone time with grandbaby — without his parents hovering over me like prison guards — I need to at least pretend that I share their worries and fears,” quips one of my former colleagues, like me a first-time grandmother.

“As the child gets a little bit older, find something to do that’s just yours alone to do with your grandchild. That will create special memories.”

None of us gets out of childhood and adolescence without having survived at least one family tragedy. For my husband, it was his mother’s death from cancer when he was 12; for me, it was my parents announcing their pending divorce on my 14th birthday. For my daughter-in-law, Tess, it was her father’s drowning when she was just 13.

And yet her family has endured, in a way that mine did not after the divorce blew it all to pieces. Three of her mother’s four sisters live nearby, whereas mine reside in separate time zones. The aunts and uncles and cousins all celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving with white elephant exchanges and other traditions, along with holiday cookie bakes, game nights and an annual summer gathering at her mother’s log cabin lake home in northern Minnesota.

Arthur, of course, has become part of it all — including a multi-generational celebration of his first birthday at the lake this past July. My son sent photos. I have had to work to sidestep jealousy, an ugly emotion that makes me feel inadequate and insecure, and elicits painful memories of how my own extended family has either scattered or died, including, many years ago, the one sibling who lived in town.

Again, I have turned to friends and loved ones for perspective:

  • “The more people who love that child, the better chance he has in a frightening world,” my friend Helene Haapala told me. That advice made so much sense, and her compassion struck me so deeply, that I have taken to whispering to Arthur: Do you know how many people love you?
  • “At times it can be hard to have a relationship with the other grandparents,” my friend and neighbor Noelle Jacquet-Morrison wrote in response to my emailed query. “Trust yourself. You will be amazing and amazed at what you can do.”
  • “Start your own traditions,” my friend David Fortney advised. I took part in Tess’s family Christmas last year when her mother kindly invited me because my husband was out of town, but I don’t want to always be a guest at other families’ celebrations. This December, I am going to drive my dog to Colorado to spend Christmas with my widowed sister, and I want to establish December 29 — my late brother’s birthday — as the day we celebrate the holidays with Arthur and his folks.

“Focus on your own relationship with your grandchild, and let the other grandparents focus on theirs,” says an article from the grandparenting website “More Than Grand.” “Be the best grandparent you can be, whatever your circumstances, and you will be a loved and important part of your grandchild’s team.”

Through the eyes of a grandchild, you get to see the world anew. I arrange to have Arthur spend one day a week at our house, during which we visit the public library, go on stroller rides to look for flowers, share blueberry scones from a nearby bakery and watch WNBA games on TV as he eventually nods off on my lap.

Here’s what I have to offer him: homemade eggs and hugs, goofball games and laughter, music on the stereo and movement outdoors. Like the Duplo bricks I gather from our yard and living room once Arthur has gone home, those are the building blocks of a grandparental bond, an evolving relationship. Our relationship, and the joy it brings to both of us.