Lisa Bluder and Jan Jensen discuss their ‘winning combination’ at the University of Iowa

CEDAR RAPIDS — Jan Jensen calls her boss a “hall of famer” in everything she does.

Jensen’s boss is Lisa Bluder and their business is coaching women’s basketball at the University of Iowa.

And — along with Jenni Fitzgerald — the three have a very successful operation.

Bluder, Jensen and Fitzgerald have been together for 24 years at Iowa — before that, they spent eight years at Drake University. Last season ended in the NCAA title game.

Bluder has won 850 games as a head women’s basketball coach, 494 at Iowa. She gets the credit for the wins, but also gives credit to her two top assistants.

“I knew we had a winning combination,” Bluder said Thursday during her keynote address with Jensen to kick off The Gazette’s Iowa Ideas Conference. “We wanted two things (when they left Drake) — we wanted to get to the Final Four and we wanted a full Carver-Hawkeye.”

Mission accomplished. Season tickets for Iowa’s games this season at Carver-Hawkeye Arena are sold out. And this weekend, the team will play a scrimmage at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. “Crossover at Kinnick” — a first-time event, which has sold more than 50,000 tickets — will benefit the University of Iowa’s Stead Family Children’s Hospital.

“She has a really cool leadership style,” Jensen said of Bluder, who she first met when Bluder took over the Drake program during Jensen’s senior season.

Jensen and her teammates were not, at first, thrilled about a new coach coming on board, she said during Thursday’s keynote. But after Bluder addressed the team following a loss in a tournament in Hawaii, “from that point on, the whole team shifted,” Jensen said.

“The fun, the scolding, the pushing,” she said. “She’s smart and she’s fun, but she’s going to kick you in the you-know-what when you need it.”

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Bluder said she put her staff — her team — together for one simple reason.

“You hire people who can cover up your weaknesses,” she said “ … I think I’ve done that with Jan and Jenni.”

A good boss, Jensen said, is someone who will let you talk freely, someone who will listen even when they may not agree.

“You let them have a voice and you don’t look over their shoulder.” Jensen said. “Sometimes she accepts (what I say), sometimes she doesn't.”

Recruiting, both said, isn’t unlike hiring people for a business. You learn as much as you can about the prospect and make sure they are a good fit.

“We recruit great young women that happen to be great basketball players,” Jensen said.

College athletes now have the opportunity to shop around, even after they join a program, like employees in the “real world.” Bluder said she thinks the transfer portal is a good thing for athletes.

“If you don’t want to be part of our team, I don’t want you to be part of our team,” she said Thursday.

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And if someone on your team happens to shine a little brighter than the others, that’s fine, too. Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, the reigning women’s basketball player of the year — among many other things — is the face of Iowa women’s basketball, but she’s not Iowa women’s basketball.

Teaching a star to be a good teammate is key.

“What we hope is that she raises the bar” for everyone, Bluder said. “When Caitlin’s light shines, it shines on all of us.”

Having mentors on and off the court is important, the women said. They both list the late Dr. Christine Grant — the former Iowa women’s athletics director and a pioneer in women’s sports — as a guiding light.

Bluder keeps a picture of her and Grant on her desk. But she said she now looks more to business leaders for guidance.

“This is a business … this is a large business,” Bluder said.

“I’ve worked so many years with my mentor,” Jensen said of Bluder.

Jensen said she and Bluder are “almost like family” and it’s one for the main reasons she has stayed on her staff for so long. There have been head coaching opportunities, but she said “you have to find the path that’s right for you.

“I know the value I bring to this organization.”

Comments: (319) 398-8461; jr.ogden@thegazette.com