Lynette Woodard is an all-time basketball talent.
She enjoyed immense collegiate success. She won an Olympic gold medal and several other international gold medals with Team USA. She is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Yet despite her many accolades, Woodard has not always received the level of recognition equal to her success.
Iowa guard Caitlin Clark set the NCAA Division I women's basketball scoring record when she posted her 3,528th point against Michigan in February. But Woodard graduated Kansas in 1981 with 3,649 points.
Clark passed Woodard's mark in with a 33-point triple-double in Iowa's win Wednesday against Minnesota. Ahead of the game, Woodard said she was thrilled for the Hawkeyes' senior guard.
"Congratulations, welcome to the party," Woodard said when asked what she would tell Clark, per USA Today.
MORE: Caitlin Clark passes Lynette Woodard points record
Woodard enjoyed a legendary career at Kansas during which she set the women's college basketball scoring record, even if the NCAA does not consider it to be the current Division I record. Here's a look back at her collegiate career.
Lynette Woodard scoring record
A native of Wichita, Kansas, Woodard wound up staying in her home state for college.
She was an immediate star upon her arrival in Lawrence, Kansas. As a true freshman in 1977-78, she set several single-game and season records for the Jayhawks. Woodard scored a then-record 45 points against Wichita State on Feb. 24, 1978, and she tallied a still-record 33 rebounds against Kansas State on Jan. 28, 1978.
Woodard finished her freshman season leading the Jayhawks in scoring with 833 points (25.2 per game) and rebounds with 490 (14.8 per game), and she helped power the team to a 22-11 record. Her 833 points set the program record, which to date only Woodard has passed (twice).
The Kansas star continued to dominate for Kansas. The next season, Woodard upped her scoring total with 1,117 points, which remains the single-season program record.
Along the way, she had five games in which she scored at least 40 games, including three such games in February. She scored 49 in a win over Missouri State on Feb. 10, 1979, setting the single-game record. In Kansas history, no other players have any more than one 40-plus scoring game. She also had 17 games in which she scored at least 30 points, which is also a record.
The scoring total wasn't Woodard's only record that season. She also racked up 545 rebounds, 56 blocks and 193 steals, all of which set single-season records. The rebounds and steals remain single-season program records. That season kicked off the first of three straight conference titles for Kansas, the program's first Big Eight championships.
MORE: Caitlin Clark's 11 highest-scoring games for Iowa
Woodard took just a matter of games in the 1979-80 campaign to surpass her former teammate, Adrian Mitchell, as the highest-scoring player in Kansas history. She finished her junior season with 881 points, topped only in program history by her previous campaign.
As a senior, she continued to add to her program lead in points scored. She reached her career total of 3,649 points with 758 more points in 1980-81. Until 2009, when Danielle McCray scored 777 points, Woodard had tallied all the four of the highest-scoring seasons by a Kansas player in program history.
While Woodard held countless records, the NCAA does not recognize them. During Woodard's collegiate career, women's basketball was governed by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). Not until the 1981-82 season, which immediately followed Woodard's final year, did the NCAA begin to offer championships for collegiate women's athletics.
The NCAA admits certain records from the AIAW. Program win-loss records are part of NCAA record books, even if the wins and losses came before a program's arrival in the NCAA. The same goes for coaching wins and losses. And if a player spent a majority of their time in the NCAA (two of three seasons played, for example), their AIAW stats would be folded into their NCAA accomplishments.
However, that is not the case for many players from the AIAW, including Woodard.
"I want NCAA governing body to know that they should respect the [AIAW] players. They should respect the history. Include us and our accomplishments," Woodard said, per USA Today. "This is the era of diversity, equity and inclusion. They should include us. We deserve it."
Woodard went on to have plenty of accomplishments after her collegiate days. She became the first female player on the Harlem Globetrotters, and she won gold medals at the 1984 Olympics, 1990 World Cup, 1983 Pan American Games, among others. Woodard also was one of the first players in the WNBA, as she was drafted by the Cleveland Rockers in the inaugural WNBA draft.
MORE: When will Caitlin Clark pass Pete Maravich for scoring title?
Lynette Woodard stats
| Year | G | FG-FGA (FG%) | REB | AST | BLK | STL | PTS | PPG |
| 1977-78 | 33 | 366-736 (49.7%) | 490 | 70 | -- | -- | 833 | 25.2 |
| 1978-79 | 38 | 519-924 (56.2%) | 545 | 97 | 56 | 193 | 1,177 | 31 |
| 1979-80 | 37 | 372-738 (50.4%) | 389 | 165 | 35 | 177 | 881 | 23.8 |
| 1980-81 | 31 | 315-596 (52.8%) | 310 | 170 | 35 | 152 | 758 | 24.5 |
| Career | 139 | 1,572-2,994 (52.5%) | 1,734 | 432 | 126 | 522 | 3,649 | 26.3 |
