Iowa alum Sue Beckwith pays it forward

“I think she felt an upward trajectory before then. In 2019, we were one game away from the Final Four. Megan [Gustafson] was the National Player of the Year,” Bluder told The Next. “I feel like what we had done leading up to that is what made her decide to give the gift.”

That trajectory skyrocketed higher than anyone could have imagined since announcing the endowment at the end of Caitlin Clark’s freshman season which was played in empty arenas due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. 

Once crowds were let back into the arenas, Clark’s dynamic logo 3-pointers and pinpoint passing wowed not only Hawkeye supporters, but fans across the nation — and even the world. During her journey in becoming the all-time NCAA Division I scoring leader — men’s or women’s — Clark was named NPOY twice, leading the Hawkeyes to back-to-back Final Four berths and selling out not only the 15,000-seat Carver-Hawkeye Arena, but many away stadiums along the way. 

While that certainly has been an extraordinary return on investment for the retired physician who has three degrees from the University of Iowa, Beckwith is most pleased with the program’s family-like atmosphere and the coaches’ commitment to the athletes’ education.

Bluder retired in May 2024 after 24 seasons as Iowa’s head coach, handing off the reins to her longtime assistant Jan Jensen, who is preparing for her second season as head coach. Beckwith said they have been pillars of what her endowment represents. 

“I couldn’t be more proud of both of them,” she told The Next. “Their focus is the women and the women’s future, and building those women. That’s what it’s all about. It’s not about winning games. It’s about giving people an opportunity for an education, for learning all the lessons that sports teaches, for giving them leadership skills and confidence and all those things that they’re going to be successful the rest of their lives. And both Lisa and Jan are focused on those things.

“I’ve been on some search committees. If somebody is just focused on winning, that isn’t us, we got to have all those other things,” she added. “And fortunately, there are people that can do both. It’s hard. It’s really, really hard to get to a national championship, but they can do both.”

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Humble beginnings

Beckwith grew up in Boone, Iowa, a quiet town of about 12,000 people just 15 miles west of Ames, home of Iowa State University.  

“Things were different back then. It was just our single mother, my sister and I,” she recalled.

”When I think back and realize that my mom existed on $9,000 a year forever, I mean, that’s not much. But it was a great childhood.” 

She wasn’t introduced to athletics until she was in sixth grade in the early 1970s when she became friends with the new girls’ basketball coach’s daughter. 

“She introduced me to the concept and we started playing at the Y a little bit in junior high. We didn’t have all that AAU stuff,” she said.

It didn’t take her long to realize that Iowa was unique in that it had sanctioned high school girls’ sports teams, dating back to the 1920s when the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union was formed. 

“I was lucky to live in Iowa for a lot of reasons,” Beckwith said. “In regard to athletics, when I see what people had available on whatever border — Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska — my friends certainly didn’t have the things that we had in Iowa.”

Iowa was also unique in that it was one of the few states that played six-on-six girls’ basketball until 1993. In the half-court format, each team had three forwards and three guards. Only the forwards were allowed to shoot the ball, and players could only dribble twice before shooting or passing.  

As a forward in high school, Beckwith could definitely put the ball through the hoop, but her dribbling and defensive skills were limited, making it unlikely she would extend her basketball career into college. 

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Destined to be a doctor

Beckwith enrolled at the University of Iowa in 1976 — not to become a basketball player, but rather to fulfill a lifelong goal to become a doctor. 

“I went to Iowa to go to med school. That was always my thought process,” she said. ”My sister and I are physicians, and that was decided before we were born. So, that was always the path. I never questioned it.”

She went to tryouts for the women’s basketball team, which was coached by Lark Birdsong, who became Iowa’s first coach in 1974 after Title IX was ratified in 1972. Chrstine Grant, who was Iowa’s women’s athletic director from 1973-2000, played a key role advocating for Title IX’s implementation. 

The five-player full-court format was much different than what Beckwith played in high school. 

“Coming in tryouts the first time, coming down that court and seeing nine people down there, it’s like, ‘Whoa, where’d all those people come from?’”

But Birdsong saw Beckwith’s determination and willingness to learn, and by the middle of her freshman year, she was Iowa’s starting point guard. 

“She was a great, great person to coach,” Birdsong told The Next. “She played with heart and grit, and she had a fierce commitment to her team, and she was loyal and deep. She was deeply invested in what we were doing.”

“By her final year, she was averaging a little over 10 points per game, a little over three assists per game and a little over three rebounds per game,” Birdsong added. “I’m really proud of those stats, because she was a very good floor general.”

Beckwith, who was teammates with former Women’s Basketball League All-Star Cindy Haugejorde, was named Iowa’s team MVP after the 1978-79 season. 

Keeping to her goal of becoming a doctor, Beckwith received her bachelor’s degree from UI in 1980 and her doctor of medicine degree in 1984. She later earned a MBA from UI in 2015. 

She was the only colorectal surgeon in Iowa for many years, devoting all of her time to her Des Moines practice with the Iowa Clinic Department of Surgery before retiring in 2018.

“During that time that I worked, that’s all I did, so I lost total contact,” she said. “If you ask me anything about the Vivian [Stringer] years or the early Lisa [Bluder] years, I had no concept that athletics even existed. All I did was work.” 

It wasn’t until she served as a founding member of the dean’s advisory board for the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that she became reacquainted with her alma mater.

“I started going to Iowa City, and I can distinctly remember sitting around a table, and they were talking about higher ed, and I’m just thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, there’s life outside of my tunnel vision. There’s life out there.’”

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Giving back

Despite her humble beginnings, philanthropy was always instilled in Beckwith, whether it was financial or emotional support.

“Giving back was always important to my dad, and my mom was very generous,” she said. “I’ve always gotten a billion times more out of it than I’ve given. To help somebody or pay it forward, you get a lot of reward from that.”

When Beckwith played for Iowa from 1976-1980, half scholarships were available her first two years and full scholarships the last two. Realizing the pressures student-athletes are under, she has shared her resources to relieve some of their load.  

In 2004, she created three endowed scholarships to support women’s basketball and rowing, as well as a scholarship to honor Grant. In 2005, she made a leadership gift of $1 million for a new boathouse to benefit the coaches and student-athletes of the UI rowing program. The P. Sue Beckwith, MD, Boathouse, which opened in 2009, became the first building on the UI campus to be named in honor of a female philanthropist.

In 2016, she established the P. Sue Beckwith, MD, Black and Golden Opportunities Fund, which provides funding and opportunities, on an annual basis, to Iowa’s women’s athletic programs and their most pressing needs.

“It was important to me to not just do basketball because to me, you get the same thing out of rowing and softball and field hockey that you get out of basketball,” she said. “The athletes work just as hard, and they make as many sacrifices and get as much out of it. So, I didn’t want to just do basketball.”

The funds can be used for expenses not covered in the program’s budget. For example, the field hockey team has used it for signage at their field and the rowing team used it to go to the Henley Royal Regatta in London.

She credits Sloane Tyler, Senior Director of Development, UI Center for Advancement, for orchestrating the concept of the coaching endowment which was announced in March 2021 

“Whatever the need is, they can do that. It’s essentially an endowed chair,” Beckwith said of the $7 million donation. 

Bluder was the first to hold the title of P. Sue Beckwith, MD, Head Women’s Basketball Coach, which has been passed on to Jensen.

“I was extremely honored at the time because it means that somebody cares about our program so much and obviously is happy with the coaching job in order for them to give that significant of a gift,” Bluder said.

“She’s part of the family. She would sometimes travel with us. We enjoyed her company, and she never tried to give us coaching advice or told us what to do,” she added. “Sometimes when people in those positions give that much, they want to be an integral part of the program, but Sue was always seen but not heard, so to speak.”

Beckwith’s own college coach continues to be proud of her player and what she has done for women’s sports. 

“The commitment that her mom had to her kids, that’s a sacrifice. I think it’s one of the reasons I see Sue now invest so deeply in the future of women’s sports. And it just fills me with awe and pride,” Birdsong said. “She hasn’t just given back. She’s lifted generations like her mom did for her. Her generosity shows how one person’s commitment can change the course of the program and countless lives.

“To me, it’s impressive to see all that Sue has given when she received so very little or nothing in the way of scholarships, sponsorships, clothing, shoes, fan recognition and other things that are so freely given today,” Birdsong added. “She’s embodied what the Christine Grant and the AIAW era meant. It was equality amongst all sports, monetarily, resource-wise, time-wise. Sue has done that.” 

Although the early pioneers of the AIAW didn’t have the perks programs enjoy today, they were proud to pave the way.

“We didn’t have jets flying us around or dinner spreads, but we didn’t know any better,” Beckwith said. “We were just so darn happy to be able to continue to play. And we loved playing, and that was all we needed.”

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