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Notre Dame latest in line of women’s teams ignored by White House

By Brendon Kleen

COLUMBUS, OH - APRIL 1: Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Muffet McGraw celebrates with her team after beating Mississippi State in the championship game of the 2018 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Final Four at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Justin Tafoya/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
COLUMBUS, OH - APRIL 1: Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Muffet McGraw celebrates with her team after beating Mississippi State in the championship game of the 2018 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Final Four at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Justin Tafoya/NCAA Photos via Getty Images) /
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Add the Notre Dame women’s basketball team to the growing list of women’s sports teams that have not received the customary invitation to the White House to celebrate their 2018 national championship.

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The Fighting Irish, led by coach Muffet McGraw and guard Arike Ogunbowale, won a title on April 1, but Athletic Communications Director Josh Bates told High Post Hoops the team isn’t considering a decision on whether or not to travel to Washington, D.C,. until they receive an invitation.

This comes after the White House took over seven months to offer the South Carolina women’s basketball team an invitation, as part of a Collegiate National Champions Day, last November.

“We won before those other teams won their championships. I don’t know what else has to happen,” Staley said in October, acknowledging the fact that the men’s basketball champion, North Carolina, and the Florida Gators’ baseball team received invitations before Staley’s Gamecocks.

The remarkable part of that long delay between victory and celebration from those who run our country is that it swallowed the 2017 WNBA Finals victory by the Minnesota Lynx. Coach Cheryl Reeve told The Athletic last week her team has also not received an invitation from the administration, despite winning Game 5 at home last October 5.

“We’re not losing sleep over it,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve told High Post Hoops after practice last week.

Asked if there was potentially a pattern developing of women’s teams being left out of the traditional White House championship celebrations, Reeve said, “the trend certainly is that women’s sports aren’t recognized in the same way that men’s sports are.”

Reeve pointed to the 2017 World Series Champion Houston Astros’ visit, despite their title coming later in the calendar year, as further evidence that the withholding of an invitation for her Lynx may be intentional. She also said it’s not a given her team would travel to the capitol for the celebration if an invitation was extended, and that as always, it would be a discussion between her staff and the team.

Our own Howard Megdal explained last week how a Lynx championship celebration alongside the president would ultimately be more helpful to the administration than the team from a public relations perspective. There’s not much left for four-time champion Minnesota to prove, having reached the pinnacle of basketball and becoming the torch-bearers for building the women’s game.

Lynx forward Rebekkah Brunson said in October she would not go to the White House if the team was invited. Reeve said last week Maya Moore will return to the team soon. Her voice will likely be one of the loudest should the Lynx contemplate a visit with the president, as a veteran and leader as well as a criminal justice advocate.

The Fighting Irish just added three McDonald’s All-Americans to their team, and will be right back in the middle of things next winter alongside South Carolina. Minnesota begins its season on May 20 at home against Los Angeles in a rematch of the last two WNBA Finals’.

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