For Iowa's Doyle, It's All About The Fun

Senior guard enjoys everything, and her teammates appreciate that.

Kathleen Doyle enjoys being around her teammates on the Iowa women’s basketball team.

Last summer, for example, after playing for the United States team in the Pan American Games in Peru, Doyle took a flight from Lima to Spain to join the rest of the Hawkeyes on their overseas trip.

She wasn’t going to miss out on that.

“It was a 15-hour flight, 12 hours, something crazy like that,” the senior guard said.

Ask her to make a silly promotional video for an upcoming game, and she’ll do it.

Ask her to make a public appearance, and she’ll do it.

It’s fun, she said.

“I wish I could stay here and play forever,” Doyle said in a story that appeared on the Iowa athletic department’s website.

Doyle’s teammates, of course, think highly of her as well.

“She’s awesome,” sophomore center Monika Czinano said.

“She’s just really the glue of our team,” senior guard Makenzie Meyer said.

But what if they had to play against her?

“I would hate my life,” Czinano said, laughing.

“I definitely would not like her,” Meyer said with the same laugh. “I’m confident in that.”

Doyle, they said, appreciates the sentiment.

“We always say that. ‘If we had to play against you, Kathleen, we would hate you,’” Czinano said. “And she says, ‘I wouldn’t want it any other way.’”

“Yeah, we’ve told her that,” Meyer said. “She takes it as a compliment. She thinks that’s a good thing. She’s like, ‘I don’t want other players to like playing against me.’”

During games, Doyle is constant energy — clapping hands, gestures of celebration, talking, smiling.

It isn’t about annoying an opponent — well, maybe it is a little.

It’s more about pure enjoyment.

“That’s just who I am, really,” Doyle said. “People ask me that all of the time. Really, it’s just from me having a blast when I’m playing. I love basketball so much, and I’ve always been this way, ever since I was a little fifth-grader playing basketball. I was always excited, an emotional player. It’s genuine feelings. I don’t try to put on a show. It’s just how I am, pretty much an energetic person in general. So, yeah…

“I feel like a lot of people say they love basketball and have fun. But they never smile during games. I feel like people notice that, when I play I smile a lot. Well, yeah, I’m having fun. I feel like you don’t see that very often. My game face is usually a smile.”

“You all know she leads this team with her enthusiasm, with her love of the game,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “She’s a competitor. She's one of those kids that you kind of are glad you have on your team and you don't want to play against her. She's just a real emotional leader for us, and I think we really need that.”

Doyle, one of two unanimous preseason All-Big Ten selections this season, has been a constant in Iowa’s lineup throughout her career. She has played 93 games, with 84 starts, averaging 32.5 minutes per game. Doyle goes into this season needing just seven points to join the Hawkeyes’ 1,000-point club.

That kind of resumé always commands respect from teammates, but Doyle, the players say, has done much more outside of the games.

“She’s awesome,” Czinano said. “We had a great core of leadership last year. Kathleen’s been around that a lot. She played a crucial role, obviously, last year. She’s kind of like our vet among vets. She plays a big role in holding people accountable. She knows what she’s doing, on and off the court. Sometimes, maybe we don’t think of things. Kathleen will be like, ‘Hey, try this, this or this.’ We’ll go in and the coaches will compliment us for what we did and we’ll look at Kathleen like, ‘You get the assist on that one.’

“The passion she brings is definitely contagious, in practice and in games. It’s even contagious for the fans when they’re in Carver-Hawkeye Arena."

Iowa's Kathleen Doyle led the team and was second in the Big Ten in steals last season.

Trevor Ruszkowski/USA Today Sports

“She’s just really the glue of our team,” Meyer said. “She’s such a great basketball player, so smart on the court. She’s such a great leader. I think she’s somebody our younger players will have to look up to.”

“Kathleen has always been a leader, even from the minute she stepped on this campus,” Bluder said. “She may not have always had the captain title, but there are kids that are just natural leaders, and she's one of them. She loves that role. She embraces it. She's always been our emotional leader on the basketball team. So I think that she is ready for that challenge and excited about leaving her legacy here as a senior.”

It’s one more season, then, for Doyle to enjoy the moment.

“I feel like, senior year, you want to finish out strong,” she said.

Doyle has been part of back-to-back NCAA tournament teams, including last season’s run to the Elite Eight.

“Winning is a lot more fun, obviously,” she said.

The games, Doyle insisted, are supposed to be fun.

“It’s how I’ve always played,” she said.