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In 1994, eight years before Caitlin Clark was born, Kristin Folkl graduated from St. Louis’ St. Joseph’s Academy. She played varsity basketball and volleyball all four years.

She won eight state titles.

Folkl then went to Stanford. Before a WNBA career, she averaged 18.9 points per game and 9.2 rebounds in her senior season. As a basketball player for Stanford, she went to two Final Fours.

Oh, and as a volleyball player for Stanford, she went to four Final Fours. And won three national titles.

Folkl is now Folkl-Kaburakis, 48 and married with two kids in St. Louis. Regarding women’s college basketball specifically, she said Saturday: “You always hope your sport will grow and continue to get better and get more attention. I loved what we had back in the day, because it was better than what I saw before I got to college. …

“Well, the growth (to today) has been phenomenal. And it really makes me so happy to see, because it’s a sport deserving of the attention it’s getting. You really have fantastically athletic women. There have been lots of fantastically athletic women who’ve, obviously, been trailblazers and helped pave the way. But it’s finally exploded.�

Exploded. Women’s college basketball is nationally relevant — and it’s one of the coolest things to happen to sports in years. In men’s college basketball and football, the new NCAA landscape has arguably hurt the sports, be it from conference-shifting to the transfer portal to the impact of name, image and likeness deals (NIL) on recruiting and team dynamics. But it’s been such a cool turn-of-events for women’s sports, notably hoops, because the games are seen more than ever before — and the players are becoming part of pop culture and social media culture. I mean, Iowa’s Clark is a national celebrity.

“I think female sports should be celebrated,� Folkl-Kaburakis said. “And now it’s such a broader audience. You know, it’s not just females who support female athletics.�

It’s everything from my male buddies texting me thoughts during women’s games to women’s games aired on primetime on ABC.

It’s everything from dudes on Twitter/X complaining about refs and calls to sellout crowds at early-round NCAA games (and Iowa selling out 36 straight games this season, per ESPN).

It’s everything from a St. Louis sports columnist writing about women’s hoops during the first weekend of the Cardinals’ season to women’s college players starring in national commercials for AT&T (JuJu Watkins), New Balance (Cameron Brink), Starry (Angel Reese) and Adidas (Hailey Van Lith). And the transcendent Clark, who has scored the most points in NCAA history (women’s or men’s), is in ads for, among other companies, State Farm, Xfinity and Gatorade.

Viewership for the women’s second-round games went up an absurd 121% from last year, per ESPN. And the Iowa-West Virginia game averaged 4.9 million viewers, most ever for that round in a women’s game — and more viewers than four of the five Christmas Day NBA games.

Iowa played its third-round game Saturday.

It was on ABC.

It was an event.

Clark has become must-see TV. Watching her Saturday was a delight. She’s a dribbling virtuoso, spinning and curling around defenders as if they were just orange cones on the court during a drill. And her passing was Gretzky-esque, anticipating a teammate’s destination perhaps a second before even the teammate herself did. In Saturday’s 89-68 win against Colorado, Clark had 15 assists. No Colorado player even had 15 points.

And by the way, Clark also scored 29 points. And this was in an off-shooting game, in which she went 3 for 11 from 3-point range.

The unafraid Clark, 6-feet tall, led the nation in scoring (31.8 points per game), with some of her 3s shot from closer to the mid-court logo than the 3-point line.

“I mean, she’s just got ‘it,’ right?� Folkl-Kaburakis said. “I read somewhere saying Caitlin’s awesome, but this is dangerous, because now every kid out there is going to think, ‘Well, I can shoot from eight feet beyond the 3-point line.’ But I love that, that there are dangling carrots out there to push yourself and think, ‘Oh, it’s possible.’ I hope that we don’t have a whole new generation of kids who are shooting poorly with form. But there’s a lot of hard work and a lot of dedication that goes into being how she is. And she has a personality that can support it. …

“My hope is that it does translate into the professional ranks, because I think professional women’s basketball in America needs a little infusion of that key player.�

Clark, 22, will likely be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft next month by the Indiana Fever (looking for any summer road-trip ideas from St. Louis?).

But first, there’s a rematch with Louisiana State.

Reese, Van Lith and the fiery and unflappable Flau’jae Johnson play for the defending champions, who beat Iowa in the 2023 final game. The winner of Monday’s game returns to the Final Four.

We will watch.