WATCH: Caitlin Clark’s Iowa coach Lisa Bluder receives warm welcome during matchup against Illinois State

Former Iowa Hawkeyes coach, Lisa Bluder announced her retirement after 40 years of coaching, in May. On Saturday, Bluder was honored by the Hawkeyes football team during the season-opening game against Illinois State at Kinnick Stadium.

Fox College Football shared a small clipping from the game on X. Lisa Bluder received thunderous applause and loud cheers from fans during the two-minute warning of the first half.

Before this moment, the Kinnick Stadium was also the venue where the Bluder-led Hawkeyes made history last year. In 2023, Iowa's pre-season game, "Crossover at Kinnick", against DePaul set the NCAA attendance record for an exhibition game (55,646).

Lisa Bluder spent 24 seasons leading Iowa's women's basketball program and played a crucial role in the development of former Hawkeyes players like Caitlin Clark, Kate Martin, Megan Gustafson and Monika Czinano. Clark, the coach's first No. 1 draft pick, reacted to the moment on Instagram as she wrote:

"Runs the city."

At the time of her retirement, Bluder maintained that it was time for her to step aside from the coaching position. However, she shared the reason to "Our Quad Cities" at a fan event.

"It’s an opportunity for Dave [Bluder’s husband] and I to travel while we’re still healthy," she said. "My son is going to be a senior at Grinnell College next year and I get to see all of his games.

"I miss so many of my kids’ things and it’s just time for me to be able to give time to them fully. It’s a time-consuming job. It’s nice to be able to breathe a little bit right now and not jump right into workouts that will be starting in a month."

A look at Lisa Bluder's coaching history

Lisa Bluder began her coaching at St. Ambrose in 1984 and later moved to Drake, where she met her future assistant coaches Jan Jensen and Jenni Fitzgerald, who were senior players at the time.

Bluder spent ten years with the Bulldogs before making the final move to Iowa in 2000. She led the Hawkeyes to five Big Ten tournament championships and 18 NCAA tournament appearances. Iowa played its first Final Four game since 1993 in the 2023 March Madness and advanced to the finals. Bluder led the team on a similar championship game run last season.

Lisa Bluder ranks as the NCAA Division I women’s basketball’s 10th-winningest coach and Big Ten's all-time winningest coach with 884 wins. She wrapped her coaching career with an 884-396 overall record. In 2019, Bluder was honoured with the Naismith Coach of the Year.

In her retirement note, Lisa Bluder shared that during her retirement, she hopes to "be an asset to our basketball program and this athletics department in any way that I am able."