The day after the loss in the 2024 NCAA women’s basketball championship game, Caitlin Clark had one goal when he returned to the University of Iowa campus.
Go home.
She walked to her car that day in April and drove two hours to her parents’ home in West Des Moines. She was looking for the peace of familiarity, the comfort of her room and some time with the family dog Bella.
“I had my mother cook me a meal,” Clark said.
The next day she drove back and left – a one-day respite between the highs and lows and demands and chaos of a historic college season and the highs and lows and demands and chaos of a historic pro season at the center of the WNBA.
These were a few rare moments of normalcy for a 22-year-old who defined the 2024 sporting calendar like no other by redefining two levels of the same sport, if not what is possible for women’s athletics in America. Along the way, she found herself in the middle of sports and culture arguments that she apparently never intended.
Others won championships or Olympic medals, but none had influence over things like CC itself.
The same week, she helped draw an astonishing 18.9 million television viewers for that title game (South Carolina 87, Iowa 75), not to mention tickets soared past $2,000 on the secondary ticket market. the WNBA draft, which days later would itself set viewership records (2.4 million).
She was a beacon between two worlds.
This was her new life, the star of it all, all eyes always on her.
It had come slowly – a gifted multi-sport athlete turning her home state program into a national contender – and then seemingly all at once. An NCAA scoring record. A practice match in a football stadium with 55,000 fans. Celebrity texts and national advertising campaigns; while young girls lined the court begging for autographs and selfies.
Initially, fans bought her sweater, a sign of fame. They soon started selling a simple black T-shirt with the outline of the state of Iowa and “HER” printed in the center. Everyone knew who it was.
Her confident flair, her logo threes and her full-court passing defined her game and turned heads in a way women’s basketball had never seen. It wasn’t just that Clark could play the game. There have been a lot of great women’s players. It was How she played the game.
There was joy in it, both in what she put out and what the fans brought in.
That’s why they flocked to arenas and television sets every time she played. She both created new fans and energized existing fans. She was must-see TV.
As big as her impact was on the college ranks, she was the rare — perhaps first — star to immediately transfer to the WNBA, whose season started about a month later. Indiana Fever games were moved to larger stadiums to meet demand. Television ratings began to challenge those of the NBA. The media and fan attention did not wane during the boring regular season games.
With that came revenue and sponsorship, to the point where the league began chartering flights for the first time. Expansion franchises were soon announced.
To anyone with perspective, she was a gift, like when Tiger Woods made golf electric. This was a lightning bolt for the sport.
“[I want to] thank Caitlin for what she has done for women’s basketball,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said after her team defeated Iowa in that national title game. “Her shoulders were heavy and she paid a lot of attention to our game. And sometimes as a young person it can be a bit much, but I thought she handled it with class.
“I hope that with every step she takes on the ladder of success, she can take the room she’s in to the next level,” Staley added.
Clark would do that. And yet somehow she would also become something of a divisive figure, a pressure point for the politically obsessed people who wanted her to be this or that or whatever they saw in her. Usually she wasn’t any of that; just a ball player.
Every rivalry was heightened. Every bit of doubt shot across the internet. Hard fouls became almost crimes, and her exclusion from the U.S. Olympic team was a small matter that some could not accept – even though there was a reasonable argument for the decision at the time. Everyone went to their corners.
She encountered resistance because she was the newcomer, but also, it seems, because of her race or other characteristics. That also brought her a category of fans who defended her. When she talked about her “privilege” as a white woman in a Time Magazine interview, many people seemed to switch sides.
Well, at least until the owner of the Washington Mystics – who has made money off her – argued that the ‘Athlete of the Year’ should have gone to the entire WNBA because others ‘deserve’ the honor too.
Clark was lifted and taken down at the same time – a Rorschach test in real time.
But at the end of the day, the noise is the noise, culture wars and cable talk shows that have little to do with Clark the athlete, Clark the player, Clark the sensation.
During that rookie season with the Indiana Fever, she not only adapted to the professional game, she excelled at it, leading her team to the playoffs and finishing on the first team all season long.
And when all the shouting and projecting stops, when the commercials are over and the selfie requests are fulfilled, then it will return – to the super-competitive kid from Iowa who just wants to play ball like few others have ever played ball. .
“When I play my best basketball,” Clark said last winter, “I have the most fun of anyone on the court.”
The fun is just beginning. And that’s all that matters, or at least all that should matter.
