Caitlin Clark has brought unprecedented attention to women’s basketball. And many female basketball players seem to resent her for that.
The situation came to a head on Saturday, when Clark took over a cheap shot away from the ballpossibly preceded by this message from her attacker: “You’re a bitch.”
It’s a great development, but on some level it’s not surprising. Human nature includes many contradictory and sometimes unhelpful traits. There is a limit to how much hero worship and/or premature praise and/or perceived favoritism people can tolerate before they become irritated. The question is whether that irritation drives us to action.
Mostly not. Sometimes yes. Yesterday for Caitlin Clark, yes.
It’s a bizarre situation, to say the least. We tried to think about whether the same dynamics have happened in the NFL. The best comparison is to Reggie Bush, who entered the NFL in 2006 with more hype (and endorsements) than any rookie in years. And while there did not appear to be widespread resentment toward Bush, Rex Ryan’s defense seemed to consistently target him.
After facing Bush in 2006, then-Ravens linebacker Bart Scott (who played on Ryan’s defense at the time) said that Bush “the media darling, also known as the golden boy of the NFL.” In 2012, when Bush played for the Dolphins, that was the case some overt ugliness between Bush and Ryan’s Jets. (Bush later played for Ryan in Buffalo and eventually said of the team under Rex: “We had no discipline. . . . The lack of discipline we had from a team point of view. Our coaching staff did a poor job of ensuring that the boys were held accountable.”)
There is another difference between the two sports. In football, if you shoot cheaply at a player, you may have to deal with his teammates. After Clark lay flat, only one teammate responded — and she went over to help Clark up, not to confront her attacker. (The most responsible move is not to escalate the situation and let those in power handle the matter. It remains to be seen whether those in power will do so.)
Other than Bush (who never became the second coming of Gale Sayers), the NFL has never had a new player who arrived with the assumption that he would propel the sport to unprecedented heights. However, when that happens in any sport, it feels like something that should be embraced under the age-old theory that a rising tide lifts all boats.
Maybe WNBA players should think about that before they try to sink Caitlin Clark’s ship.
