She’s been called a “phenom,” and has been dubbed “The Future.” It’s no secret that Caitlin Clark has added value to the WNBA. A league that has struggled from its inaugural season. When the Women’s US Olympic Basketball team returned from the 1996 Summer Olympics, they came back with gold and with the eyes of the world.
Then, on June 21, 1997 the WNBA tipped off their first game, with the Los Angeles Sparks and the New York Liberty. Two teams which featured amazing talent and two star players in Rebecca Lobo and Lisa Leslie. Lisa whose collegiate career is comparable to Clark’s, outside of the 100 point game of course. But if you ask most Clark fans about Lisa Leslie they might tell you she was the first player in the WNBA to dunk, but that’s the most you’d get.
Why do people “hate” Caitlin?
If the argument is Caitlin Clark is getting “hate” because she’s white, that’s false. Caitlin Clark isn’t the first white player in the WNBA, hell, she’s not even the first white overall draft pick. There have been number 1 draft picks before her that never recieved this type of attention. Sue Bird, Diana Turasi, and Kelsey Plum all had storied college careers like Clark but with championships.
So why didn’t we hear as much about them and their top placement in the draft? Because the same people who are enamoured Clark, didn’t care about women’s sports last year or the year before that. It’s no secret that many women’s leagues have been treated as second class citizens or J.V teams. They have been the butt of a lot of sports fan’s jokes that only seem to get quiet around the Summer Olympics.
So why Caitlin and why now? Because she’s the best loser. She has a stacked college resume, but never won a Championship, yes she helped her team get there but they couldn’t get over the hump both times. And to make matters worse this little white girl from Iowa lost to a predominately Black team… twice. But it’s not her fault that both years her team was not the better team that day. You wouldn’t know Caitlin Clark without Angel Reese.
History has shown us that if Caitlin Clark won her Championship games with Iowa and still went number 1. There would be some press, but the media wouldn’t give her the same type of attention they are giving her now. There wouldn’t have been a conversation about the Olympic team. She might not even have gotten a shoe deal as fast as she did. And most importantly, people wouldn't be stanning her with an idolic mentality.
Is Clark a great, generational player? Yes. Will Clark grow as a player and only get better? Yes. She has the ability to become one of the best players in the league, Hall of Fame even. She has grown the sport’s visiblity ten-fold, but off the back of Angel Reese. The media painted Reese as the villian, they still paint her as the villian, why? Because she won? No. Because she’s Black.
It’s a tale as old as time, white is good, pure, holy, and Black is wrong, bad, and sometimes demonic. America loves a story about race where white people are victorious, or where they are the savior. American’s eat that shit up, but an uneasyness happens when the tables are turned. The weird superiority complex is driven by the environment in which they created. They built it meaning they are the “standard” and they are also the “best.”
So when something happens and it creates a shift in that world, you get Clark fans, you get MAGA fans, and so on and so on. If you get the chance, watch some of the other number 1 draft pick’s highlights. It should be said that Angel Reese is averging a double-double in her rookie season. She currently holds the WNBA record of most consecutive double-doubles beating out superstar, and recent retiree Candace Parker.
I’m happy to see how much the WNBA has grown over the past few years, players have been advocating for a lot of the things they have now. Chartered flights and Caitlin Clark get brought up in the same sentence together a lot. Did she make the WNBA start chartering flights for teams? No. The players and team leadership have been working on specifically that topic for years prior to Clark’s arrival. Did Clark help the situation? Yes, I’m sure things started to move a bit faster when she arrived to the league, but it was going to happen with or without her.
Lastly, watching the Women’s team USA compete for Gold and edge out a victory over France was just the excitement these women need going back to league play. One thing that was shocking but not surprising was seeing comments from angry Clark fans. The same people who were upset that Clark didn’t make the Olympic team, were now upset because team USA was winning. They now have eight-straight gold medals since the inception of the WNBA, Team USA always sends the best players WNBA players and they win everytime.
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