Clark embraces role as women’s game ambassador
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Her likeness was sculptured out of butter at the state fair and a tribute to her was a highlight for an Iowa marching band football halftime show.
She was the main draw when she played golf in the pro-am event ahead of the PGA Tour’s nearby John Deere Classic and she greeted thousands of fans at both an Indycar race and a minor-league baseball game, where a line began forming 10 hours ahead of time and wrapped around the stadium.
She helped teammates build a Habitat For Humanity house, led a fund-raiser for a local food pantry and hosted a basketball camp for 600 kids that sold out in four hours.
Oh, she also joined teammates on a 12-day tour of Italy and Croatia, made an ad for Nike and went to New York to pick up the Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.
Down time, to be sure, has been scarce for Caitlin Clark in the months since she swept national player of the year awards and led the Iowa Hawkeyes to their first NCAA championship game in women’s basketball. LSU’S win over Iowa set a viewership record and it had fans buzzing in part because of a kerfuffle involving Clark and Tigers star Angel Reese.
That seems long ago now. Clark and her teammates are on the cusp of a new season, and she said she is recharged. She’s undecided on whether this will be her last year with the third-ranked Hawkeyes. She could return for a fifth season in 2024 or move on to the WNBA, perhaps as the No. 1 draft pick.
For now, the Caitlin Clark Craze is at its zenith in the state of Iowa. There’s no bigger celebrity between the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, and last season’s AP player of the year easily ranks among the most popular American female athletes.
“I feel like I was just a freshman and I was playing in front of no one. It was just our families that were sitting over there,” Clark said in an interview with The Associated Press in an otherwise empty Carver-hawkeye Arena. “Now I play in front of a sold-out arena, everybody screaming at me after games begging for my autograph. Whenever I go out in public, people always know who I am, so it can get tiring at times.
“I don’t think it’s an inconvenience at all,” she added. “It’s something you would never take for granted because it’s so cool. The position I get to be in and the things I get to do, and the amount of joy that I’ve brought people…. I feel like I’m the same person I’ve been ever since I stepped on campus. But my life has changed so much.”
Clark, who grew up two hours away in West Des Moines, entered Iowa as a five-star recruit and exceeded the hype. Her prodigous scoring, 3-point shots from near halfcourt and her swagger, along with the success of the team, have led to a near-doubling of season ticket sales to a record 13,000. That’s 5,000 more than the Iowa men sold.
Clark’s statistical achievements are among the greatest in the history of women’s college basketball: 90 straight double-figure scoring games and a 27.3-points-per-game career average with 43 double-doubles and 11 triple-doubles.
She set NCAA Tournament records for points, assists and 3-pointers last season and became the first player in tournament history with back-to-back 40-point games. She was the first Division I player to go over 1,000 points and 300 assists in the same season. She enters this season needing 811 points to become the Division I alltime leading scorer.
It’s not just the numbers that have made Clark a transcendent figure. She’s as much entertainer as basketball player.
The fans love her or hate her for how she carries herself with supreme confidence and can back it up. She said she wouldn’t want it any other way. Those Michael Jordan-like shrugs when she makes a 3 from the logo off the dribble are part of her identity. She’s uber-competitive and thrives on getting into opponents’ heads, whether it’s from wearing them down physically, making a well-timed wisecrack or just being, as she calls it, “feisty.”
“If I’m just straight-faced and play with no emotion, I’m not going to play good basketball, and nobody wants to watch that,” she said. “Whether it’s high-fiving your teammate, picking them off the floor, pointing and smiling and thanking your passer after you make it 3, those are the emotions you need to have. You get feisty about something, that’s the competitive juices that you have inside you and that’s what makes you great.”
Clark will have to make an adjustment this season with Monika Czinano and Mckenna Warnock having departed. Clark, as the point guard, had a special connection on court with Czinano in the post. Warnock took pressure off Clark as another perimeter scoring threat.
Clark is at her best when she’s generating offense in transition. This year she hopes to get better at using screens to get open in the halfcourt game.
“I might not always have the ball in my hands playing the 1 at the next level,” she said, “so I want to be more comfortable playing off the ball some.”