No man is an island, so we have been told, but a woman, Caitlin Clark, is. Alone. Isolated. Kept at arm’s length by her teammates.|
BOB PADECKY
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
No man is an island, so we have been told, but a woman, Caitlin Clark, is. Alone. Isolated. Kept at arm’s length by her teammates. A target for bullies on the other team. It’s a wonder Clark is allowed to dress in the same locker room as her co-workers. Or that anyone speaks to her other than to say, “Get outta my way!”
As probably anyone including those living above the Arctic Circle knows, Clark is a WNBA rookie at the center of uncloaked animosity, jealousy, vindictiveness and just outright hostility. It is embarrassing for the league and its players to condone it. Instead of treating her like a rookie with all the usual shoving, pushing and elbows to the rib cage telling Clark she isn’t in college anymore, the 22-year-old has been told she is an outsider.
This was never more apparent during a game on June 1. Chicago’s Chennedy Carter came up behind Clark and sucker punched her with a shoulder and elbow that sent Clark to the ground.
The next few minutes two incidents revealed everything.
As Clark lay prone on the ground Angel Reese, Carter’s teammate, leapt from the team’s bench, screaming in delight, punching the air with her arm. Happy, Reese was. Obscene as well.
At the same time, Clark’s Indiana teammates were nowhere to be seen. No one rushed to Clark. In the NBA the bench would have emptied, half of the players surrounding Clark like a lion protecting her cub, the other half going after Carter like another lion going after a hyena.
A response from both coaches was necessary.
Don’t cheap-shot a player. That’s not a basketball play. That’s thuggery. That’s ugly. That’s the image that soils, dirtying you and us. And don’t jump off the bench to cheer it. We don’t cheer ugly. We don’t cheer thugs. We are better than that. We are, and I can’t believe I need to say this, civilized.
Don’t forget teammates support a teammate. That’s why it’s called a team sport. Heck, we touch hands in support when one of us misses a free throw. We even walk to the foul line to do it, to make that effort, to tell our teammates we are in this together.
Of course, Carter and Reese didn’t apologize. Of course, no one in Indiana’s locker room mentioned post-game that they wished they had run to Clark’s defense. Of course all of them, coaches and players alike, forget Caitlin Clark is making all of them money.
The woman who scored more points in college than any woman AND man is so electric in popularity that Clark fills houses. When Clark’s Iowa team played Ohio State in the NCAA playoffs last year, 3.4 million watched the game on FOX, the highest television viewership for a women’s college game in 25 years.
Attendance goes up. Ratings go up. Revenue goes up. Player salaries go up. That should be quite an incentive. In 2022 the average WNBA salary was $102,751. Jackie Young of Las Vegas had the highest salary at $252,450. MLB groundskeepers make more money.
So you would think WNBA players would shut up, treat the Clark Tsunami like a godsend which it is, and look forward to the day they make more money than a groundskeeper. Nope.
Clark is a white woman in a sport where the majority of players are Black. It shouldn’t matter but it does.
“That’s why it boils my blood,” Las Vegas’ A’ja Wilson told the Associated Press earlier this year, “when people say it’s not about race because it is. They (promoters) don’t see us as marketable. It doesn’t matter how hard I work. As Black women, we are still swept under the rug.”
Money divides and that’s never more clear than the disparity between player salaries and Clark’s. Recently, Clark signed an eight-year $28 million contract with NIKE. The day Clark was drafted first overall by Indiana, memorabilia with either her name, number or likeness sold out.
Yes, that’s a wedge. Here’s another. Clark is straight.
“It would always chafe me,” now-retired Sue Wicks told The Athletic, “when someone would say ‘You can’t say you’re gay.”
Clark pitches home and auto insurance, energy drinks, trading cards, supermarket chains and financial investment firms. She does this while playing in the Midwest. Just as in real estate, location, location and location matter. To claim all the attention and endorsem*nt deals she receives are based on her ability to play basketball is naive.
Clark is the quickest WNBA rookie to reach 200 points and 75 assists. Sue Bird did it in 14 games. Clark did it in 12. Haltingly at the start, Clark has found her rhythm to display her talent. No one denies she is a generational talent. No one denies Clark has elevated the league’s visibility. It is eerily similar to a kid from Indiana, Larry Bird, who along with Magic Johnson, lifted the NBA from player recklessness that threatened to send the league into a footnote.
The NBA should thank and pay a small annual stipend to Bird and Magic for what they did for the league. The same is true for Clark. She is lifting the WNBA from vague irrelevance to serious conversation. Before Game 1 of the NBA Finals, for example, commissioner Adam Silver fielded questions about the WNBA treatment Clark was receiving.
Subsequently Silver refrained from offering an opinion on Clark not being named to the USA Olympic women’s team. It was a blunder that should have cost someone’s job. The excuse was paper-thin and weak. The U.S. women haven’t lost in the Olympics since 1992. No need to take a chance with a rookie on the roster. Clark needs seasoning and blah, blah, blah.
The ugly truth: If Clark feels alone now, imagine her isolation on the Olympic team. Imagine the veterans saying to themselves: People are telling us she’s the best thing to happen to the WNBA in years? What about me? Pfffffft on her.
So the WNBA felt that and went stupid. Instead of seeing the big picture, they saw the small one. They saw Clark being treated like an outcast who busted in on their party. So now we want to put her in the Olympics?
Professional women’s basketball is still trying to find out what to do with Caitlin Clark. She’s that good to demand all the attention. She’s also that good to force change. Can and will the WNBA embrace the potential for unparalleled growth? Or will they continue to treat her like an intruder?
To comment write to bobpadecky@gmail.com.
