“…[W]hether you play sports or don’t play sports, how you treat somebody matters.”
~ Caitlin Clark
By Dr. Terrence Leveck
I can say without fear of contradiction that our country loves professional sports. Their cultural impact has been immense and essential. Fans often become colorblind when wins are at stake.
I haven’t had time to follow sports closely as I did when, as a child, I had every 1958 Topps baseball card. That changed for me recently when Caitlin Clark arrived on the national scene. As a college basketball player for the Iowa Hawkeyes, she broke the college all-time scoring record for women—and men. Hearing that made me curious. When I looked her up on YouTube, I saw her making shots from the cheap seats and assists that call to mind the National Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) Larry Bird in his prime.
As a rookie on the Indiana Fever team in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), Clark rapidly became one of the four most popular athletes in the country. As much as her consummate physical skills, it is her winning personality, humor, generosity with her legion of young fans, and good-natured willingness to refrain from criticism of other players even when they injure her in the course of play that have endeared her to her enormous fan base. Games she plays in virtually all sell out, home or away; this is something unheard of in a league that lost $50 million last year.
Almost immediately on becoming aware of what is being called the “Caitlin Clark effect,” I began having a deep-rooted sense that we are observing something more than a popular phenomenon. In a very short span of time, this young woman has single-handedly elevated the status of all women, who for far too long have been relegated to inferior status in male-dominated societies. She has clearly bonded with her teammates, black and white, putting the lie to the assertion that all whites are racists. She is an example of what all parents should hope their children would grow up to be, girls or boys.
I recently drove from Tennessee to Indianapolis to watch a live sporting event for the first time in years. Clark’s Indiana Fever game was exciting; the refereeing abysmal. You had to attend to know that the visiting Las Vegas team left the court for their locker room just prior to the performance of the national anthem. Our country is divided and wounded. To show disrespect toward the one thing that unites us all is not a healing act.
After the Fever selected Clark first in this year’s WNBA draft, the team went from the worst record in 2023 to the playoffs this year. Clark set many records and was named Rookie of the Year, but she also received 17% of all the flagrant fouls in the WNBA, not including the ones that weren’t called.
We frequently hear that even more aggressive play characterizes the playoffs in professional basketball. I had a fantasy moment in which the WNBA commissioner held a meeting with the Connecticut Sun team that the Fever were to face in game one of the first playoff round. I imagined her saying, “We never want anyone hurt, but it’s particularly important that fans not see their favorite players injured, especially to the extent that they are unable to play on our biggest stage at a time when we are hopefully entering a new level in the popularity of our league.” If such a meeting was held, I didn’t hear about it.
At the two-minute mark of Sunday’s game, Clark passed to a teammate and was struck in the eye by a Sun player. She fell to the floor in obvious pain. No foul was called; play continued, and the Sun scored. The offending Sun defender appeared to not notice that she had just injured the league’s most popular player. The TV announcers declared the injury to be unintentional but said a foul should have been called. I watched the replay multiple times. I was suspicious based on the circumstances but was unable to come to a firm conclusion.
I stayed up late that night watching the flood of commentary generated by the injury. I found a video from a completely different angle. Well after the ball left Clark’s hand, she was struck a seemingly intentional blow in full view of the other player. If a defender is trying to interrupt the flight of the ball, they keep their hand fully extended for maximum reach. They do not turn their fingers into razor-tipped daggers by flexing them at the knuckles. Photos show Clark’s black eye.
Much has been made of Clark’s poor shooting performance in that game. Depth perception requires two good eyes. Acknowledging the fact might only encourage an already burgeoning chorus of uncomfortable questions.
I have frequently read that the WNBA is highly competitive and physical. I even read that basketball is a contact sport. It was not so when it was invented, and if that is what it has become, then it may someday prove to be incompatible with the scintillating style of maneuver and finesse that characterizes the Fever’s style of play with CC at the helm. This is particularly true if teams conclude that, out of either an illicit desire to gain competitive advantage, or even animus, they can injure an opposing team’s star without consequence.
A case can be made that CC has been treated unfairly, perhaps brutally, by an organization that by all common standards of decency should have embraced her. With no motive other than to engage in an activity that she clearly loves, her presence has exposed something ugly in what should be a source of joy to us all.
I wakened the following morning sick at heart. I remember feeling the same way after the Challenger space shuttle accident. I say accident, but the engineers knew the O-rings were leaking and that the low temperatures would make it worse. The administrators ordered the launch anyway.
Among the doomed crew was a schoolteacher, Christa McAuliffe. Her presence on the flight was heavily promoted as a boon to science education for our youth. I always had the suspicion it was more about getting publicity for NASA despite the known potential hazards of space travel.
I still cringe at the horror experienced by thousands of children as they realized that awful cloud was incinerating their hero. What should have been a celebration of human technological achievement and national will became instead a source of enduring sorrow and shame.
I am in no way equating what happened in 1986 to Caitlin Clark’s injury, but I am struck by the symmetry of the shock that must have been felt by thousands of aspiring young girls forced to watch as another of their heroes was canceled by forces beyond their understanding.
Day two of the playoffs dawned with unanswered questions. Would the WNBA commissioner make a strong statement against the widely acknowledged rough play in the league? Would the offending player be suspended? Would CC abandon the U.S. for the European league in search of safer climes?
Clarity emerged as Wonder Woman declared with a smile that her injury was clearly unintentional, her vision was intact, and she felt great. Her team lost by a respectable score, and Clark led all scorers.
By a margin of one-half inch, the WNBA had avoided destroying Caitlin Clark’s career, and possibly its own existence. Clark will return next year stronger and wiser. She isn’t going away. They will have to learn to live with her.
I am not embarrassed to say that I pray for her. Not for success in essentially meaningless contests but for fulfillment of the purpose for which she was placed on Earth by the Creator of us all.
September 28 Update:
I hadn’t intended to say anything more about the controversy around Caitlin Clark, but new developments impel me to make some comments for the benefit of those who may hear murmurings but not follow events closely.
Prior to the second play-off game, CC did the right thing by declaring her eye injury to be unintentional. Feelings were running high among her fans, and she was basically saying, “Let’s get past it and go play ball.” Classy.
Nevertheless, I’m seeing repeated references to the unintentional foul which gives an incorrect impression. Christine Brennan of USA Today interviewed DiJonai Carrington, who said she was mystified that anyone could think she was capable of trying to injure another player. A league player representative immediately accused Brennan of promoting racial hostility.
Later that day, a video surfaced of an in-game exchange between Carrington and teammate Marina Mabrey (white). Mabrey is shown face-on in close-up. She’s pointing to her eye, mouthing the word “eye,” and laughing. We see Carrington from the back, but she is also gesturing toward her eye and appears to be joining in the joke. Another player enters the frame and is smiling broadly. If the injury was not intentional, it sure was funny.
The day after eliminating the Fever from the play-offs, star Sun player Alyssa Thomas called out the reprehensible racial comments by Fever fans directed toward her on social media. She gave no specifics, but knowing what we all do about the platform, I have no doubt there are lunkheads aplenty spewing trash. However, having attended a Fever game in Indianapolis among 17,000+ well-behaved patrons, my suspicion is that this behavior represents a tiny minority among what are being called “new fans,” as opposed to the smaller WNBA fan base prior to the Caitlin Clark Effect.
The league has vowed to seek action by legal authorities. This is the same league that has said nothing about the disparate flagrant fouls against Clark throughout the year.
I have listened to blogs by blacks calling out the other side for similar behavior and suggesting that the way an adult deals with the problem is to avoid social media. No one should use racial venom at any time for any reason, but calling out an individual or a team for unacceptable behavior on the court is not automatically racist.
One would have hoped that with the end of Clark’s season, the animosity would subside and the league would be focused on taking advantage of its newfound prosperity. That could still happen, but at the moment the signs are not encouraging. Stay tuned.
October 6 Update:
Caitlin Clark is the story that keeps on giving.
A’ja (pronounced Asia, I think) Wilson has just won the WNBA MVP award for the third straight year. She recently said that her parents told her as a child that she would have to work 10 times as hard as others to get any credit in life, presumably due to the disadvantage of being black. She said that struggle for recognition has been particularly difficult this year. She stated, furthermore, that she does not like to play in Indianapolis in front of Fever fans and implied that she does not feel safe there.
Addressing these issues in reverse order, I attended one of the two games Ms. Wilson played in Indiana this year. It was sold out, as essentially all Fever home games were. The atmosphere was electric and the crowd enthusiastic but also composed following the Fever loss. If the Las Vegas team was subjected to fan abuse, it wasn’t apparent to me in the body language of the players or in any exchanges with fans that I saw (as opposed to, for example, the Clark interaction with an attendee—I won’t call him a fan—at one of the play-off games in Connecticut). There have been a few places I have visited where I could readily imagine abusive fan behavior might occur, but Indiana isn’t one of them.
The thing that coincides most prominently with A’ja’s perceived credit deficit this year is the arrival of Caitlin Clark. As A’ja has again been named MVP, it appears that she is not receiving less notice than before, but someone else is receiving accolades surpassing her own.
Ms. Wilson is obviously a talented player who deserves her awards. Were she playing for my favorite team, I would appreciate her scoring, rebounding, and defense. But prior to this year, I had never heard of her. The reason for that is that she does not shoot logo 3’s and make passes worthy of a wizard. If that makes me a poor student of the game, so be it.
While I said I would welcome someone of her skill-set on my favorite team, I would not want Ms. Wilson herself. Ozzie Smith was my favorite baseball player when he was active, and I love Simone Biles (though I will not watch live gymnastics because I’m always afraid they’ll fall), so it’s my personal opinion that, despite being susceptible to bad sunburns, I am not a racist, other than recognizing that, as far as I know, there has not been a white cornerback in the NFL since Davey Whitsell of the ‘63 Chicago Bears. The reason I wouldn’t want her on my team is that someone who feels wounded by the success of others is not a good influence on their teammates, and they are not someone I can look up to personally.
Caitlin Clark’s arrival and rise has given me cheer in what is otherwise a dismal time for our country and the world at large. I sincerely regret that the A’ja Wilsons aren’t enjoying her as well, especially since CC can make them all rich if they’ll let her.
Related:
Caitlin Clark (Wikipedia)
Caitlin Clark effect (Wikipedia)
