The Transcendent Grit of Caitlin Clark
This is not, primarily, an article on how great a basketball player Caitlin Clark is.
This isn’t, primarily, about how popular Caitlin Clark is.
It isn’t about race, Angel Reese, culture wars, or anything like that.
Some of those things will come up. But there is already a Mt. Everest of internet ink spilled on these things. You can find your fix as easily as you can find a Dollar General in Southern Illinois.
I chose instead to focus on the one thing that has impressed me most about Caitlin Clark. And it’s not a logo 3 or sold-out arena.
No, the thing that draws me to her as an athlete is something I heard Angela Lee Duckworth speak to over 10 years ago: the idea of grit.
You can do a Google search for a definition or even find Ms. Duckworth’s videos on this topic. But if you read this article, you will see from Caitlin Clark’s young career what exactly I mean.
Caitlin Clark And Unprecedented Circumstances
What I mean is that she came into the WNBA with some of the most massive expectations in sports history. I’m not sure anyone else comes close to it because unlike LeBron James or Tiger Woods, she entered a league that was not popular by any reasonable criteria. Though it was improving, the WNBA was far, far behind other sports for things like attendance, TV ratings, revenue, etc. Rarely have we seen such a potential league savior in the sense of getting human eyeballs in that direction. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were kind of like this in 1979, but then again, that was 1979. The world is quite different now and everything is scrutinized 24 hours a day.
And with that came the detractors. You cannot have as massive or passionate a following as Caitlin Clark without detractors. Some were mild, and just verbalized their doubts that she would be able to translate her game to the pros easily1. Some were moderate and bullied her into answering questions about what internet trolls do and say, who claim to be fans of hers. And lied about, or at best exaggerated, her college accomplishments2. Some have been vicious and have flagrantly fouled her on the basketball court and celebrated it afterward.3
Then there was the way she was legally guarded on the court. Not in a vicious or unprofessional way, but in a more reasonable, mega-aggressive, rookie-hazing way. Except to unprecedented levels. Partly because of her skill and partly because of her hype, when the season began, she was double-teamed consistently even when she was far away from the basket. She was regularly guarded 90 feet from the basket with the ball and 35 feet from the basket without the ball4.
In one game on May 28 vs. Los Angeles, the Sparks’ Aari McDonald forgot to shoot her second FT because after she made the first, she ran over quickly to guard Caitlin Clark. McDonald was so consumed with making sure she was in Clark’s jersey on defense, that she lost count of two free throws. I’ve been watching basketball for 40 years and I have never seen that.
There’s no way to objectively prove this but this is probably the most extreme of this kind of reaction to a sports rookie we have seen. Jordan, LeBron, et al, were treated this way, but not to this level, in my opinion.
On top of that, there was the insane schedule the WNBA put the Indiana Fever through, presumably to market Caitlin Clark. They forced them to play their first 11 games in 20 days, and the first four vs. marquee teams. Three of which were on the road. The Fever played 19 of their first 33 games on the road.
This was coming off of Clark’s senior year at Iowa, and like every WNBA rookie, she did not get a break. Yet because of how far Iowa advanced in the college tournament, she got less of a break than most. She went straight from the NCAA Championship to the WNBA Draft to camp to preseason to the real thing in just a few weeks. All while the whole sports world was watching and either complimenting or critiquing her every move.
And between all of this and just the sheer difficulty of being a rookie athlete in a pro sports league, Caitlin Clark had some positively atrocious games to start the season. In her first game, she had 10 turnovers, and they were not because her teammates couldn’t handle her passes. In the first month of the season, Caitlin Clark scored in single digits four times, which just didn’t happen at Iowa5, and had horrid shooting nights. The Fever were getting blown out regularly by 20, 30, almost 40 points. They started 0-5, then 1-8, and ultimately 2-10.
I think the nadir for Caitlin Clark, personally, was on June 3 after games on back-to-back nights with the Chicago Sky and New York Liberty. After an emotional, down-to-the-wire win vs. Chicago, she put up 5 points, 2 rebounds, and 3 assists on 1-10 shooting (1-7 from three) the next night vs. New York.
And finally, night in and night out she has had to face the media more than anyone, because of her hype, all the while signing autographs for legions of fans in every stadium she plays in.
I do not mean to paint Caitlin Clark as a helpless princess victim in all of this. She is not. She is an athlete and is more cocky than 99% of people. She talks major trash and despite the trials she has faced, she is playing a game for a living.
I just use all of this to set up my point. Despite all of this, today the Indiana Fever sit at 18-16 and has clinched a playoff spot with two weeks to go in the season, after not making the playoffs since 2016. Caitlyn Clark is 9th in the league in scoring, 1st in assists, 1st in three-pointers made, 7th in the 2-point shooting percentage, 4th in free-throw percentage, set the WNBA record for assists in a game, and has put up the first two triple-doubles by a rookie in league history6.
What happened? Well, after following all of this all year, and following Caitlin Clark all the way back to her sophomore season in college (when people like Kevin Durant were lauding her), I have observed that this young woman has something in her that causes her to persevere no matter what. She digs deep inside and has the unrivaled ability to be tough when most people would crumble. You can see the stress take its toll on her in interviews this season after those humiliating losses and poor performances. But she just kept going and kept digging.
And that is something worth celebrating to me. We are so wont to protect people from struggle. I find that to be true with my wife and kids. But without struggle, there is no grit. And there are not truly amazing stories like Caitlin Clark.
So will I continue to enjoy watching her and her teammates play? Yes. Will I be glad to see full arenas and millions watching on TV? Yes. But I will never forget those dog days of May and June in the unsightly start (for the most part) to Caitlyn Clark’s career.
Because she could have let it all get to her. Yet she didn’t. That’s grit. And that’s what I love most about Caitlin Clark.
- Geno Auriemma and Diana Taurasi were the most famous of these. Taurasi’s was more nuanced and, for lack of a better term, “correct”. ↩
- Sheryl Swoopes did this and while it’s a mess and full of drama, you can read a commentary here. ↩
- The last two years the most flagrantly fouled WNBA players were fouled 4 to 5 times the whole year. That is how many times the Chicago Sky, just as one team, has flagrantly fouled Clark this year, in four meetings. ↩
- Rebecca Lobo, former player and supreme voice of reason in the league this year about Clark and everything else, did film research to confirm this, as you can read here. ↩
- She literally did not have one single-digit scoring game her last three years in college and only one total in all four years ↩
- Here’s a Caitlin Clark stat for you: She has put up 28+ points and 12+ assists in three games this season so far. No one else has ever done this in the entire 27-year history of the league. Keep in mind, this is not a rookie stat or a season stat. It’s a career stat. And she did it thrice in 33 games. ↩
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As usual, you have combined meticulous research, broad sports knowledge, and excellent memory to do an analysis such as is only seen among the better sports commentators. Thanks, Gowdy.
Good article, Gowdy. Gritty is a great way to describe her.
And as far as her presence to the league goes, I have never talked about the WNBA before this year with anyone. And my family loves sports about like the Cannons do. But today on a phone conversation with my brother, we talked about the WNBA for a solid 5 minutes. And yes, I realize the NFL season begins tonight. That’s how amazing Caitlyn Clark is. People are talking and writing articles about her on the day the NFL season begins.
Angel Reese and Caitlyn Clark COULD do for the WNBA what Magic and Bird did for the NBA. When Magic and Bird arrived at the NBA in 1979, it was a moribund league that hardly anyone watched and their finals series were tape delayed!! These two guys got on the scene, elevated the quality of basketball and left a generational mark on the league and propelled it to the behemoth that it is today. I truly believe Clark and Reese could do the same. The commissioner of the WNBA needs to bring Clark and Reese into her office and have a frank conversation the way fred thompson’s character did with Rowdy and Cole in Days of Thunder. They could save a league if they’d just bring out the greatness in each other.