CATCH 22

May 25, 2024 at 4:32 pm (Caitlyn Clark, Indiana Fever, UCONN, University of Iowa, WNBA)

Everyone by now has heard of Caitlyn Clark, the young woman from Iowa, University of Iowa basketball star, and now WNBA rookie, drafted no. 1 last month by the Indiana Fever.

Her fame is from one simple thing: three-point shooting.

Basketball added a rule to keep tall players from monopolizing the sport. If you sink a basket from more than 22 feet away, you score 3 points instead of 2.

No rule change has ever helped a sport like this.

Did heaven come up with this rule change?

And has that rule change now found its angel?

Caitlyn Clark has taken a major sport and done the unthinkable. Made the women as popular as the men.

Caitlyn Clark isnt just about records.

It’s art.

Caitlyn Clark doesn’t just heave it, like most women players do. She consistently shoots farther back from the three-point arc than anyone else with joyful, balletic, ease.

She is quickly becoming a world historical figure.

But there is a catch 22. (She wears no. 22)

The fame has a catch.

Is this always true?

The adulation is not from 22’s athleticism, alone.

How nice that would be.

Drama, sometimes ugly drama, laced with jealousy and judgment, has accompanied her rise.

Not because she’s a controversial person or a flamboyant, odd, eccentric, character.

She’s not.

She expresses herself rather strongly on the court.

In person she tends to be generous, and in her speech and manner, matter of fact.

She doesn’t win all her games or make all her shots.

And her fame is, to a certain degree—just because that’s how the world is now—a social media one.

The more women (and men) and this includes celebrities in sports, argue and fight over her and even cast doubt and aspersions on her, the more she climbs upward in the ‘famous athlete’ and ‘icon of the moment’ sweepstakes.

The swamp of public opinion fired up by jealousy began with her fame in college.

In large part it had to do with the UConn “mafia.”

She sinned in not being a UConn player.

Only UConn was allowed to be identified with women’s basketball, in many people’s minds.

It had nothing to do with Connecticut, for the stars of UConn come from all over.

Caitlyn Clark had the audacity to be from Iowa and excel at the University of Iowa, a team largely comprised of Iowans (or somewhere in the midwest—a car ride away.)

And Iowa became a dominant team because Caitlyn Clark was not only a good shooter, but a good passer, too.

Had she played on UConn, she could have been “properly birthed” as a women’s basketball star, surrounded by other stars.

Iowa wasn’t quite the way to go.

She’s been in the WNBA for a month (her numbers are good, not yet great) and her new team—with a poor record last year, poor enough to earn the first pick in the draft—is 0-5.

Veteran players in the WNBA, excellent players themselves (capable of shooting 3 pointers and everything else) are only too happy to show up Caitlyn Clark and show the world (which is now watching) that they are good, too.

There are many hurt feelings because Caitlyn Clark is the GOAT.

She is the GOAT in terms of both records broken and the sudden fame—bringing the WNBA to larger arenas, chartered flights, and tons of gossip and TV viewership.

Clark gets physically pounded on the court and the WNBA refs do not whistle what are clearly fouls (who knows why?).

Millions on social media are wondering why the WNBA hates the person who is saving them.

Are the WNBA officials beholden to a general Sadean atmosphere which follows this “angel” wherever she goes?

She may be the greatest sports figure of all time.

First, you have her record breaking accomplishments.

Then you have her lifting up an entire gender in terms of sports watching.

Then you have the adversity.

What appear to be compromised refs.

A bad coach.

Teammates struggling to find themselves.

Opponents desperately and gleefully attempting to prove they are better, that Clark isn’t “really” the best.

Massive jealousy.

Titanic scrutiny.

The world counts, records, and broadcasts her every lapse on the court—turnovers, fouls, the ‘f-word’ tossed at refs, losses.

Expectations through the roof.

Legions delighting in her failures—in the unprecedented-in-world-history, circus world of social media.

Celebrities, superstars, and millions of fan-pundits watching and judging her 24/7.

All for a girl from Iowa with a bashful smile.

Who makes heart gestures to her parents in the stands.

Update. The Fever win their first game of the season. They win in LA, with celebrities in the stands and five sailors wearing no. 22. Indiana is now 1-5. Their early schedule has the Fever playing the best teams. The two-time reigning champs are next: the Las Vegas Aces, who drafted Caitlyn’s friend and Iowa teammate, Kate Martin.

The victory against the LA Sparks seals the deal: Clark is a genius. She missed everything from 3 but did other things to keep the Fever in it, then nailed two 3s to win the game at the end. She’s also crazy. (To keep herself sane?) After the clock ran out on her first WNBA win, she lofted a useless long shot and seemed deeply concerned about whether it went in, or not.

Thomas West Graves Jr, M.A. Iowa

Salem, MA