Caitlin Clark raised the profile of girls’s basketball to unprecedented ranges in each the faculty ranks and the WNBA, and Tuesday she was named the AP Feminine Athlete of the 12 months for her affect on and off the courtroom.
After main Iowa to the nationwide championship recreation, Clark was the highest choose within the WNBA draft as anticipated and went on to win rookie of the yr honors within the league. Followers packed sold-out arenas and thousands and thousands of tv viewers tuned in to comply with her journey. Clark’s exploits have been far reaching, casting a lightweight on different ladies’s sports activities leagues alongside the way in which.
A bunch of 74 sports activities journalists from The Related Press and its members voted on the award. Clark obtained 35 votes, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles was second with 25 and boxer Imane Khelif was third, getting 4 votes.
Clark is barely the fourth ladies’s basketball participant to be honored as the feminine athlete of the yr because it was first introduced in 1931, becoming a member of Sheryl Swoopes (1993), Rebecca Lobo (1995) and Candace Parker (2008, 2021).
“I grew up a fan of Candace Parker and the people who came before me and to be honored in this way, is super special and I’m thankful,” Clark stated in a cellphone interview. “It was a great year for women’s basketball and women’s sports.”
Shohei Ohtani received the AP Male Athlete of the 12 months on Monday for the third time.
Clark broke the NCAA Division I profession scoring report for each women and men ending her profession with 3,951 factors whereas guiding Iowa to its second consecutive nationwide championship recreation. After her Hawkeyes misplaced t South Carolina for the title, Gamecocks coach Daybreak Staley took the mic throughout her group’s celebration and stated, “I want to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport.”
For all of the success Clark has had and the eye she has delivered to ladies’s basketball, she is commonly the centerpiece of debates and on-line toxicity in the direction of her and different gamers within the league.
For her half, Clark has disavowed the poisonous discourse.
Lobo additionally has been impressed with the way in which the 22-year-old Clark has dealt with the stress and a spotlight that has come her method.
“I would say she’s navigated it almost flawlessly. she hasn’t had an big missteps or misspeaks at a time you’re under constant scrutiny,” Lobo stated. “She’s seemed to say and do all the right things. That’s just incredible at a time when it’s constant attention and scrutiny. She has not done anything to tarnish this sort of mild persona she has.”
As Clark dealt with the reward — and the backlash — throughout the warmth of competitors, it was laborious for her to understand simply what she was ready accomplish over the previous yr. However after having time to mirror on the whirlwind tour, she appreciates those that have been there alongside her for the experience.
“I’m thankful for the people I got to do it with,” Clark stated. “A year ago I was still in the early part of my senior year in college. … How fast things change, and now I can see how great a college season it was.”
Iowa bought out all of its video games at house and on the highway with Clark as the primary attraction. That momentum continued into the professionals. Her No. 22 jersey was prevalent wherever she performed throughout her rookie season and will likely be retired at Iowa.
“You’d be remiss not to acknowledge how crazy her fan base is and the eyes she gets with everything she does,” stated Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, who was usually noticed courtside at Clark’s Indiana Fever video games. “It’s a unique kind of recognition, she’s one of the crucial fashionable athletes on the planet. It’s not simply ladies’s sports activities anymore.
“It’s really cool to see and she just handles it with such grace.”
Clark stated she enjoys spending time with followers at video games, normally taking a couple of minutes earlier than and after video games to signal autographs.
“For me it’s still really fun,” she stated. “Whether it’s 15 seconds or 10 seconds or 5 seconds can be very impactful in a young girl and young boys life. Seeing the fans going crazy an hour before tipoff, I never take that for granted. That’s super cool and I never want that to go away.”
After a gradual begin to her WNBA profession, Clark ultimately discovered her stride there too. She set the single-game help report with 19 and in addition had 337 assists on the season to interrupt that mark as nicely. Clark, identified for her logo-distance 3-pointers, was the quickest participant to achieve 100 3’s when she did it in 34 video games which helped Indiana attain the playoffs for the primary time since 2016.
Lobo, who received the AP feminine athlete of the yr award after lifting UConn to its first nationwide championship, was on the courtroom for launch of the WNBA two years later. The ESPN analyst sees Clark’s ascension as one thing totally different.
“She’s brought unprecedented attention both in the building, but also viewership to the sport that was worthy of it but didn’t have it yet,” Lobo stated. “There’s by no means been something like this.
“That timeframe from 1995-97 was a baby step in the progression of it all. This is a giant leap forward. I’ve never seen anything like this. There’s more attention then the sports ever had.”
The numbers have been report breaking when Clark is a part of a broadcast:
— TV viewership within the WNBA was up 300% thanks largely to Clark with ABC, CBS, ION, ESPN, and ESPN2 all having report viewers when Fever video games have been on.
— The NCAA ladies’s championship recreation outdrew the boys on TV for the primary time within the sport’s 42-year historical past with 18.9 million viewers tuning it to observe the occasion. It was the second most watched ladies’s sporting occasion exterior of the Olympics within the historical past of U.S. tv.
— The 2024 WNBA draft was the most-watched in league historical past with 2.4 million viewers.
Clark credit the neighborhood of girls athletes for the recognition improve of girls’s sports activities, saying “we” did this or “we” did that when requested about it.
“It’s fascinating, you don’t always appreciate how many people 18 million is,” Clark stated. “You see that number against a college football game or the Masters or whatever it is as far as the biggest sporting events in our country and it puts it in perspective. We outdrew the men’s Final Four.”