IS CLARK THE GREATEST AS A RUNNER-UP? NO, BUT THE QUESTION IS LARGER
She has made more impact than any female athlete of her time, which might be more important than South Carolina winning the championship, even as Dawn Staley turned the game into a GOAT-or-not event
The sun will fade behind the moon, in a wacko eclipse, but the totality of life won’t change Monday. What happens in women’s basketball remains what sport demands. Caitlin Clark will be remembered as having more impact on America than any female athlete of her time. She won’t be recalled as the Greatest of All Time.
In the bigger celestial orb, many will think the debate is absurd. They want us to portray Dawn Staley as the coach who took down Clark and Iowa, praising that “God is funny like that because he rips out your heart and makes you believe.” But it was Staley, before leading 38-0 South Carolina to a second national championship in three years, who said an all-time great must win a title to be the proverbial GOAT. Guess whose career again ends in second place after an 87-75 loss?
“I was really good in college, never won a championship,” Staley said on game eve. “You've got to win a championship. That's me personally. I had a great career. But it's always, did you win a championship? … If Caitlin wins the championship, she's pretty damn good, yeah, like, she's a GOAT. I mean, she's really damn good regardless. But winning the championship would seal the deal. I hope to the dear Lord she doesn’t.”
She didn’t. Clark departed a Cleveland arena with hugs and congratulations before a blank look paled her face, knowing she’ll be selected first in the WNBA draft next week by the Indiana Fever. She was thwarted Sunday by one of the kids Staley loves the most, Raven Johnson, who returned from a season-ending knee injury two years ago and wouldn’t let No. 22 beyond her gaze. Late in the first half, after Clark had scored 18 first-quarter points for a 27-20 lead, Johnson stole the ball from her twice, including a swat with her right hand that led to her layup and a 49-46 lead. And who was almighty in Iowa’s last gasp, with 2:22 left, gathering the rebound when Clark missed a three-pointer? Raven, once again. The Gamecocks bombarded the boards, 51-29, with Kamilla Cardoso managing 17.
Her final point total was 30, making five of 13 three-pointers. “I think the biggest thing is, it's really hard to win these things. I know that better than most people by now. To be so close twice really hurts," Clark said. “South Carolina is just so good, there’s only so much you can do. … There's not a regret in my mind of how things went. I’ll be able to sleep every night even though I never won a national championship. I don't sit and sulk about the things that never happened. My mom always taught me, ‘Keep your head high, be proud of everything that you've accomplished.’ And, you know, I think I'm so hungry for a lot more, too.”
So Staley and South Carolina reign atop the sport’s grandest hour. Shouldn’t they be saluted now? Still, I would argue it’s possible Clark’s grandeur is more important to kids than winning a championship. We have written about her magnitude for months. If her Sunday TV ratings approach 20 million, realize that her 14.2 on Friday — with a peak of 17 million — was bigger than every NBA Finals game last year, every World Series game last year and every Masters final round since 2013. Could it be she’s leading a fix where our country is tired of NBA whiners, baseball’s problems and golf without the real Tiger Woods? She will sell out buildings on the next level, such as Las Vegas, which moved her July 2 game against the Aces to T-Mobile Arena. Yet it turns out Breanna Stewart, who led Connecticut to four national titles in the last decade, was the first to make the anti-GOAT claim.
“You are going to look 10 years back and you are going to see all the records that she has broken, points and stuff like that, but anybody knows your goal when you play college basketball is to win a national championship,” she said. “So you need one.”
Said Staley: “I agree with Stewie when it comes to winning the championship. I think she's the GOAT, to be able to win four national championships and to be MVP. I think she was MVP all four times.”
The comments forced Clark to defend her legacy, which isn’t fair but becomes necessary when other prominent people make statements. She is the all-time leading scorer in big-time college hoops and, somehow, her logo shots were more impressive than Stephen Curry’s. You might say those traits make her more popular than any champion. She wasn’t in a mood to discuss the Greatest Ever argument. Is it her favorite, Maya Moore? Or Cheryl Miller? Or Candace Parker? That’s where ABC’s commentators went with the usual pre-game Mount Rushmore.
“I’ve played basketball at this university for four years, and for it to come down to two games — and that be whether or not I'm proud of myself and proud of the way I've carried myself and proud of the way I've impacted people in their lives — I don't think that's a fair assessment," Clark said. “I don't want my legacy to be, ‘Oh, Caitlin won X amount of games,’ or ‘Caitlin scored X amount of points.’ I hope it's what I was able to do for the game of women's basketball. I hope it is the young boys and young girls that are inspired to play this sport or dream to do whatever they want to do in their lives. For it to come down to 40 minutes and for me to validate myself within 40 minutes, I don't think that's a fair assessment.”
It was inevitable, as she’ll continue to realize, that doubters will emerge. She didn’t know they already were in her realm. Jealousy? A grudge against social media? The sudden zeal of ESPN/ABC to treat women as a bigger deal than the men’s tournament on another network? Still the girl who grew up in West Des Moines — beating male players when she was 12 — has a glimpse of the globe.
“When you're in the spotlight like this, there's gonna be a million different opinions on you. And for as many people that are going to love you, there's going to be people that don't like you. That's the case with every professional athlete, men or women, playing at the highest stage,” Clark said. “I think what I've been able to do over the course of my career is just focus on the opinions of the people inside our locker room. That's what I really care about. The people that I love to death. The people that have had my back every single second of my career.”
All she had to do was notice the celebrities rooting for her. “If you don’t rock with Caitlin Clark game, you’re just a FLAT OUT HATER!!!!!” LeBron James wrote in the first half. “Stay far away from them people!! PLEASE.” In the clubhouse of the Angels, Mike Trout doesn’t have Shohei Ohtani any longer but he did wear a No. 22 Iowa uniform. Disney CEO Bob Iger weighs in with unheard-of results, saying of women’s sports, “Not only have they arrived, but their potential is tremendous.”
In the hinterlands, before leaving for a city two states away, I’d prefer to remember Caitlin Clark with a perfect screensaver on her cell phone. “Pretty tough,” she said, showing Michael Phelps winning a gold medal.
“Honored!!! This is so cool!” Phelps wrote.
Let Dawn Staley have the trophy she deserves. Let Breanna Stewart and others call each other the GOAT. “I personally want to thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport,” Staley said. “She carried a heavy load. She’s going to lift that league (the WNBA) up as well. Caitlin Clark, if you’re out there, you’re one of the GOATs of our game. We appreciate you.”
One of the greats, huh? Ask a few children out there. See what they think.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.