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Credit: Indiana Fever via YouTube
Just last weekend, Indiana Fever All-Star guard Caitlin Clark was laughing and smiling with Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman, better known as StudBudz, on their 72-hour Twitch stream for WNBA All-Star Weekend.
Clark, the 2024 No. 1 overall pick, surprised them with pairs of the Caitlin 1s, her forthcoming debut Nike signature sneaker. Hiedeman and Williams thanked her profusely and hugged her. Williams wore the purple Caitlin 1s in the All-Star Game, becoming the second-ever athlete to play in the shoe. Williams affectionately nicknamed Clark “The President,” likely to signify her overwhelming influence.
“I made a call to the President, and y’all see what happened,” Williams said on the stream.
The week after All-Star Weekend, however, the Fever sent all calls for the President straight to voicemail.
ESPN’s Hallie Grossman published the Sophie Cunningham profile heard ’round the world on July 21. In it, the Fever guard expressed her opinion about transgender athletes having a right to participate in sports.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,'” Cunningham said. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
“I’m very much in the middle,” Cunningham added of her political persuasion. “I agree with things on both sides, disagree with things on both sides. And that’s all I’ve ever said about my political beliefs. But people love to assume.”
Intended or otherwise, Cunningham’s comments set off a media firestorm and served as a Bat-Signal to the far-right. Organizations against transgender women in women’s sports organized “Support Sophie Cunningham” rallies at Fever games in Seattle, Portland, and Minnesota. Cunningham mostly wasn’t pressed to answer for what she started, but when she was, she doubled down. Clark was shielded from the media entirely.
Clark finally took the podium alongside head coach Stephanie White and fellow All-Star guard Kelsey Mitchell after the Fever’s loss to the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday, Aug. 2.
Predictably, the postgame presser opened with this question about how Clark and her teammates have navigated the pre-game demonstrations and outside noise this week.
“I think, for us, it’s not really a discussion we really have in our locker room,” Clark said. “I think it’s for leagues and the governing bodies to work with their athletes to find solutions, but our focus is on basketball. That’s what we talk about and how we can get wins, and, obviously, we didn’t do that tonight.”
A visibly exasperated Clark interrupted a follow-up question by saying, “I just answered for you.”
Ideally, as a face of the WNBA and leader of the Fever, Clark would have been front and center — leading vocally as naturally as she does on the floor, like Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve has done.
I have been among the chorus begging Clark for bolder action and more definitive statements, especially when her Black, LGBTQ+ peers don’t have the privilege of sitting out such conversations. But to be fair to her, Clark has used her voice multiple times over the past two years.
On June 13, 2024, one month into her rookie year, Clark offered a strong statement against the influx of hate, harassment, misogyny, and racial abuse.
“I think it’s disappointing,” Clark said in response to a question from James Boyd of The Athletic. “Everybody in our world demands the same amount of respect. The women in our league deserve the same amount of respect. People should not be using my name to push those agendas. It’s disappointing. It’s not acceptable.”
“This league is a league I grew up admiring and wanting to be a part of,” she continued. “Some of the women in this league were my biggest idols and role models growing up and helped me wanting to achieve this moment right here that I get to play in every single night. Just treating every single woman in this league with the same amount of respect, I think, is just a basic human thing that everybody should do.”
And one month ago, in the aftermath of Alyssa Thomas’ controversial play on her that sparked vitriolic aftermath, Clark opened her media availability with a five-minute monologue that hit the same beats:
On Sunday, Clark kept her response short, but her demeanor said so much more.
Clark looked drained and sounded monotone. How many times can she say the same thing, only for antagonists to make her their mascot anyway? It was the image of a 24-year-old with the world at her fingertips who doesn’t feel comfortable taking hold of anything.
Who we saw Sunday stood in glaring contrast to the playful, sarcastic Clark we’ve seen at other press conferences this season, like when she teased her signature shoe or shrugged off all her technical fouls. It was almost a different person than the one who giddily crashed the StudBudz’s stream.
There is the perception of Caitlin Clark and the reality of Caitlin Clark — the perception of the WNBA and the reality of the WNBA — and the gulf is widening by the day, as Jemele Hill broke down with Awful Announcing‘s Brandon Contes last week.
“Being there with the All-Stars, among the players, if I would have told you what the headlines were about Caitlin Clark and the league in general, you would have sworn they couldn’t possibly be talking about the same league,” Hill said. “You saw the relationships that she has. You saw up close, no, this league does not hate her.”
The StudBudz do it through Twitch. A’ja Wilson never advertises it, but she has an annual Pride Cake tradition for her teammates. Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers haven’t hesitated to use their platforms to surface real-life issues, though Reese has her own difficulties with how she’s been portrayed and how her words are twisted. Maya Moore, Clark’s childhood idol, left basketball in her prime to dedicate her life to activism. Advocacy and solidarity take different forms, especially in the WNBA.
Perhaps Clark hasn’t figured out hers yet, or perhaps this is it.
Dating back to her star turn at Iowa, Clark has consistently shown the ways in which she is comfortable wielding her fame and in what contexts she’s comfortable opening up to the media. Would a performative pounding of the press conference table be better, if it wasn’t authentic to Clark? At what point does demanding Clark to be someone she isn’t over and over again reflect the definition of insanity?
Of late, Clark has asserted repeatedly, “You don’t know me.” And it’s true, even if parasocial relationships claim otherwise. We have no idea what Clark does or says privately to with her peers. We only know what she chooses to share.
Clark will never make everyone happy, whether she stays silent or speaks, and the choice is ultimately hers on how much she cares to use her voice regardless of that burden. The media has a choice now, too: cover Clark as she is or cover her as it wants her to be. The former might get us closer to the truth, while the latter all but guarantees this toxic cycle continues.
The post Caitlin Clark addresses Sophie Cunningham controversy for first time; now the media has a choice appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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