Caitlin Clark has raised the profile of girls’s basketball to unprecedented ranges in each the school ranks and the WNBA, and on Tuesday she was named the AP Female Athlete of the Year for her influence on and off the court docket.
After main Iowa to the nationwide championship sport, Clark was the primary decide within the WNBA Draft as anticipated and went on to win rookie of the yr honors within the league. Fans stuffed sold-out arenas and tens of millions of viewers tuned in to comply with his journey. Clark’s exploits had been far-reaching, shining a lightweight on different girls’s sports activities leagues alongside the best way.
A gaggle of 74 sports activities journalists from the Associated Press and its members voted for the award. Clark acquired 35 votes, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles was second with 25 and boxer Imane Khelif was third, getting 4 votes.
Clark is barely the fourth girls’s basketball participant to be honored as Female Athlete of the Year since she was first launched 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 individuals who got here earlier than me and to be honored on this method, it is actually particular and I’m grateful,” Clark mentioned in a cellphone interview. “It was an amazing yr for ladies’s basketball and girls’s sports activities.”
Shohei Ohtani received the AP Male Athlete of the Year award for the third time Monday.
Clark broke the NCAA Division I profession scoring document for each women and men, ending her profession with 3,951 factors whereas main Iowa to its second consecutive nationwide championship sport. After her Hawkeyes misplaced the title to South Carolina, Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley took the microphone throughout her crew’s celebration and mentioned, “I need to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport.”
Despite all of the success Clark has had and the eye she has dropped at girls’s basketball, she is usually on the middle of on-line debate and toxicity in direction of herself and different gamers within the league.
For his half, Clark disavowed the poisonous discourse.
Lobo was additionally impressed with how the 22-year-old Clark dealt with the strain and a focus that got here her method.
“I might say he handled it virtually flawlessly. He did not make any main missteps or language errors at a time if you’re below fixed scrutiny,” Lobo mentioned. “He appears to have mentioned and carried out all the best issues. That’s simply unbelievable in a time when there’s fixed consideration and scrutiny. He’s carried out nothing to boring this type of delicate persona that he has.”
While Clark dealt with the reward – and unfavourable reactions – within the warmth of the competitors, it was troublesome for her to understand what she had achieved over the previous yr. But after having time to mirror on the whirlwind tour, he appreciates those that had been there by his facet throughout the journey.
“I’m grateful for the folks I obtained to do that with,” Clark mentioned. “A yr in the past I used to be nonetheless at the start of my senior yr in school…How rapidly issues change, and now I can see how nice the school season was.”
Iowa offered out all of its dwelling and street video games with Clark as the principle attraction. This momentum has continued among the many professionals. His No. 22 jersey was prevalent in all places he performed throughout his rookie season and shall be retired at Iowa.
“You could be remiss if you happen to did not acknowledge how loopy his fan base is and the eyeballs he will get with every part he does,” mentioned Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, who was usually noticed courtside at Clark’s Indiana Fever video games . “It’s a distinct form of recognition, she’s one of the vital standard athletes on this planet. It’s not only a girls’s sport anymore.
“It’s actually lovely to see, and she or he handles it with such grace.”
Clark mentioned she enjoys spending time with followers throughout video games, normally taking a couple of minutes earlier than and after video games to signal autographs.
“It’s nonetheless a number of enjoyable for me,” he mentioned. “Whether it is 15 seconds, 10 seconds or 5 seconds, it may possibly have a huge impact on a woman or boy’s life. Seeing the followers go loopy an hour earlier than tip-off, I by no means take that as a right. It’s superb and I by no means need that to occur.’
After a sluggish begin to her WNBA profession, Clark finally discovered her stride there as effectively. He set the single-game help document with 19 and in addition had 337 assists on the season to surpass that mark as effectively. Clark, recognized for her long-range 3-pointers, was the quickest participant to hit 100 3-pointers in 34 video games, serving to Indiana attain the playoffs for the primary time since 2016.
Lobo, who received the AP Female Athlete of the Year Award after main UConn to its first nationwide championship, was on the court docket for the launch of the WNBA two years later. The ESPN analyst sees Clark’s rise as one thing totally different.
“It introduced unprecedented consideration each within the constructing, but additionally within the public to the game that was worthy of it however did not have it but,” Lobo mentioned. “There has by no means been something prefer it.
“That interval from 1995 to 1997 was a small step within the development of all this. This is a huge step ahead. I’ve by no means seen something prefer it. There’s extra consideration than this sport has ever had.”
The numbers had been document breaking when Clark spoke on a broadcast:
– Television viewership within the WNBA elevated 300% thanks largely to Clark, with ABC, CBS, ION, ESPN and ESPN2 all recording document viewership throughout Fever video games.
— The NCAA girls’s championship sport surpassed the boys’s championship sport on TV for the primary time within the sport’s 42-year historical past, with 18.9 million viewers tuning in to observe the occasion. It was the second most-watched girls’s sporting occasion outdoors of the Olympics in American tv historical past.
— The 2024 WNBA Draft was the most-watched in league historical past with 2.4 million viewers.
Clark credit the athletic group for the rise in recognition of girls’s sports activities, saying “we” did this or “we” did that when requested about it.
“It’s fascinating, you do not at all times notice how many individuals 18 million is,” Clark mentioned. “You see that quantity in opposition to a school soccer sport or the Masters or no matter it’s so far as the largest sporting occasions in our nation and it places it into perspective. We’ve made it by means of the boys’s Final Four.”
Associated Press reporting.
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