You’ve come a long way, buddy — An open letter to Caitlin Clark

12/6/2023

Dear Caitlin,

Where I was coming from was growing up a sports junkie in the pre-Title IX days. When I graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1972, there was no girls basketball team. And Dowling, your alma mater? Girls didn’t even attend classes there, let alone play sports. The women’s hoops program at the University of Iowa began while I was a student there, but I never saw the team play. Who cared? Not me, despite that I was doing work study writing mostly intramural sports, men’s and women’s, for the Daily Iowan as part of my financial aid package. Those were the days when the women’s pro tennis tour was sponsored by Virginia Slims, a big tobacco brand whose ad jingle was “You’ve got your own cigarette now, baby. You’ve come a long, long way.” That was a long, long way ago.

Where I was bound was Iowa City, the elder in a foursome of guys who spanned three generations, ages 5 to 69, off to see the Crossover at Kinnick preseason scrimmage, Hawkeyes hosting DePaul. For the youngest three, the journey was much shorter, no more than 100 miles and change, an hour and a half by car.

Crossover is a clever play on the term for a deft sleight of hand by a dribbler. But it’s also a nod to the change of venue from Carver-Hawkeye Arena, which is sold out for the women’s regular season, to the football stadium so the attendance record for a women’s basketball game could be shattered. A stroke of marketing genius, like taking a wrecking ball to a glass ceiling. Marketing’s your academic All-American major, I saw somewhere. You could just as well be teaching as taking classes in it, given your NIL (the acronym for Name/Image/Likeness endorsements for student athletes, now permitted by the NCAA) resume. The roster of your marketing partners includes Nike, Hy-Vee, Goldman Sachs, the Small Business Administration, Topps, Bose, Buick, H&R Block and, just announced, State Farm. Hardly nil.

Crossover also is an understated way of describing your fan base. Besides the scoring record book you’re rewriting, TV viewership records are also undergoing extreme makeovers, thanks to you. You talk often and proudly about the influence you have on young girls. Rightly so. But your reflections on the overall broadening of the audience for women’s hoops are general. Permit me, if I may, to state plainly that you are drawing guys in droves. Old ones like me, most remarkably. Here in Iowa, us boomer boys grew up when the girls’ six-on-six game was central to rural popular culture. But it was a curio really, cornpone compared to the game that you and your contemporaries play, what with rules like the one that limited ballhandlers to no more than two dribbles. You could play offense or defense but not both; frontcourt or backcourt. No crossing over, in other words, the center line. Speaking of which, a friend of mine swears it was you who cut him off on the freeway this summer, swerving from your lane across his to make your exit ramp. No offense, but I can see you doing that. You know, going fast, get outta my way. That’s how you roll. 

When I first hatched the idea to sit down to write you, fanboy to phenom, I thought it would be to plead that you stay at Iowa as long as you can. Exercise your option for an extra year, a privilege granted since you debuted as a collegian when the pandemic limited play to practically empty gyms. Set unbreakable records. You’re already earning more as a student than most will in whatever careers they choose. Why hurry? 

Maybe I’d tell you how my wife and daughter and I stood in line last year to get into the Knapp Center when you and your terrific teammates were in town to play Drake. First time I ever bought tickets to a women’s game. Or how amazed I was by the serpentine queue that started forming at dawn last June at Principal Park. You lured what was then the largest Iowa Cubs crowd in four years that night to a game you don’t even play. People waited hours for your autograph, and I was struck by how many were men decked out in No. 22 CLARK gear, just like the man who sat next to us that Sunday afternoon at Kinnick, cradling his baby boy.

But that game — an unofficial one that didn’t count on either team’s season record — an exhibition, really, may have changed my mind. There was a vibe of too-good-to-last in the crisp, cool air. A total of 55,646 of us, officially (nearly doubling the previous women’s attendance record), blissfully immune, for an afternoon, to the contagion of world affairs ranging from our own democracy’s failing health to the acute emergencies in Ukraine and the Middle East. 

Never mind that we sat far beyond the ever-widening range of your three-point jump shots. You were still conspicuous, not only by virtue of your play, but also because of your shoes.

“She’s wearing Grinch Kobies!” shouted 12-year-old Xander in our crew when he spotted your neon green Nike kicks as the team trotted out of the tunnel and jogged the length of the field to the temporary court installed at the north end of the stadium. Dorothy’s famous ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” came to mind. Later, when you jogged back at halftime, he ran down to the railing and begged you for them. “Maybe,” you shouted back at him. “We’ll have to see. These are expensive shoes.”

As per usual, you racked up a triple double, which sounds like a glutton’s regular order at the fast-food drive-thru. Thirty-four points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. Oh, I thought to myself watching you hit Hannah Stuelke in stride as she streaked downcourt like a gazelle, if only the football team had a passing attack like this.

We’d planned to leave after the third quarter to beat traffic and get home before dark, but the two boys insisted we see the game through. Xander wanted to follow up about the shoes, and Jack, my grandson, just wanted to get as up close to you as possible at game’s end. Besides being a “Swiftie” (he saw Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film over that weekend, too), he’s also a “Clarkie.” All four of us are. So we decided to endure the postgame traffic. And as the game’s last minutes ticked away, a favorite Robert Frost poem came to mind, “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” Including you, Caitlin. I looked up an ESPN mock draft for the WNBA, and it’s got you as the No. 1 pick by the Indiana Fever if you decide to forego that extra year at Iowa. If the romantic rumors about you and Connor McCaffrey are true, that might be a great fit since he’s working for the NBA’s Indiana Pacers now. And you can always come back. When you turn 30, you can even run for governor. The WNBA season doesn’t begin until May, about the same time as the state legislature adjourns. I can even imagine Cyclone fans crossing over and voting for you.  

So, I guess instead of a plea that you stay, this turns out to be a lengthy thank you note for the memories — those already banked and those still to come. And the raised consciousness. And the outreach to Jack, that magic touch as you passed on your way to the locker room after the game on Oct. 15, 2023, when most of the record-breaking crowd was gone. So were the shoes. You were in stocking feet by then. Tough luck, Xander, who proceeded to write you privately in the days following the game.

After we got home, I looked up your bio and discovered that your 22nd birthday, your golden one, is next month. Isn’t “22” on Taylor Swift’s hit list as well as your uniform? You two really have a lot in common. 

Just sayin’ (my 22 cents worth). ♦

— Mike Wellman

University of Iowa, Class of 1976