Caitlin Clark is on a mission to lead Iowa (26-6) to its first Final Four since 1993, to be a No. 1 WNBA draft pick and to defy gender-based preconceptions much like Serena Williams, her favorite athlete.
Before Caitlin Clark was making her case as college basketball’s most thrilling talent, she was a middle child in West Des Moines, Iowa, who insisted on tagging along with her two brothers and countless cousins. The 21-year-old junior guard, who has risen to national prominence thanks to her Stephen Curry-esque shooting range and video game-like statistics,
“When it gets really quiet, that’s a sign of danger,” Anne Clark, Caitlin’s mother, said over dinner at an Altoona, Ia., steakhouse. “We were trying to stop the bleeding. We had just put in light carpet. I might have said, ‘Not the carpet!’ Colin still has the little cut in his head. It’s his war wound now.”
No one here, or anywhere, has seen a player quite like Clark. The 6-foot floor general has driven record television ratings for the Big Ten Network and received social media shout-outs from NBA stars LeBron James and Kevin Durant, who appreciate her refined game, showmanship and competitiveness in the face of double teams, traps, full-court presses and junk defenses.
When Clark was a third-grader, her father drove her to watch the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx in Minneapolis, and she briefly met Maya Moore. Too excited to ask for an autograph or a selfie, Clark settled for a bear hug — an embrace she now credits as the moment she fell in love with basketball.
The Dowling Maroons played a fast-paced style, and they turned Clark loose as a freshman starter. She dropped soccer after her sophomore year so she could focus on basketball year-round, given that she was juggling her school team, her All-Iowa Attack AAU commitments and invites from USA Basketball. In time, she racked up all-state and McDonald’s all-American honors, and she was named Iowa’s Miss Basketball in 2020.“The student sections loved to chant ‘Overrated!’ at me,” Clark said.
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