Daniel P. Finney, Paragraph Stacker
A million years ago when the internet was young and social media meant handing someone a personalized mixtape, I used to sit next to legendary sports writer Jane Burns on press row at Drake women’s basketball games.
Lisa Bluder coached the Bulldogs and they were the best show in Des Moines. Kristi Kinne drove the lane like it was her own personal I-235. Julie Rittgers sank the threes like she was dropping quarters into a washing machine, and Tricia Wakely shook off defenders in the post for power layups that left a trail of bodies on the floor.
The years I covered those teams, from 1994 to 1997, were the best years of my life. The one question Jane and I always asked: “Why aren’t more people here?”
The Knapp Center holds about 7,100. Drake drew well for the era, about 2,500 a game.
But the facilities people rarely had to pull out the seats on the upper level unless one of the big public universities — Iowa, Iowa State or conference rival Northern Iowa — was in town.
This was the pre-Caitlin Clark era. The woman from West Des Moines wasn’t born yet and the WNBA wouldn’t tip off until the summer of 1997.
Clark, of course, changed everything. Her “from the logo” threes and seemingly impossible passes captured the hearts and minds of the sporting audience in a way no one quite had before.
Suddenly, a world developed where women’s basketball was at the center of conversation, getting record ratings on TV and filling up arenas across the nation.
This is what I always wanted to see when I was a kid sports writer scrawling notes in a steno pad at Drake.
Every hustler and charlatan in the world has glommed on to Clark and the WNBA like barnacles on the bellies of whales.
And they’ve brought the odious culture of rage and anguish with them.
Clark gets fouled, sometimes hard and sometimes purposely hard.
So the story people tell is “they’re jealous” of Clark’s popularity.
The social media demagogues define “they” as Black and queer players.
Because of course they do. When all else fails, remind the faithful who they are supposed to hate.
Political grifters are especially good at this. They say Clark is being targeted.
And like good, decent and honorable white men, they stand up to defend Clark, their perceived damsel in distress.
Never mind that Clark said multiple times that she did not believe she was being targeted.
The “problem” became so acute that 11 members of Congress — including Iowa’s own Zach Nunn — wrote a letter to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert demanding an investigation into fouls against Clark.
Our nation is at war with Iran, but hard fouls in women’s basketball are what Nunn and his pals are worried about.
This is not an issue of national security.
Does Clark get fouled? Of course. Does she get fouled hard? Yes.
Is this a conspiracy by Black and queer players to take Clark out and put straight, white women in their place?
Is there jealousy? Probably.
There were a lot of great ballers in the W before Clark and there will be more when she’s gone.
Does race play a factor in Clark’s popularity? Absolutely.
If Clark’s long bombs and magic passes weren’t so exciting, nobody would pay attention to her either.
Take Angel Reese of the Atlanta Dream. Reese and Clark are rivals dating to 2023, when Reese’s Louisiana State beat Clark’s Hawkeyes in the national championship.
Reese taunted Clark in the final minutes, pointing to her ring finger and waving her hand in front of her face as Clark ignored her.
But Clark is a trash talker. That’s a part of her game. I don’t care for it, but all my favorite men’s ballers in history did it: Jordan, Magic, Bird and so on.
You talk when you win. You get talked to when you lose. That’s the game.
But somehow Clark’s mouthiness is excused, but Reese’s responses are an affront to sportsmanship.
The ongoing story is Reese is a poor player and doesn’t score as much as Clark.
Clark and Reese are fundamentally different players. Clark is a point guard who deals assists and makes shots.
Reese is a power forward who grabs rebounds. She’s averaging nearly 12 boards per game this season — best in the league.
But the ugliness directed against her by people who claim to be Clark fans is such foul offal one might suspect there is a more sinister motivation for the vitriol.
If it’s possible that Black players hate Clark because of her skin tone, it’s more likely people hate Reese for hers.
I’m not saying that no one could criticize Reese. You absolutely can. This is sports. You’re not required to like your rivals.
What I am saying is that we, as a nation, have a much longer history of discrimination and racism toward Black people than we do the other way around.
Clark’s teammate, Sophie Cunningham, was fouled hard by DiJonai Carrington when the Fever played Chicago on Aug. 8.
The refs reviewed the call and upgraded it to a flagrant 2 and tossed Carrington from the game.
The foul was excessive and unnecessary. The refs got it right. The punishment fit the foul.
But Carrington made it worse.
Carrington posted “WHITE PRIVILEGE” to social media from the locker room.
Of course she did. She’s 28 years old. She’s had a smartphone in her hand since she was a kid.
People today treat their every fart and armpit noise as worthy of documentary-style coverage that must be shared with the whole laughing world.
Carrington is hardly the first person to say something stupid on social media in the heat of the moment while at work.
And in our left-leaning educational institutions, we’ve taught too many young people to scream racism at every slight.
But consider this: when Cunningham body slammed Phoenix’s Jacey Sheldon last season, she got ejected, but it launched her brand as a heroic enforcer and defender of Clark.
Both plays were dirty. Neither should be praised.
But the tumult and shouting continued.
After the Chicago game, Fever coach Stephanie White said she didn’t think Carrington meant to hurt Cunningham.
Oh, buddy. Let the fun begin.
Linda Cohn, the former ESPN SportsCenter host, accused White of not standing up for her players. Cohn wasn’t the first nor the loudest, but I follow Cohn on social media and respect her takes.
This opinion felt like a plea for engagement more than something carefully considered.
Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith called for White’s firing after her postgame comments.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said if the play had happened in his state, he would pursue assault-and-battery charges.
It’s good to know all the important problems in Indiana and Florida are solved so their top elected officials can weigh in on the critical issues of fouls in women’s basketball games.
After several days in the media meat grinder, White gave an impassioned statement before the Fever’s Aug. 11 game.
She said she didn’t see the foul in real time and agreed it was egregious on the replay.
White directly addressed the keyboard warriors: “I take personally any suggestions that I don’t 100% always have my players’ back. I ride with them 10 toes down all the time, all the time. They know that.”
Nonetheless, some of those assembled at Gainbridge Fieldhouse booed White when she was announced.
That’s loyalty for you.
Nobody turns on a beloved figure faster than sports fans.
Kurt Warner led the St. Louis Rams to two Super Bowls, but when he struggled, Rams fans mercilessly mocked him and attacked everything about him from his faith to his wife’s hairdo.
I’m sure none of those boos in Indianapolis came from people who don’t like the fact that White is married to a woman. That couldn’t possibly be a motivator.
Nah, that’s crazy talk from some lefty loon.
But the righty loons decided to take the crazy up a notch.
Two former NBA players declared for the 2027 WNBA draft. They say they identify as women and want to play.
One of the newly declared trans women is Royce White, a failed U.S. Senate candidate from Minnesota currently running for president.
She’s a former Iowa State forward, back when she identified as male, who played a total of 9 minutes in the NBA.
WNBA Commissioner Engelbert acted with her usual decisiveness and sent the issue to a committee for discussion.
Colin Cowherd weighed in to say the WNBA is all drama and now that the league is getting all the attention it wanted, it can’t handle it.
So a man who makes a living stirring up controversy, dishing hot takes and doing whatever it takes to get attention for his self-aggrandizement and personal profit blames the WNBA for the drama.
Sports media wouldn’t know what to do with itself if it wasn’t manufacturing or amplifying drama.
The sports report would be 10 minutes with highlights instead of prognostications, implications and blind guesses 24 hours a day.
My friend Ross Peterson of “The Rush” internet radio show said, “It’s never about what’s happening on the court.”
Yeah, but whose fault is that?
The content creators formerly known as the news media are high on my list. Controversies get likes and shares, especially when they involve race and gender.
When engagement is your god, news judgment becomes “how much more can we get out of that story?” instead of “Should we be doing this?”
Our ongoing political and ideological extremism doesn’t help.
Men, excuse me, trans women who played in the NBA want attention, so they lie about who they are so they can pretend they’re standing up for women’s rights instead of just being parasites.
A player posting “WHITE PRIVILEGE” after getting tossed for a flagrant 2 makes a joke out of legitimate concerns about discrimination against Black and brown people in this country.
Gallup polls show Congress’ approval rating at 12%. Maybe injecting more racism and homophobia into a WNBA discussion will improve that number — which seems to be making sure America hates the right people.
Peterson is right. We should be talking about the games.
Because the games are fantastic.
My dad and I became Clark fans after Mom died in late 2023. Watching her with the Hawkeyes and the Fever helped us heal and bond.
We watch most of the games together. Win or lose, it’s always a great time.
I’ve rarely seen my dad so fired up for sports. He’ll shout, “Shoot it!” when Clark crosses the half-court line.
He’ll scoff, “Nice miss” when the opponent bricks one.
Heck, he’s been known to watch WNBA games when the Fever weren’t playing.
This is what I dreamed about all those years ago in the Knapp Center.
The trick, I think, is to stop paying attention to the professional cretins who want to ruin this experience with their endless cow pies.
That’s not easy in the age of always-on push alerts and 24-hour rage and anguish.
But the question we all have to ask ourselves is this: When you’re watching the game, when the noise stops for about two hours, are you having a good time?
If so, you’re doing it right. Keep cheering.
The outside noise? That’s why God gave us the mute button.