{"id":421333,"date":"2026-01-21T18:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/421333\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T18:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:59:09","slug":"caitlin-clark-pens-special-birthday-message-for-former-hawkeyes-teammate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/421333\/","title":{"rendered":"Caitlin Clark Pens Special Birthday Message For Former Hawkeyes Teammate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Indiana Fever star <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnaut.com\/tag\/caitlin-clark\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/sportsnaut.com\/tag\/caitlin-clark\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Caitlin Clark<\/a> penned a heartfelt birthday message to her former Iowa Hawkeyes teammate on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Clark sent the special message to Monika Czinano, celebrating her new age while reflecting on their time together in college.<\/p>\n<p>Sharing a three-image collage on her Instagram story, the Fever star captioned it with a short love-filled message.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHappy Bday to the mikan goat,\u201d Clark wrote. \u201cThrowback to our prime together \ud83d\ude0f\u2764\ufe0f.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year also added two more words signifying her love for the \u201cmikan goat\u201d in the accompanying post.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLove you,\u201d Clark added.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"738\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/8270.jpg\" alt=\"Caitlin Clark's Instagram story post\" class=\"wp-image-1393957\"  \/>Image Credits: @caitlinclark22\/Instagram<\/p>\n<p>Monika Czinano and Caitlin Clark both spent three years together in Iowa and were known as the \u201cLaw Firm\u201d during that period.<\/p>\n<p>During that period, the team earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament and reached the program\u2019s first-ever national title game. Though the run ended with a loss to LSU in the Final, the duo etched their names into the record books.<\/p>\n<p>Caitlin Clark and Monika Czinano both made history at Iowa<\/p>\n<p>While in college, Caitlin Clark and Monika Czinano also became the first set of teammates in Big Ten women\u2019s basketball history to cross the 2,000-career-point mark in the same season and were the leading scorers for Iowa that year.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"788\" height=\"525\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Caitlin-Clark-makes-hilarious-promise-to-fans-ahead-of-2025-LPGA-Pro-Am-27253480.jpg\" alt=\"Caitlin Clark\" class=\"wp-image-1345929\"  \/>Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>The duo also enjoyed enormous success on the Hawkeyes women\u2019s basketball team, with the 2022-23 season being a standout year for them.<\/p>\n<p>But that season also marked the end of their partnership in Iowa as Czinano, then a senior, declared for the 2023 WNBA Draft.<\/p>\n<p>The center was subsequently drafted by the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnaut.com\/tag\/los-angeles-sparks\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/sportsnaut.com\/tag\/los-angeles-sparks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Sparks<\/a> as the 26th overall pick that year but was waived in May. <\/p>\n<p>However, she continued her professional career in Hungary\u2019s A-Division for a season before retiring from the sport the following year and is now currently pursuing a new career as a doctor.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<img alt=\"avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769021949_227_802c3003547685b578fd7f4e8a81a7dbe8d1cf2e4c476dec63817c479fdb718f.png\"  class=\"avatar avatar-70 photo\" height=\"70\" width=\"70\" loading=\"lazy\" fetchpriority=\"low\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\tSince  his  first  foray  into  online  journalism  in  2019,  Peter  Okereke  has  written  widely  on  Entertainment,  Politics  and  Pop  &#8230; More about <a class=\"more-bio\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsnaut.com\/author\/peter-okereke\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Okereke<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark penned a heartfelt birthday message to her former Iowa Hawkeyes teammate on Tuesday.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[1760,2839,99,434],"class_list":["post-421333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-indiana-fever","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}