People can’t stop being weird about Caitlin Clark

Clark herself congratulated the Olympic squad, said it’s the most difficult team to make, and that she hopes to be in Los Angeles in 2028. "I'm excited for the girls that are on the team," Clark said this weekend after an Indiana Fever practice. “I was a kid that grew up watching the Olympics. It'll be fun to watch them.”

Unlike roster selections in the past, Clark not making the cut has triggered an inflammatory response, with some calling into question the integrity of the women who made it instead of her and even the integrity of the United States. These extreme reactions stem from a dangerous and increasingly popular subtext about Caitlin Clark’s greatness, one that paints Clark as a transcendent star and her peers as terminally jealous individuals. The wild gist: Clark needs to be protected from her fellow players.

It’s become clear that these Caitlin Clark fans aren’t all that interested in women's basketball or even Clark herself but, rather, appear to be deeply invested in pulling the bright young basketball star into a culture war that she doesn’t seem all that interested in being a part of.

Over the past couple of years, the rise of Caitlin Clark has been one of the biggest stories in sports. Clark’s game — prolific scoring, deep shooting range, full-court passes — is thrilling to watch. Sports media has even created the term “the Caitlin Clark effect” to refer to the ticket sales and millions in TV viewership that Clark is responsible for. Everywhere Clark plays, whether it’s the University of Iowa, her alma mater, or the Indiana Fever, her current WNBA team, people want to see her game.

For women’s basketball, a sport that’s been overlooked and overshadowed by its male counterpart, the attention paid to Clark has been an achievement. Her games draw the kind of viewership that the NBA does, and same goes for name recognition. I’d wager that more people would be able to name Caitlin Clark than last year’s NBA rookie of the year (Victor Wembanyama).

While that attention has raised women’s basketball’s profile, it’s also brought to light some extremely weird, unsavory behavior from her fans and the media.

Last year, in the 2023 National Championship, Angel Reese was the subject of a national conversation about her conduct after she taunted Clark in the final minutes — something Clark had done to her opponents throughout her tournament run. Instead of being seen as fun or confident (as Clark’s antics had been portrayed by media and basketball fans) Reese’s chaff was dubbed “classless” or, as Keith Olbermann, a former ESPN anchor tweeted, “a fucking idiot.” As the pile-on grew and Reese found herself in the middle of a national conversation about her character, Clark went to bat for her, reminding the fan base: “I get to play this game and have emotion and wear it on my sleeves, and so does everyone else ... I don’t think Angel should be criticized at all.”

Clark is getting at a few things here. For one, there's the double standard of how she was treated by fans versus how her Black peers are treated, but also the deeply related idea that she warrants some kind of added benevolence that other players don’t. As Clark has moved to the WNBA, this narrative that Clark needs protection has only grown.

Clark’s fellow WNBA players are being portrayed in the media as petty and jealous of her accomplishments. Aliyah Boston, Clark’s teammate and reigning WNBA rookie of the year, has restricted her social media after receiving hate from fans online for underperforming. Earlier this month, Chicago Sky player Chennedy Carter fouled Clark with a shoulder check that the WNBA later upgraded to a more serious foul. Clark said that the foul was in the heat of the moment and that there’s no need for an apology.

Still, the foul spurred an editorial from the Chicago Tribune and a WNBA inquiry from a sitting member of Congress. More alarming is that Carter and her Sky teammates said they were stalked and harassed by a man outside a team hotel in Washington, DC, and needed security to handle the situation. Obviously, not all of Clark’s fans are of the stalker variety, but it’s not exactly a surprise that someone would harass the Sky team as long as prominent people keep pushing the false narrative that Clark needs protection from jealous players — even if Clark herself has quashed that idea multiple times.

Clark’s prominence and the conversation surrounding her have recently caught the attention of right-wing personalities, like former Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley. Haley tweeted about Clark’s Olympic omission, implying that the women on the US team weren’t the best US players and that Clark had been shortchanged: “I think the Olympic selection committee should be asked: Do we want the best team to represent our country or not?”