Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark has been making headlines for years now, she is considered the best college athlete in history already after breaking the all-time points record in the NCAA.
As expected, she was just announced as the Big Ten Athlete of the Year and it’s completely deserved. After the former Iowa Hawkeyes star finished a historic final season in college basketball, she was at the top of the mountain and thisaward was expected.
On Thursday, the NCAA made the announcement that she was the one who gets the aard, a no-brainer. Caitlin Clark averaged a nation best 31.6 points and 8.9 assists per game while leading the Hawkeyes to a second consecutive Final Four apprearance in 2024.
Despite this award and the worldwide recognition for her impressive skills, Caitlin Clark has met tremendous opposition and rough game from her peers in the WNBA. From the moment she arrived, Caitlin Clark has been under scrutiny and constant fouling that has been construed as unecessary.
But if you ask the wide majority of NBA and WNBA personalities, most of them will tell you that this treatment for hype rookies is completely normal. It happened to Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant. In any professional league, prodigies are the ones that have the toughest time to get used to the league.
In a sense, getting rough treatment from her peers is a sign of respect because not even she would like getting special treatment. However, the media has overblown this and made it into a matter of gender.
Caitlin Clark also made history with her Big Ten award by joining Kristy Gleason (field hockey, 1994) and Megan Gustafson (basketball, 2019) as Iowa women athletes to take the award home. It’s greatnews for women’s sports and also fantastic news for Iowa sports. With this back-to-back distinction, Caitlin Clark has the potential to get more confident and still have a great rookie WNBA season.
