Can you people be normal?

**Not a Rockies post**

2024 in sports is certainly going to be remembered as a Moment for women’s basketball. Caitlin Clark, perhaps the biggest college star since Magic Johnson, held court for the entire college basketball season with dagger threes, incredible stat lines, and a second straight Final Four run for Iowa. She took that fame and name recognition to the professional leagues shortly after where she quickly sold out arenas, sold out her jersey, and pushed conversations about women’s basketball into the forefront of the main sports discussion points.

And then, almost as quickly as it started, it got weird.

Clark entered the league as the number one overall pick and was quickly anointed as the league’s next great player. For many in sports media and sports fandom, it was truly the first women’s basketball player they had cared about at all. A sudden large group of media members (mostly men) started paying attention to women’s hoops. They had not ever followed the WNBA before and certainly did not recognize that the league was full of history and great players beforehand. This did not stop them from acting like Caitlin Clark invented women or basketball but rather led to a movement of weird morons deciding that they can confidently say what Caitlin Clark is to the sport. Clark’s struggles within her first few weeks within the WNBA were attributed to hard fouls and rough treatment by league veterans. Which, of course, isn’t unique to Clark or even the sport of basketball. “Welcome to the league” moments of toughness have been around for about as long as professional sports. Diana Taurasi, the greatest scorer in women’s basketball history, even called it out that Clark would be in for a difficult transition to the league much like she had. Clark is an early 20’s college graduate entering a league of grown women who have played and experienced professional basketball for years. When Clark was in middle school, Taurasi was winning WNBA titles. It is not controversial at all to say she probably wouldn’t be the MVP on day one.

The hard fouls though were, apparently, not allowed to occur to Caitlin Clark. After Sky player Chennedy Carter hip checked Clark for a flagrant foul in a game against the Fever, the Chicago Tribune (and many racists) insinuated that Carter could’ve been charged with “assault”. Which is surprisingly both misogynistic and racist. So congrats to the Tribune on loading that double barrel.

We apparently cannot simply stand by and accept that Caitlin Clark is a 22 year old woman playing basketball at the highest level she can. We cannot allow for her to experience a career in the same way her peers do. We aren’t allowed to just experience Clark as a tremendous athlete or a fun basketball player. We have to talk about her like she’s a General in the culture war. Because nobody is allowed to just have fun anymore.

Late last week, it was rumored and later revealed that Clark (along with any other WNBA rookie) would not be on the USA Women’s Basketball Olympic team. Here’s thumb shaped dipshit Jason Whitlock on the matter:

what the fuck are you talking about dude?

The alt-right ChatGPT MadLibs post is from someone who JUST THREE MONTHS AGO called Clark “annoying and unlikeable”

Later, Whitlock said Clark shouldn’t even go into the WNBA and should just “retire”. For some moronic reason, I don’t care to look into it. Whitlock really isn’t worth our time. He’s a fascist bimbo who simply understands the best way to cash checks on the right wing is to say the most ridiculous string of words you can and blame trans people four times in a minute.

The point moreso is, what is the fucking point of ALL of this? Why are you people here if your whole purpose is to just pull Caitlin Clark (again, a basketball player who has never once welcomed this type of discussion) into a debate about gay people or black women?

This type of bullshit is so obvious to me now but it still drives me insane. Of course Jason and his ilk are here because their paychecks are only as good as the attention they drive and the WNBA has record attention on it now. But, still, here we are. Having to listen to weirdos talk about shit nobody really wants to talk about.

Pull back from Whitlock and you have less “obviously doing this for racist uncle clicks” personalities delving into every trope they can about Caitlin Clark. The most prevalent one is the idea women’s basketball needs to “utilize Clark’s marketing power” better. Which has long been a prominent talking point among people who just showed up to a sport and have no idea what they’re talking about. Every year a bunch of bozos will tell me that soccer or baseball just needs to “market the stars in the US better” and I’m always like oh yeah? Is that it?

Every old media columnist or backwards hat bar bro with a podcast has a take on how the WNBA should market Caitlin Clark these days and it’s becoming a little patronizing. Like the WNBA is “wasting” Clark’s star power, she’s on one of the worst teams in the league and has been on six national broadcasts already, but sure pal they just need to “market her better”. Also, is it really helping the league market Caitlin Clark if everyone is going to turn her into a weird mascot for white conservatism? Like yeah folks, you know what I’ve always thought the WNBA was missing, having to hear the incoherent ramblings of the worst fucking dude at a bar talk about it.

Women’s sports are certainly having a new moment. This moment feels like it could be long lasting and certainly there is an argument that even the shortest moments can drive generations of kids into playing sports. Each new men’s soccer generation in the US has had just fleeting success, but even a brief period has led to more talented players joining the sport. There is nothing bad about what Clark is doing for sports, for girls looking to play sports, and for the WNBA. But can we please be normal about it?

Women’s sports are discussed so horribly in this country’s zeitgeist that it will be difficult for this to change. Turning Clark into a radioactive political football is certainly a new twist on the genre, but for years now the reputation of women’s sports has been one mired in the stupid ways people talk about them. I’m not even discussing the blatant sexism and ignorance of history (women’s college sports are literally younger than my parents due to, you know, misogyny). That is obviously bad. But, take the way we have even discussed Caitlin Clark in the past.

Last year, Clark led the Hawkeyes to the final four in her breakout moment. She lit the NCAA tournament on fire before succumbing to Angel Reese and the LSU Tigers. Beyond the racism Reese and her team faced, we saw a very strange movement come from the “liberal” side of the aisle. Jill Biden invited Iowa to also join LSU for a White House visit rather than just having the National Champions and then we had to have a debate on whether or not that was cool.

I am here to finish that debate: it is not cool. The First Lady likely had good intentions, as many white liberals do, but this…this was not it. It’s an inherent problem that floats underneath women’s sports discussions. The idea it is “different” than men’s sports. If you want to have a debate on why it’s weird we only invite the champs to the White House, yeah sure go at it, I don’t care either way. But why is it women’s basketball that has to break that wall? Why wouldn’t you start with football or men’s basketball? We would lose our MINDS if a president invited both Michigan and Washington to the White House on the same day. We’d say it “ruins the competition of what they played for”. Why is it when men are elite athletes their competitive spirit is treated so highly, ordained even, and when women are elite athletes they should both go to the White House?

In the background of every single discussion on women’s athletics, there is an internal patriarchal structure. There is a belief that men are tough, strong, and competitive. That when they fail they are open to criticism because it is the highest level of sport and they should be strong enough to withstand it. Men’s sports rarely have a discussion of “protecting a player” for marketing purposes or otherwise. But yet, when female athletes are discussed, we need to protect them. We need to support their mental health first and then their athletic self. We need to ask them if it’s ok. Why??? Are these women not elite athletes who themselves have worked their asses off to achieve the highest level of sport they can? What makes their journey and struggles different than men? I’m not saying we should change our narrative around male athletes, on the contrary, I’m asking why we think women’s sports need to be treated with soft gloves but would never consider this with men? What is it about your internal feelings about women that makes you think they are not just as strong, tough, and competitive?

This plays into my above point on the hard fouling around Clark. This was brought up that Clark should be “protected” to save the WNBA’s marketing money. Again, what the FUCK are you talking about? Caitlin Clark shouldn’t be treated like an elite athlete by her peers because she makes some other people money? They should let her score 40 points a night instead of playing tough defense because you think it would be good for commercials? Ask yourself why you think this with Caitlin Clark but not with Victor Wembanyama or, if you want a sport in the US that needs more market share, with 21 year old tennis superstar Carlos Alcaraz. Should other tennis players let him win so that tennis gains in popularity? Should the ATP protect him? No? Because the competitive nature of the sport is more important right? Interesting. I wonder why that isn’t true with the W.

I welcome new eyes to women’s sports. It is a space that has far too long lived in sexist tropes as it gained in talent pool and grew rapidly. But please, for the love of god, be normal.