Mark Schnabel: SportSpeak
A lot has been said and done over the end of the college career and beginning of the pro career for one Caitlin Clark.
The two-time NCAA Division I National Player of the Year and four-time All-American set the all-time career scoring record for NCAA Division I players.
She did not set the all-time, all-division collegiate record. That honor went to Grace Beyer of NAIA University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis just days before Clark’s final points. Beyer beat Clark 3,861-3,527.
In the pre-NCAA and NAIA eras, the leader is Pearl Moore of Francis Marion College of the late AIAW from 1975 to 1979 at 4,061.
(For a great look at women’s college basketball of that era, I would recommend the movie “The Mighty Macs” about early powerhouse Immaculata College.)
For all college players, male or female, the record is John Pierce of Lipscomb, then an NAIA program but now a Division I school at 4,230 from 1990 to 1994.
Still that’s a lot of points.
Clark got her points at the beginning of the NIL era of college sports, which means she did it as a professional. She also brought a lot of attention, attendance records and television ratings to the women’s college game and may be its savior as Power 5 college football will try to take all the revenue and leave nearly every other sport in ruins.
That attention continued into the WNBA ranks, where she was the overall no. 1 pick. And like her college career, she’s brought attention, TV ratings and attendance to the WNBA.
Several teams moved their games against Clark to bigger venues.
But alas and avec, for all my previous verbiage and nouniage, all is not wine and roses for the young Indiana Fever rookie.
Some of the longtime vets have not taken warmly to her. She has taken some pretty good bumps and body checks on the court.
That brings me to the crux of the matter. If the WNBA is OK with her taking harder shots than an NFL running back, then it needs to bring back an old NHL and NBA tradition — the enforcer.
I will use hockey as an example. Out of a 21-year professional career spanning close to 1,500 games, Wayne Gretzky missed about 120 games.
His successor as GOAT, Sidney Crosby, missed 280 games in 18 seasons.
The difference between the two is the enforcer. For most of Gretzky’s career, anyone foolish enough to take him out would encounter someone like Dave “Cementhead” Semenko, who spent much of his career protecting Gretzky (and also played 14 games with the Wichita Wind).
The NHL felt the goon look wasn’t good and cracked down on enforcers, at the cost of the health of its top players.
In the glory days of the Celtics and Lakers back in the 80s, one did not mess with Larry Bird or Magic Johnson, lest you wanted to get an elbow in the head from Kevin McHale or Kurt Rambis.
(And despite the fierceness of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry at the time, when the game was over, they’d all go out for beers afterwards.)
When the bruisers went off on you, the benches did not clear. As an old song about 10 years before that rivalry went, “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind…” (with apologies to the late, great Jim Croce).
But like the NHL, the NBA didn’t think it was a good look.
The NBA has a history of physicality that rivals the NHL. The league came out of the 1949 merger of the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League.
Most of the BAA owners were also NHL and American Hockey League team owners trying to keep their arenas filled. They were used to the rough and tumble and encouraged it in basketball.
Many of the NBL teams came out of factory teams in the Great Lakes region. These were blue collar joes not afraid to throw down.
That brings us to the current dilemma of the WNBA.
Some of the higher ups in the WNBA have stated that she is just paying her dues and doesn’t need protection. These are the same ones enjoying record revenues and attendance that will all go away if something happens to Clark.
They can go back to playing in front of crowds of 5,000 to 7,000 and playing in front of TV crowds of hundreds of thousands instead of millions and watching all their sponsors pull out while again the league loses money.
The players taking their shots at Clark risk no raises because revenues go back down (and, like the NBA, WNBA salaries are tied to revenues).
This is where the weirdness comes in (and there is always noise and weirdness when hype comes in).
The previous face of the league, Brittney Griner, said in an interview of Clark’s entering the league: “This is how they feed their families. This is not just for the love of the [game]. This is their livelihood.”
(Well Clark may want to start a family sometime and her salary and endorsement checks can help feed it.)
Not withstanding the fact that Griner risked that livelihood by bringing in illegal substances into Russia at a time when any American took great risks by being in Russia in the first place, that’s her livelihood at risk by killing the golden goose.
There is a lot of other noise going on in all these debates that I won’t get into because it is just a lot of noise without much light, but again, you risk the existence of the league.
While the league is at its strongest point in history, there are several dead women’s professional basketball leagues that came before it.
And speaking of livelihoods, that brings us to the Olympics, coming up in just a few weeks.
USA Basketball took one of its biggest risks to the employment of its top executives and coaches by leaving Clark off the Olympic team. (There has already been sponsor blowback because of this).
While the US women’s team is a strong favorite to win the gold, it now must not only win every game, but win every game in a big, dominating fashion, lest the criticism comes “why was Clark left off?”
The coaches and staff of the US team may have made the correct decision in a perfectly rational manner. And win or lose, Clark being off the team may be a non-factor, but boy howdy did they bring the heat on themselves.
(The folks at USA Basketball can ask the folks over at US Soccer how that kind of pressure feels. Anytime the US women’s soccer team falls flat, heads roll.)
At the same time, if they bring her on the team and she falls on her face, then they are in trouble. It’s a lose-lose proposition. I don’t make enough to make those decisions and I am glad I didn’t have to make it.
Mark Schnabel is the sports editor of the Kansan.
