Speaker 1: What if there were a way to reduce cancer deaths
Speaker 1: by half in the next twenty five years. This is
Speaker 1: the future Exact Sciences works toward every single day because
Speaker 1: they believe it's possible. Exact Sciences is a dedicated team
Speaker 1: of cancer fighters united by a purpose to help eradicate
Speaker 1: cancer by preventing it, detecting it earlier, and guiding personalized treatment.
Speaker 1: Visit exactsciences dot com to learn more. Hi everyone, I'm
Speaker 1: Katie Kuric and this is next question. My friend Christine
Speaker 1: Brennan and I have known each other since the eighties,
Speaker 1: when we both started out in our respective fields, Christine
Speaker 1: as a sportscaster and sports writer and me, of course,
Speaker 1: as a cup reporter back in Washington, d C. She's
Speaker 1: now written a book called On her Game, Caitlyn Clark
Speaker 1: in The Revolution in Women's Sports. I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: talk to you, Christine. Nice to see you, Thanks for
Speaker 1: coming in.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Katie, great to see you. And we
Speaker 2: did important to say. We did start when we were
Speaker 2: in kindergarten in the eighties. Grank you, Yes, in the eighties.
Speaker 1: No, it's okay. I'm proud of my age. Christine. We
Speaker 1: need to be. But this book is so interesting and
Speaker 1: it's really about a phenom, as you call it, in
Speaker 1: the sports world, Caitlyn Clark. You spent six weeks on
Speaker 1: the road with Caitlin and the Indiana Fever, covering games,
Speaker 1: practices and press conferences, interviewing players, coaches, administrators, and fans,
Speaker 1: and you have been in Caitlyn Clark world for quite
Speaker 1: a while. How would you describe her?
Speaker 2: She is, of course, as you said, a phenomenon. As
Speaker 2: we say in the book, she is the all American
Speaker 2: girl grown up. She frankly is that girl that parents
Speaker 2: see in the kitchen every morning who is racing off
Speaker 2: to soccer practice, changing in the car to switch to
Speaker 2: volleyball practice or lacrosse, or the neighbor who waves at
Speaker 2: the girl going trudging off with the bag on her
Speaker 2: shoulder to another sports practice. What we have created in
Speaker 2: this country, Katie, and you know this with your daughters,
Speaker 2: is the opportunity for girls, the other half of our population,
Speaker 2: to learn these life lessons about sports that for generations
Speaker 2: we were saying no no to girls and women. You
Speaker 2: cannot learn about sports, winning and losing at a young age, teamwork, sportsmanship.
Speaker 2: Because of title nine, which by the way, is just
Speaker 2: celebrated its fifty third anniversary and has really come of
Speaker 2: age over the last twenty thirty years. And so Caitlyn
Speaker 2: Clark is that person.
Speaker 1: It's a beneficiarya she's a beneficiary.
Speaker 2: She is, frankly, what we created, and the nation has
Speaker 2: fallen in love with what it is created. Usually, you know,
Speaker 2: team sports. Obviously tennis and other sports are part of
Speaker 2: the conversation too, but what do girls play at age
Speaker 2: five and six? Soccer, t ball? It's about team sports.
Speaker 2: And when we see the professional side, we often see
Speaker 2: the great names obviously Serena and Venus Williams tennis and
Speaker 2: individual sport, or the Olympic stars like Katie Ledecki Simone
Speaker 2: Biles again individual sports. So this is that first huge
Speaker 2: breakthrough team sport athlete. Thank you title nind That literally
Speaker 2: the guy that wouldn't have been caught dead watching women's sports,
Speaker 2: that guy who thinks that just inferior would never have
Speaker 2: been seen outside in a women's sports jersey. That's the guy.
Speaker 2: And I interviewed a lot of these guys who are
Speaker 2: putting on the number twenty two jersey going to the
Speaker 2: grocery store, going to the game, planning their evenings around
Speaker 2: the starting time of Caitlin Clark's game. And you know,
Speaker 2: you and I have been around a long time. I
Speaker 2: almost cannot believe that I'm saying these sentences about a
Speaker 2: female athlete, that this has happened in our lifetime. I
Speaker 2: didn't really think it would happen with the kind of
Speaker 2: TV ratings, the audience. But it's about a person that
Speaker 2: the nation I think has correctly fallen in love with,
Speaker 2: who is as publicly appreciative an athlete as I have
Speaker 2: ever seen. The maturity, the poise handling every issue, lots
Speaker 2: of stuff thrown at her, lots of controversy, as you know,
Speaker 2: and everything about her and elegance, intelligence, and just also
Speaker 2: a sense of humor that you would hope to see
Speaker 2: in someone. And America, there she is.
Speaker 1: I want to backtrack a second, Christine, and have you
Speaker 1: explain why Title nine was so important and what it did, because,
Speaker 1: as you said, this was fifty three years ago, we're
Speaker 1: now seeing the fruits of that presenting itself today. What
Speaker 1: did Title nine do exactly?
Speaker 2: June twenty third, nineteen seventy two basically mandated that if
Speaker 2: a school was receiving federal funding, which all schools, even
Speaker 2: private schools, receive federal funding, pelgrants, what have you, that
Speaker 2: they could not discriminate against female students in any way.
Speaker 2: The original intent was law schools and med schools. Within
Speaker 2: a few years it started to be seen in terms
Speaker 2: of the athletic fields and opportunity for girls and women
Speaker 2: to play sports. And the idea is proportional. So if
Speaker 2: a school is fifty three percent female enrollment and forty
Speaker 2: seven percent male, the idea then is you should have
Speaker 2: fifty three percent of your sports opportunities for women forty
Speaker 2: seven percent for men. So now you have dads out
Speaker 2: throwing the baseball or the softball with their daughter the
Speaker 2: way they did with their sons a generation or two ago,
Speaker 2: because you see that caret of potentially what one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a year a college scholarship that your daughter
Speaker 2: can have just like your son from the past.
Speaker 1: But also it's about resources and facilities, right that you
Speaker 1: have to devote resources, and you have to give women's
Speaker 1: teams areas to work out and weight rooms just like
Speaker 1: you do for the men.
Speaker 2: Right, well, exactly, locker room size should be the same.
Speaker 2: Now we'll say this you and I not born yesterday.
Speaker 2: It doesn't happen everywhere, and most schools are not in
Speaker 2: compliance with Title nine even now. But one of the
Speaker 2: three prongs of being able to follow the law is
Speaker 2: actually that you're showing you're working towards compliance. Now, if
Speaker 2: this happened with another law, you'd say what kind of
Speaker 2: law is that?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: But in this case, Title nine has been very forgiving
Speaker 2: for those athletic departments.
Speaker 1: How did Title nine directly impact? Caitlin Clark?
Speaker 2: So you have this, as I said, it's a law,
Speaker 2: for sure, and it's a law that is still working
Speaker 2: its way through in terms of being followed. And of
Speaker 2: course you throw anil the money that is now being paid,
Speaker 2: and that's not equal at all. But there's the other
Speaker 2: part of it that I mentioned a moment ago mindset,
Speaker 2: the nation's mindset that it was acceptable for girls and
Speaker 2: women to play sports when you and I were growing up,
Speaker 2: you and Arlington me in the suburbs of Toledo. If
Speaker 2: our moms and dads drove buy a field and there
Speaker 2: was a girl on that field, the odds are that
Speaker 2: she was there telling your brother it was time to
Speaker 2: come home for dinner. I mean, what was that girl
Speaker 2: doing on a sports field? Now, people driving through those neighborhoods,
Speaker 2: do you even have a second clance, third glance if
Speaker 2: you see a whole team of girls playing soccer or
Speaker 2: lacrosse or you know, running, you know through the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Of course not. That's the mindset thing that I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: the sense that we not only expect it, we want
Speaker 2: our daughters, our nieces, our granddaughters to be doing this. Right.
Speaker 1: So, really it was the attitude shift that came with
Speaker 1: Title nine that created the environment for someone like Caitlin
Speaker 1: Clark to really thrive.
Speaker 2: Exactly because now and also I think another key part
Speaker 2: of this, and I say this in the book, so
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy two and Kaylen Clark doesn't come along till
Speaker 2: two thousand and two, so it's a long time. So
Speaker 2: thirty years, basically thirty years there's stepping stones in the
Speaker 2: history of women's sports. You and I both know Billy
Speaker 2: jan King very well. So when we're still kids in
Speaker 2: our respective homes nineteen seventy three, September of seventy three,
Speaker 2: Billy Jean beats Bobby Riggs a very big deal, right,
Speaker 2: especially for empowering, for girls growing up. You move on
Speaker 2: to say, the Atlanta Olympics in nineteen ninety six, I
Speaker 2: think you were probably there. I was, yes, for a
Speaker 2: certain network doing great work. I was there as well.
Speaker 2: You're watching the Women's Olympics, where everything is about the
Speaker 2: great female athletes. Moving ahead three years later, the nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine Women's World Cup, the soccer tournament, and of
Speaker 2: course you've got you know, Brandy Chastain and Nicole and
Speaker 2: you know, whipping her shirt over her head and yeah,
Speaker 2: all of that and so that to me, that was
Speaker 2: forty million viewers on TV. It was July tenth of
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, and it was over ninety thousand people
Speaker 2: in the Rose Bowl. Rose Bowl, of course, well known
Speaker 2: as a great college football facility, packed to the rafters,
Speaker 2: to the gills. I guess there's no rafters in the
Speaker 2: Rose Bowl, but packed to whatever, to the top row
Speaker 2: for women's soccer in this country in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: a revelation. I'm going to give you a trivia note
Speaker 2: for your next cocktail party. Name the one story in
Speaker 2: the history of stories that made the cover of Time, Newsweek, People,
Speaker 2: and Sports Illustrated the same week. I've obviously given it away.
Speaker 1: The World Cup.
Speaker 2: Yes, Brandy Chastain and the teammates.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'll never forget that shot of Brandy, you know,
Speaker 1: kneeling on the field in her.
Speaker 2: Sports bra right right, because she'd taken her shirt off
Speaker 2: and the people thought, oh, she's probably trying to sell
Speaker 2: the sports bra. No, no, no. She watched men's soccer for
Speaker 2: years because she had no women's soccer to watch growing up.
Speaker 2: And she's born in nineteen sixty eight, so she's, you know,
Speaker 2: coming along at that time. The title nine is really exploding,
Speaker 2: and so she's watching European men'sawa what do they do
Speaker 2: when they have an important goal? They take off their
Speaker 2: shirt and they whip it over the head. So she said,
Speaker 2: that's what she did, which we of course loved Brandy
Speaker 2: for that. So anyway, that's happening. The nation has just
Speaker 2: fallen in love again with what it is created. And
Speaker 2: then two and a half years later, a little girl
Speaker 2: is born in Des Moines, Iowa, and we have no
Speaker 2: idea who she is, and she's the one in terms
Speaker 2: of team sports that comes along at the exact right
Speaker 2: time as our nation is just loving everything that we
Speaker 2: have created.
Speaker 1: Christine as I mentioned you spent six weeks on the road.
Speaker 1: Were you able to actually sit down and do an
Speaker 1: interview with Caitlin Clark, because at one point I know
Speaker 1: this was being called an unauthorized biography.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is an unauthorized biography, and still it still is.
Speaker 2: And you know that can sound ominous. It couldn't be
Speaker 2: further from the truth. It's unauthorized because I wanted it
Speaker 2: to be journalistic. If it's an authorized book, you're then
Speaker 2: working with the person, right And I want to continue
Speaker 2: to cover these stories. And I am continuing to cover
Speaker 2: the stories involving Kaitlin Clark, women's sports, the Olympics, everything
Speaker 2: else that I cover. And if I had been in
Speaker 2: business with Kaitlyn Clark, I couldn't cover for again.
Speaker 1: I mean, but having said that, did she sit down
Speaker 1: with you and did you have a long conversation or
Speaker 1: did you just capture moments?
Speaker 2: More capturing moments I asked her probably about fifty questions.
Speaker 1: Well that's the lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not bad. I think. You know, it's funny as
Speaker 2: you look back on actually writing the book, I think
Speaker 2: I probably used about one third of her quotes and comments,
Speaker 2: So I had so much because she is you know,
Speaker 2: she's a great talker, and she goes on and on
Speaker 2: and she answers a question, then she'll go off on
Speaker 2: a tangent that you care very very much about.
Speaker 1: So did you sit down with her, Christine, or did
Speaker 1: you just kind of grab her during quiet moments?
Speaker 2: Well, what happened was press availabilities, which often involved just
Speaker 2: a few reporters. I could ask her anything, no holds barred,
Speaker 2: nothing was off limits, of course, I mean that would
Speaker 2: never I would never agree to anything like that. Ask
Speaker 2: her tough questions, ask her, you know, literally anything. For example,
Speaker 2: after she liked the Taylor Swift post that was, of
Speaker 2: course Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris. The next day I
Speaker 2: was in DC, and then that next morning I flooded
Speaker 2: Indy for that game. Often she'll have three times of
Speaker 2: press availabilities during a day morning shoot around, and then
Speaker 2: before the game and after the game. And so in
Speaker 2: this case it was I of course wanted to ask
Speaker 2: her about the liking of that Taylor Swift post, because,
Speaker 2: as you and others might remember, not only was that
Speaker 2: a big deal, but within a few minutes on x
Speaker 2: and other social media, a news story and other things
Speaker 2: came out about who liked the post, and it was
Speaker 2: Oprah Winfrey, and it was Kylie Kelsey and Jennifer Aniston
Speaker 2: and Caitlyn Clark. So she's a celebrity now being in
Speaker 2: the news about liking the post, and so of course
Speaker 2: I asked her. And I started out in a friendly
Speaker 2: way because this is sports and she is twenty two,
Speaker 2: and I've been known to ask a lot of tough
Speaker 2: questions and get people occasionally mad at me over the years,
Speaker 2: and that's part of being a journals as you know well,
Speaker 2: and that's you know, whether people like you or not,
Speaker 2: you're doing your job. But I started out by saying,
Speaker 2: as you know, you'd like to post that got a
Speaker 2: lot of attention last night, big smile, And I said,
Speaker 2: I'm just curious what Taylor Swift's post meant to you,
Speaker 2: and are you potentially endorsing Kamala Harris for president? And
Speaker 2: Caitlin Clark answered the first part in about a minute
Speaker 2: answer and then did not answer the second part, and
Speaker 2: I think that's probably a smart move by her. But
Speaker 2: going back to your question, she and I did meet
Speaker 2: and have a one on one, but that was basically
Speaker 2: just a first meeting off the record, which was lovely.
Speaker 2: And then I also was in some practices where no
Speaker 2: other journalists were, and of course had plenty of time
Speaker 2: to talk to all kinds of people, her friends, her coaches,
Speaker 2: in depth interviews to get those stories that she might
Speaker 2: not tell. She never said no comment, she never said
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk about this. I can't thank
Speaker 2: her enough for spending the time, and that was usually
Speaker 2: again just around the team settings, because it was because
Speaker 2: with the deal, you know, the book deal, and then boom,
Speaker 2: now I'm writing this book quite quickly.
Speaker 1: Right well, tell us a little bit about her childhood, Christine,
Speaker 1: because she sounds like she was a true multi hyphen
Speaker 1: it when it comes to sports. She played soccer, basketball.
Speaker 1: She was also National Honors Society presidential Honor role. Give
Speaker 1: us just a glimpse into her family life, her parents,
Speaker 1: her siblings, and how this young woman was really formed
Speaker 1: and created.
Speaker 2: If you will, you know she was formed and created
Speaker 2: on a basketball court or a soccer field or a
Speaker 2: golf course by a mom and dad who loved sports
Speaker 2: and had sports in their lives, big brother and a
Speaker 2: little brother. And of course the big brother was very
Speaker 2: helpful in terms of kind of toughening her up, and
Speaker 2: she started playing basketball. She wanted to play at age five,
Speaker 2: and there were no girls leagues for her, so her
Speaker 2: dad was coaching a boys league and she started playing
Speaker 2: against the boys. And when I spent a lot of
Speaker 2: time talking to her, AAU coach, a man named Dixon Jensen,
Speaker 2: who was fantastic, coached her all the way through on
Speaker 2: the club level, not the high school level. What he
Speaker 2: said was that time she spent playing against the boys,
Speaker 2: which she went far longer, Katie, than most girls do.
Speaker 2: You know, after a while, most of the girls kind
Speaker 2: of fall away and go play against the girls, which
Speaker 2: is what we want. You know, the boys are getting
Speaker 2: a little stronger, a little tougher. Caitlyn stayed till like,
Speaker 2: you know, fifth sixth grade, she was playing against the boys,
Speaker 2: and as Dixon Jensen said, it was perfect for her
Speaker 2: because the boys are a little tougher, a little stronger,
Speaker 2: and I love this when he said this, a little meaner,
Speaker 2: and Caitlyn was learning to play against them. And there
Speaker 2: was one player who's ended up playing for the Iowa
Speaker 2: men's basketball team who in second grade, his team lost
Speaker 2: to Caitlyn's team, and he said even do all girls
Speaker 2: play basketball like this?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: He was like, my gosh, is this what all girls
Speaker 2: are like? And obviously she was born for this.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask, did her parents and siblings
Speaker 1: and community and friends realize she was preternaturally talented right away?
Speaker 1: Or was it something that they sort of discovered when
Speaker 1: she was in high school? You know? What separated her
Speaker 1: from a really good basketball player who enjoyed the game
Speaker 1: to somebody who was next level?
Speaker 2: You know? She says now she has says, I hate
Speaker 2: to lose. I hate to lose. I want to win everything.
Speaker 2: I want to be the best. So I think what
Speaker 2: we're looking at here is someone who, at the youngest
Speaker 2: age knew what she loved, knew she was good at it,
Speaker 2: really good at it, tall enough and big enough. The
Speaker 2: sport that she was actually excellent at early on in
Speaker 2: high school was soccer, and she was scoring goals like crazy.
Speaker 2: And she said she learned through soccer with the angles,
Speaker 2: the passing angles, because so much about soccer was passing, right,
Speaker 2: it's not scoring. But she gave up soccer because now
Speaker 2: her basketball career is taking off. There's these younger teams
Speaker 2: that go internationally in play. So she made those USA teams.
Speaker 2: So now she's away, you know, overseas playing basketball. But
Speaker 2: again I go back to the nation saying, this is
Speaker 2: the moment, right, There's not a soul on earth who's
Speaker 2: telling her no. Right, which girls growing up our age
Speaker 2: got it all the time, and what a shame? What
Speaker 2: were we thinking? But also now go back to the kitchen,
Speaker 2: go back to mom and dad with their dad, a
Speaker 2: two sport athlete in D three. Her mother's father, the grandfather,
Speaker 2: was a legendary high school football coach at the same
Speaker 2: high school that Caitlin went to. You've got the older
Speaker 2: brother who's playing sports, played football at Iowa State.
Speaker 1: So really in their blood. And did you get a
Speaker 1: chance to talk to her parents when you were writing
Speaker 1: this book?
Speaker 2: I met both mom and dad, but they preferred not
Speaker 2: to talk to me anymore about that, which is fine
Speaker 2: because I had plenty of other material from other people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, be interesting to talk to them at some point
Speaker 1: to really do a profile of them.
Speaker 2: I would love to do that. And as I said
Speaker 2: to them in the private conversations I had with both
Speaker 2: of them, I looked at them and I said, what
Speaker 2: an amazing daughter you have raised.
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Speaker 1: Visit exactsciences dot com to learn more. I know you
Speaker 1: start the book with watching Caitlin play for the first time.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that experience.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm on my iPad in my kitchen in Northwest DC,
Speaker 2: and I was watching the Indiana Iowa women's basketball game
Speaker 2: February of twenty twenty three, and I was actually watching
Speaker 2: the game to watch the Indiana team, which was ranked
Speaker 2: second in the country. Because all my siblings went to
Speaker 2: Indiana University, I went to Northwestern and this team is great,
Speaker 2: So I'm just kind of keeping an eye on the
Speaker 2: game and I was losing and last inbound, you know,
Speaker 2: second half left, and the ball goes to Caitlin Clark
Speaker 2: and everyone knows it's going to Kaitlin Clark, and she's
Speaker 2: kind of sideways and one legs this way and the
Speaker 2: other legs this way, as we've come to realize and
Speaker 2: know what it looks like. And she's just throwing that
Speaker 2: ball up and it goes in and she just runs
Speaker 2: off the court and goes crazy and everyone's following her around.
Speaker 1: They win the game by one.
Speaker 2: Point exactly, and you know what it was. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've covered a lot and have you know, seen pretty
Speaker 2: amazing sports feeds as you have at the Olympics and
Speaker 2: other places. And I have to say that I kind
Speaker 2: of watched the replan. I watched the replay again.
Speaker 1: And what was it?
Speaker 2: And this really helped me understand the nation's fascination with her, Katie.
Speaker 2: To be honest with you, you realize you just kind of
Speaker 2: you can't take your eyes off of her. Have we
Speaker 2: seen a female athlete who is really a high wire act? Right?
Speaker 2: Sports and athletic for sure, but really an entertainer, and
Speaker 2: I've felt very lucky at that moment to have this
Speaker 2: experience of kind of just wandering into watching this finale
Speaker 2: and in this incredible shot, and they do win the game.
Speaker 2: And then of course, within a few weeks she's now
Speaker 2: going to the Final four, and they're upsetting South Carolina,
Speaker 2: and now she's taking an Iowa team that was not
Speaker 2: expected to do anything all the way to the final game,
Speaker 2: and now the nation is just kind of falling in
Speaker 2: love with this athlete that you're watching. I understand that,
Speaker 2: and I think that's helped inform me and understand what
Speaker 2: people might be thinking, because I kind of went through
Speaker 2: it at that moment in my kitchen.
Speaker 1: There was a confluence of factors that allowed Caitlin's career
Speaker 1: to skyrocket. One was nil name, image, likeness, you said quote.
Speaker 1: By the time Clark was done with college, she reportedly
Speaker 1: had at least eleven NIL deals worth more than three million,
Speaker 1: including TV commercials such as her ubiquitous State Farm spots
Speaker 1: that made her even more recognizable. What did these brand deals,
Speaker 1: What impact did they have on her celebrity and really
Speaker 1: on the entire WNBA.
Speaker 2: If you think back to athletes a generation ago. At
Speaker 2: college athletes, you know, you'd be watching them and then
Speaker 2: they go off your TV or you'd go to the
Speaker 2: game and then whatever, they disappear. Right, they're not hanging
Speaker 2: around from you know, one minute to the net. The
Speaker 2: thing that always hit me about Kaitlin Clark. She's playing
Speaker 2: in this game and she's probably doing something pretty crazy
Speaker 2: and amazing. Then it goes to a commercial, and if
Speaker 2: it's a State Farm commercial, now she's there, like literally
Speaker 2: two or three seconds after you just watched her in
Speaker 2: the game. They've gone to a timeout, and now she's
Speaker 2: in her uniform standing there may well be the exact
Speaker 2: same uniform, and it's like there she is, there, she is,
Speaker 2: She never leaves. She is a part of our culture.
Speaker 2: She's not just an athlete on the court. She is
Speaker 2: now a pitch woman. She's selling products, she is forging
Speaker 2: her path in a whole new way.
Speaker 1: She's part of the culture and not just through her sports.
Speaker 2: And once you've crossed over, you know, we've got quite
Speaker 2: a few athletes over the years that have done that,
Speaker 2: certainly Serena and Venus and Serena especially right the way
Speaker 2: she's done that, I mean, some own biles Katie Ledecki,
Speaker 2: any number of quarterbacks, running backs, baseball players, etc. But
Speaker 2: when we're talking about that, of the hundreds of the
Speaker 2: thousands of athletes who have graced us with their presence,
Speaker 2: you know, and been cheered in stadiums around the country,
Speaker 2: it is still the very few that then crossover and
Speaker 2: are part of the culture. And here's Caitlyn Clark doing it.
Speaker 2: And to the point you're making about nil, she's doing
Speaker 2: it while she's still in college.
Speaker 1: There has been a lot of discussion, as you know, Christine,
Speaker 1: and here we are two white ladies discussing this about
Speaker 1: the rural race has played in the ascendants of Caitlyn Clark.
Speaker 1: Angel Reese. The star at LSU has often been pitted
Speaker 1: against Caitlyn Clark being cast sort of in her view
Speaker 1: as the villain role in the media and by the public,
Speaker 1: and she has said that hasn't been easy. She also
Speaker 1: said quote all year I was critiqued about who I was.
Speaker 1: I don't fit the narrative. I don't fit in the
Speaker 1: box that y'all want me to be in. I'm too hood,
Speaker 1: I'm too ghetto. So I'm curious about the fact that
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark has been so celebrated, and in some ways,
Speaker 1: Angel Reese has been so criticized.
Speaker 2: Oh, without a doubt. Now, part of it is rivalries,
Speaker 2: right in sports. I mean Red Sox, Yankees, Michigan, Ohio State.
Speaker 1: This is more than that. When you're talking about the
Speaker 1: Yankees and the Red Sox, it's not really about the
Speaker 1: racial no, no, no, it's really about the region, right, without
Speaker 1: a doubt.
Speaker 2: And no, what I'm saying is everyone's looking for a rivalry, right,
Speaker 2: That's a fact. The quote you just read is in
Speaker 2: the book, and I make a very strong effort to
Speaker 2: obviously quote Angel throughout and in fact, I tried, I
Speaker 2: think about three times with Angel's people to get her
Speaker 2: to talk to me for the book, and she did
Speaker 2: not want to do that, and that was a disappointment
Speaker 2: because I wanted her voice more. I wanted to be
Speaker 2: able to ask her some things, but that was, of
Speaker 2: course her choice. What happens with Angel is that final game,
Speaker 2: LSU wins, Big Iowa loses. Angel is the national Caitlin
Speaker 2: is not. Near the end of the game, Angel was
Speaker 2: following Caitlyn around and putting her hand in front of
Speaker 2: her face, mimicking something that Caitlyn had done a week
Speaker 2: or so earlier. Everyone thought it was to an opponent.
Speaker 2: Turns out that was wrong. The opponent even said that
Speaker 2: it was to Caitlin's bench. So something that kind of
Speaker 2: got going and became quite a thing, a meme and
Speaker 2: everything else. Turns out the genesis of it was wrong.
Speaker 2: Caitlyn was not mocking an opponent by doing the John Sanna,
Speaker 2: you can't see anything. She was sending it to her bench.
Speaker 2: So Angel picks it up as something that Caitlyn was
Speaker 2: doing to an opponent. So Angel does it to Caitlin.
Speaker 2: She also made sure to point to her ring finger
Speaker 2: where her ring was going to go, and of course
Speaker 2: everything explodes from there. There was a positive in all this.
Speaker 2: People were talking about women's sports in a way we
Speaker 2: haven't in a long time. That's the positive. The negative,
Speaker 2: as we have now come to see, and as you're
Speaker 2: alluding to with your questions, is how this all of
Speaker 2: a sudden became racial, pitting people against each other in
Speaker 2: are very polarized society, and there's a lot of hate
Speaker 2: and a lot of negativity. And I think it's important
Speaker 2: in the book when I quote Angel, I did ask
Speaker 2: one question at a press conference where she says, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't hate Caitlin, and Caitlyn says I don't hate Angel,
Speaker 2: and so this world around them have created a rivalry.
Speaker 2: And then you throw in race, and you throw in
Speaker 2: quote unquote taunting, which is something that happens in all sports,
Speaker 2: and Caitlyn certainly can throw it back at people. Caitlyn
Speaker 2: is not a saint out there. She's not the mother
Speaker 2: Teresa out on the court. I mean she's also throwing
Speaker 2: it back at people as well. But this is how
Speaker 2: this started.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that whenever this happens and women
Speaker 1: are involved, it becomes so exaggerated. You know, this desire
Speaker 1: to create these so called cat fights. Right where I
Speaker 1: think it meant we're doing this, or male athletes were
Speaker 1: engaging in this kind of taunting or activity or whatever,
Speaker 1: it would be sort of part for the course. But
Speaker 1: I feel like when it's women, it's just put under
Speaker 1: this microscope. Do you think that's true, Oh, certainly that's
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 2: But then there's a flip side, which is people are
Speaker 2: paying attention and the microscope is.
Speaker 1: There well, and you think all publicity is good publicity, No,
Speaker 1: not all necessarily, But in this case, here's how I'll
Speaker 1: frame it.
Speaker 2: Angel wins, and I mean it is crystal clear. Angel's
Speaker 2: the defending champion, Caitlin loses. You've got doctor Jill Biden
Speaker 2: then saying well, we want Kaitlin in Iowa to come
Speaker 2: to the White House too, And of course Angel reeson
Speaker 2: analyis you. They're furious about that, and then even Caitlin
Speaker 2: Clark says, no, We're not going to the White House.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So there was a lot going on, right, There's a
Speaker 2: lot going on. Absolutely there is a racial component to
Speaker 2: all of it. I am absolutely aware of that as
Speaker 2: a journalist. You are aware of that. As a journalist,
Speaker 2: would be foolish and not doing our jobs to not
Speaker 2: realize that. Right, But what you've also got is a
Speaker 2: story about again going into the mainstream, crossing over out
Speaker 2: of sports. That is a positive. That night, I'm on
Speaker 2: CNN and again talking about it. And the real kicker
Speaker 2: was Thursday of the Masters. I'm now down at Augusta
Speaker 2: National Tiger Woods is teeing off? Am I at the
Speaker 2: first tea? No, I'm not. I am doing another TV
Speaker 2: hit on my laptop. What am I talking about? Angel
Speaker 2: Reese and Caitlin Clark? There is an element to this
Speaker 2: that is good because if you have been wanting coverage
Speaker 2: for women's sports, which I certainly have worked my career
Speaker 2: for in the addition to covering obviously many men's sports,
Speaker 2: this is a moment that you'd say, good, people are
Speaker 2: discussing this and talking about it. And when Caitlyn passes
Speaker 2: the ball in the All Star Game to Angel and
Speaker 2: Angel makes the shot and that's an assist, and the
Speaker 2: place goes crazy, and the announcers say, this is what
Speaker 2: you've been waiting for, and they slap palms on the
Speaker 2: way down. All right, now, there's a little moment that
Speaker 2: shows you they respect each other as athletes and as people.
Speaker 2: And I truly believe that's the way Caitlin Clark looks
Speaker 2: at Angel Reese, and that's the way Angel Reese also
Speaker 2: looks at Kaitlin Clark.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that has exacerbated this
Speaker 1: dynamic is the fact that the WNBA is historically and
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly black seventy four percent of players or black or
Speaker 1: mix race. Last year, there was a huge backlash from
Speaker 1: the WNBA Players Association when you asked Dja Carrington whether
Speaker 1: or not she pote Caitlin Clark in the eye, and
Speaker 1: the statement they said, quote that's so called interview in
Speaker 1: the name of journalism was a blatant attempt to bet
Speaker 1: a professional athlete into participating into a narrative that is
Speaker 1: false and designed to fuel racist, homophobic, and misogynistic vitriol
Speaker 1: on social media. Why do you think that question was
Speaker 1: so provocative for Carrington and the rest of the team.
Speaker 2: That certainly was a very important moment. First things first,
Speaker 2: the seventy four percent is something obviously that I worked
Speaker 2: to make sure I got that exactly right. And I
Speaker 2: have a whole chapter, as you know, on the foundation
Speaker 2: of the WNBA, which by the way, I covered way
Speaker 2: back when. And you know, this is a league that
Speaker 2: is known as a black league. A sizable portion of
Speaker 2: the women are gay. I deal with all that in
Speaker 2: the book. I want to deal with that in the book,
Speaker 2: and I think it helps people understand frankly, where we
Speaker 2: are now. This is a league that is again seventy
Speaker 2: four percent black league. And now you've got this white
Speaker 2: woman from Iowa coming in and being the superstar.
Speaker 1: If I were a black player, that would bug the
Speaker 1: shit out of me. It's only natural that people would
Speaker 1: feel that way.
Speaker 2: Exactly. And this is the failure of the WNBA leadership.
Speaker 2: And this is a big part of the book, as
Speaker 2: you know that how on earth can you not see
Speaker 2: all of junior year of Caitlin Clark, the crowds senior
Speaker 2: year people standing in line in January and February for
Speaker 2: hours waiting to get into Big Tan arenas, eighteen twenty
Speaker 2: thousand packed to the rafters to see this woman and
Speaker 2: not go. You know what, maybe we should talk to
Speaker 2: our athletes about this, Maybe we should prepare them, Katie.
Speaker 2: Not because they're damsels in distress.
Speaker 1: They are not.
Speaker 2: They are terrific, strong, fabulous women who've gone through a lot,
Speaker 2: and our great athletes and have reached the pinnacle of
Speaker 2: their sport, women who I praise in the book and
Speaker 2: my columns in USA Today. How they fought for Britney
Speaker 2: Grinder to get her back from Russia. I don't think
Speaker 2: there's ever been a finer moment in professional sports history
Speaker 2: in the United States than what the WNBA players did
Speaker 2: to get Britney Grinder back fighting for her. When we
Speaker 2: think of twenty sixteen, Black Lives Matter, we think of
Speaker 2: Colin Kaepernick. Right a full month before Colin Kaepernick took
Speaker 2: a knee and made headlines the Minnesota Links, who, by
Speaker 2: the way, young Caitlin Clark's favorite team, the Minnesota Links.
Speaker 2: Their players started the protesting of the order of several
Speaker 2: black men, and that was again in July of twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: and the other WNBA teams followed suit. So the WNBA
Speaker 2: was a month ahead of Colin Kaepernick. Yet people in
Speaker 2: our culture would never know. That shows you how little
Speaker 2: coverage they got and how you can understand how wait
Speaker 2: a minute, what about us.
Speaker 1: How frustrating it for them. In fact, you write about
Speaker 1: Brittany Griner, and you wrote in USA today, if this
Speaker 1: were a male athlete, not a female athlete, people would
Speaker 1: care a lot more about this story. If say Lebron
Speaker 1: James or Tom Brady were being held hostage by Vladimir Putin,
Speaker 1: well they wouldn't be hostages anymore. They'd be home because
Speaker 1: America would have demanded it right away. It was a
Speaker 1: valid point. Not that either James or Brady ever would
Speaker 1: have been in the position of having to leave their
Speaker 1: country to make a good living playing their sport as
Speaker 1: Griner did. Griner received more publicity and coverage for being
Speaker 1: in prison in Russia than for her then thirteen years
Speaker 1: as one of the biggest stars in this basketball It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: The lack of coverage, the lack of attention, the lack
Speaker 2: of respect that these women got.
Speaker 1: The lack of resources, the lack of salary. Right even
Speaker 1: if you look at what Caitlin Clark was making when
Speaker 1: she was drafted compared to the male basketball players.
Speaker 2: Right, seventy six thousand to fifty seven million, right, I
Speaker 2: know it's not even close. Yes, So about the DJJ
Speaker 2: Carrington questions, I asked a question and a follow up. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the Players Association was very upset with me and wanted
Speaker 2: to ban me.
Speaker 1: Well, it seemed like you were pushing the narrative of
Speaker 1: a rivalry to me with those questions. To Christine, I
Speaker 1: have to be honest, you know, so let me ask
Speaker 1: you this.
Speaker 2: So, those are the kind of questions that I've asked
Speaker 2: Tiger Woods and Michael Phelps and hundreds of male athletes.
Speaker 2: So are we saying that we cannot ask women the
Speaker 2: same kind of questions we would ask men? In twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four?
Speaker 1: Point taken were the two questions?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh sure, so I asked it when she went
Speaker 2: to DJA Carrington and obviously this is a group of
Speaker 2: us around her. This story was just exploding on social
Speaker 2: media and so many criticizing DJA Carrington for with Kaitlyn
Speaker 2: Clark in Game one of the playoffs where she's kind
Speaker 2: of swatting at the ball. Caitlyn it turns out is passing,
Speaker 2: not shooting. Her fingers end up right in Caitlyn Clark's eye.
Speaker 2: And she's been accused, being accused of things, She's being denigrated,
Speaker 2: she's being criticized. Carrington Carrington is when people are saying
Speaker 2: she did this on purpose? How dare you do this
Speaker 2: to Kaitlin Clark, Katie, There is only one thing for
Speaker 2: a journalist to do. Ask a straight question, direct question,
Speaker 2: exactly purpose right, because that allows the athlete to hit
Speaker 2: it out of the park. Maybe this is another failing
Speaker 2: of the WNBA to not have prepared its players for
Speaker 2: national scrutiny, which is a shame, But they haven't had
Speaker 2: much national scrutiny, so most athletes know you can hit
Speaker 2: that out of the park either way, yes or no.
Speaker 2: Could you describe what happened? That question is certainly the
Speaker 2: most analyzed question I've ever asked, and that's fine. Again,
Speaker 2: that's totally fine. I would ask that question of any
Speaker 2: NFL player, of any Olympian. I'm not comparing the issues.
Speaker 2: But young Michael Phelps at age nineteen, his agent had
Speaker 2: me talk to him for forty five minutes about his DUI. Again,
Speaker 2: I am not comparing DUI with the fingers right whatever,
Speaker 2: not at all. Forty five minutes Michael Phelps answered questions
Speaker 2: from me like tough questions. We're not their pr people,
Speaker 2: as you would know well, and maybe they have not
Speaker 2: been used to scrutiny. But with Caitlin Clark's arrival comes
Speaker 2: national scrutiny. And again the failing of the league to
Speaker 2: prepare the players for the moment is truly one of
Speaker 2: the stories of this particular era in the WNBA. It
Speaker 2: is such a huge failure. I think it's important to
Speaker 2: say I don't frame every question based on what people
Speaker 2: on social media are asking. Of course not, but when
Speaker 2: you see the magnitude of the coverage and the concern
Speaker 2: about these issues. Again, if I'm the player's agent, which
Speaker 2: I am not, I'm saying you want these questions so
Speaker 2: that you can finally equivocally answer them and put the
Speaker 2: issue to bed. Obviously that's not how Dijne Carrington and
Speaker 2: the Players Association saw it, But I thought I was
Speaker 2: giving them the respect that they deserve.
Speaker 1: And a chance to really explain exactly.
Speaker 2: And again, I think it's all stems from the WNBA
Speaker 2: not preparing these players for what might be coming when
Speaker 2: you get national scrutiny.
Speaker 1: If you want to get smarter every morning with a
Speaker 1: breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
Speaker 1: wellness and pop culture, when not for our daily newsletter
Speaker 1: wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. How
Speaker 1: problematic was it, Christine that you were writing a book
Speaker 1: about Caitlin Clark while you were covering the WNBA, Because
Speaker 1: I read a quote by a former editor of The
Speaker 1: Athletic and The Washington Post. You asked him to talk
Speaker 1: to you for the book and he said he didn't
Speaker 1: want to, and he claimed your coverage had gone way
Speaker 1: beyond what is normal. He said, the way she's covering Clark.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen this, Christine. You're asking is she
Speaker 1: Caitlyn Clark's PR agent? So I'm curious about how you
Speaker 1: tried to balance covering the league while you're writing a
Speaker 1: book on Caitlyn Clark, and I think as a result,
Speaker 1: it gave people the impression the only thing you cared
Speaker 1: about was Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 2: So many books have been written by sports journalists about
Speaker 2: Tom Brady, what have you, And I don't think anyone
Speaker 2: has ever complained that those journalists have been asking questions
Speaker 2: about Tom Brady. In other words, for some reason, it
Speaker 2: bothered people tremendously that I was asking questions about Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 1: Now, I think because they felt like you were ignoring
Speaker 1: other players or the bigger picture of the WNBA.
Speaker 2: Right, And of course I'm probably the only one still
Speaker 2: standing who was covering the WNBA in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: so I certainly haven't ignored it over the years. This
Speaker 2: notion that I only focused on Caitlin Clark, are only
Speaker 2: talked to athletes about Caitlin Clark is ridiculous. In that
Speaker 2: same story that you were referring to by a journalist
Speaker 2: who I've talked to quite a bit, who I support
Speaker 2: and want to do well, he interviewed someone about my
Speaker 2: questions who could have been around me only three times
Speaker 2: out of about twenty games. This journalist, this young broadcaster, Sure,
Speaker 2: go ahead, and do it. But how could that person
Speaker 2: know the questions I asked. It was surprising to me
Speaker 2: that they felt this way because I've been around dozens
Speaker 2: of my colleagues, are colleagues friends writing books who have
Speaker 2: focused entirely on one athlete, and no one cared at all,
Speaker 2: No one was upset. What was it about this book
Speaker 2: that got everyone so upset? My guess is that they
Speaker 2: think I was working with Caitlin, which I wasn't. And
Speaker 2: of course, by the way, the notion that I'm a
Speaker 2: fan or that I'm pro Caitlin. There are things in
Speaker 2: this book, as you know, that obviously show Caitlin, and
Speaker 2: you know with her behavior on the court that maybe
Speaker 2: she won't like. Obviously she's not read the book. She
Speaker 2: has no editorial control, which again is the beauty of
Speaker 2: a journalistic look at someone. My way of reporting this
Speaker 2: was the same way I've done for my entire career.
Speaker 2: But that must be it, because it's kind of a
Speaker 2: logical thing that someone might be writing a book about
Speaker 2: Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 1: That was an interesting way to look at it, because
Speaker 1: you talk about coverage of Tiger Woods and the fact
Speaker 1: that you wrote so many stories about him and that
Speaker 1: you weren't writing about all the other golfers, and that
Speaker 1: was because of his talent, his skill, his charisma, and
Speaker 1: how much attention he had brought to that game.
Speaker 2: I would have been not doing my job if I
Speaker 2: was focusing on someone who finished tenth in the golf tournament.
Speaker 2: I think you can make a very strong case again
Speaker 2: the book deal, yes, But even before the book deal,
Speaker 2: I wrote maybe three or four columns, including the Olympic snob.
Speaker 2: I broke that news, the charter flight story. I broke
Speaker 2: that news. News is news when someone is in the headlines,
Speaker 2: when someone is creating news, when someone is getting these
Speaker 2: TV ratings. As a journalist, what would you want someone
Speaker 2: to do? I would love to talk to them. I
Speaker 2: love the two way street. If they want to tell me,
Speaker 2: they can, they can call me any time.
Speaker 1: I know that you feel strongly, Christine, that are rising
Speaker 1: tide lifts all boats, and you feel like Caitlin Clark
Speaker 1: is a rising tide. Do you believe she has lifted
Speaker 1: all boats? And how has she done that? In your review?
Speaker 2: It's a great question. I think she is and can be.
Speaker 2: For example, you look at what's going on with the
Speaker 2: Indiana fever, so This is, of of course her team.
Speaker 2: It is with the Indiana Pacers, much more established, been
Speaker 2: around for years, much more money, as we've just talked about,
Speaker 2: and in Indiana people are crazy about the entire team.
Speaker 2: Caitlin Clark cannot do every appearance, right, she cannot go
Speaker 2: to every gas station and every supermarket. Well guess what
Speaker 2: her teammates go. And they are getting obviously some kind
Speaker 2: of an honorarium. They are getting the opportunity to see
Speaker 2: the fans, their names are out there, they're getting all
Speaker 2: kinds of potential deals. Players want to come and play
Speaker 2: for Indiana. I mean we're seeing that. We're seeing players
Speaker 2: who were competitive with her last year, like don't want
Speaker 2: to Bonner having a year contract now with the Indiana
Speaker 2: Fever after being in Connecticut. So I think, I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a perfect example locally within her team.
Speaker 1: What about within the WNBA. What do you think she's
Speaker 1: done for the entire league?
Speaker 2: When you've got TV ratings through the roof as never before,
Speaker 2: when you've got attendance that's literally again historic. Clearly, that's
Speaker 2: more money in the bank, right, that's more money in
Speaker 2: the owner's pocket. At least they've got the collective bargaining
Speaker 2: agreement that is now up and they're going to have that.
Speaker 2: There is no doubt that the players will be getting
Speaker 2: bigger salaries because of the wonderful, very rosy and sunny
Speaker 2: economic forecast, because of the new TV deals, which is
Speaker 2: four times what they had before. All of this is
Speaker 2: because of the Caitlin Clark effect. Perfect example, here, you've
Speaker 2: got Sheila Johnson, who I've known for a long time.
Speaker 2: You probably know she I know she yeah, yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean we're friends and you know see here at events,
Speaker 2: and Sheila is the owner of the Washington Mystics. The
Speaker 2: Mystics play in a four thy, two hundred seed arena.
Speaker 2: When Caitlin and the fever came, they moved those games,
Speaker 2: Sheila Johnson did to Capital One Arena, where they had
Speaker 2: over twenty thousand, including the record regular season crowd, biggest
Speaker 2: crowd in WNBA history twenty thousand, seven hundred eleven in September,
Speaker 2: all because of one person, Caitlin Clark. So that is
Speaker 2: I think at least probably what a million dollars each
Speaker 2: game right to the Mystics. So that's clearly a positive
Speaker 2: for the team and for Sheila Johnson. Sheila Johnson then,
Speaker 2: of course is the person who quizzically, I'd love to
Speaker 2: speak to her about it. She then goes on CNN
Speaker 2: and is upset that Caitlin Clark won the Time Athlete
Speaker 2: of the Year award and said it should have been
Speaker 2: the League of the Year and that something clicked, but
Speaker 2: didn't think that Caitlyn deserved the credit. I would love
Speaker 2: to know the impetus, love to know the mindset. I'd
Speaker 2: love to know what she's thinking. Again, going back to
Speaker 2: the things we talked about before, we don't know the
Speaker 2: life that Sheila lived, right, a black woman, incredible leader,
Speaker 2: lovely person, great role model. Everything about Shila and I
Speaker 2: gave her gosh. I tried five or six times to
Speaker 2: ask her those questions, which is what we do, right
Speaker 2: we are journalists trying to figure things out.
Speaker 1: I guess I would ask you, does Caitlin Clark to
Speaker 1: serve all the credit for the rise and popularity of
Speaker 1: the WNBA. For example, the New York Liberty. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to New York Liberty games. My daughter really
Speaker 1: loves the Liberty. Caitlin Clark has absolutely nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the New York Liberty, and I think some people
Speaker 1: would argue that the WNBA is growing more popular because
Speaker 1: people are appreciating all the players, So is it fair
Speaker 1: to give all the credit to Caitlin Clark?
Speaker 2: Obviously not all the credit. Proportionality is yes, oh totally.
Speaker 2: I mean, the New York Liberty have an incredible fan based,
Speaker 2: incredible success story. Obviously the defending champions. But during the
Speaker 2: regular season, twenty one of the twenty four games that
Speaker 2: were over a million viewership involved Caitlin Clark and the
Speaker 2: Indiana Fever. There's three that weren't right. I think it
Speaker 2: is undeniable that this woman is the most important and
Speaker 2: best thing to ever happen to women's basketball. Katie. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna say something that I actually hadn't thought of till
Speaker 2: basically right now. I wish she wasn't. I wish it
Speaker 2: had been all those incredible, fabulous women that we covered
Speaker 2: at the Atlanta Olympics. I wish the nation had been
Speaker 2: ready for it then, or had wanted it then, or
Speaker 2: whatever racist feelings people had. It would have been great
Speaker 2: if it had happened. Maya Moore is a perfect example.
Speaker 2: Maya Moore is won the greats of all time. She
Speaker 2: got nowhere near the attention. We went out. If we
Speaker 2: walked on the street right now and said found ten
Speaker 2: people said name a women's basketball player. We're in New York,
Speaker 2: so we may get some Stewie's and some Sabrinas.
Speaker 1: Right, hopefully we would.
Speaker 2: Maybe we'd get a lot of them, but I guarantee
Speaker 2: we'd probably get a few Caitlin Clarks. But we would
Speaker 2: get no Maya Moores, right, I mean talking about Maya
Speaker 2: Moors like talking about you know, Babe Ruth lou Gerigg.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean Michael George, but.
Speaker 2: I mean one of the greats. But we wouldn't get that.
Speaker 2: The nation, and Casey Wasserman, the LA Olympic twenty twenty
Speaker 2: eight chair, even said this, we weren't ready for it
Speaker 2: for some reason. So we're ready now. And that's why
Speaker 2: I spend several chapters talking about Title nine Iowa and
Speaker 2: this launching pad that this young woman had. So it's
Speaker 2: not just her alone by any means, it's the nation
Speaker 2: being ready for it. As we discussed earlier. I wish
Speaker 2: it was twenty years ago. I thought those battles, but
Speaker 2: we weren't there. Now we're here and this is all
Speaker 2: opened up nationally because of her.
Speaker 1: And has given you the opportunity to not only a
Speaker 1: book about Caitlin Clark, but satisfy the interests that now
Speaker 1: people everywhere will have in women's professional basketball.
Speaker 2: Well, exactly, you've correctly, of course, asked me about things
Speaker 2: that are so important journalistically right and so important in
Speaker 2: our country. I don't have all the answers on these things.
Speaker 2: You don't have all the answers right. As a journalist,
Speaker 2: you lay it out there, and that's certainly what I
Speaker 2: do in this book and trying to have the voices
Speaker 2: to give people the best view that I could in
Speaker 2: like writing it in like four or five months, which
Speaker 2: was kind of crazy, but I did it. To have
Speaker 2: this book out now, this is an extraordinary time, and
Speaker 2: you know, I hate to see the vitriol, the racism
Speaker 2: and all the things that were out there on social media.
Speaker 2: How on earth did the WNBA not see this coming?
Speaker 2: In the NBA, which owns what sixty percent of the WNBA,
Speaker 2: have them be a part of this to prepare these
Speaker 2: fabulous athletes for what was coming, the way that NFL
Speaker 2: players have understood for you years, the way that Major
Speaker 2: League Baseball. This is new for women's sports. It's not
Speaker 2: a bad thing, but it required leadership, and unfortunately that
Speaker 2: leadership failed the players over and over again as Caitlin
Speaker 2: Clark was coming in the league.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a fascinating read and she is really so
Speaker 1: much fun to watch, as are a lot of the
Speaker 1: other players. And I'm so glad that you came to
Speaker 1: talk to me about this book, Christine.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Katie anything anytime. We've talked about a lot
Speaker 2: over the years. Yeah, I'm thrilled to be chatting about
Speaker 2: And I'm.
Speaker 1: Sure it wasn't easy for you to be the focal
Speaker 1: point of some of these stories. As a journalist, you
Speaker 1: never really want to be the story. You want your
Speaker 1: subject to be the story. But you know, she's an
Speaker 1: incredible athlete and it's going to be fun to see
Speaker 1: what she does in the future too.
Speaker 2: But as that spotlight shines on Caitlyn Clark, it shines
Speaker 2: on all these players. People who never cared are now
Speaker 2: looking at all the other players and are seeing and
Speaker 2: appreciating them for the first time. That is a huge
Speaker 2: positive one of the many positives about Kaitlin Clark.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
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