Caitlin Elizabeth Clark (born January 22, 2002) is an American basketball player who was the first pick in the 2024 WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever after one of the most storied careers in NCAA history. In her four seasons at the University of Iowa, Clark has been credited with drawing unprecedented interest in women's college basketball, thanks in no small part to her very long list of accomplishments.
Born in Iowa's capital of Des Moines to a family from the nearby suburb of West Des Moines, she came from an athletic family. She first played basketball at age 5, initially against boys because her father couldn't find a girls' program for her age group. Clark didn't play in girls' leagues until she was 13, by which time she was playing several years ahead of her birth cohort. Even before her first season at Dowling Catholic High School in her hometown of West Des Moines, she was being recruited by NCAA Division I programs. The interest only intensified when she led the state in scoring twice, was a three-time first-team all-state selection, and was named the state's girls' player of the year in each of her last two seasons. Clark was one of the most sought-after players in the recruiting class of 2020. She initially made a verbal commitment to her Catholic family's preference of Notre Dame, but soon reconsidered, choosing instead to remain in-state at Iowa.
With the Hawkeyes' starting point guard, who had been named the Big Ten Conference's player of the year in 2019–20, having graduated, Clark was expected to have a major role from the get-go. In a season that was greatly impacted by COVID-19, she was a starter from her first game and ended it as the leading scorer in Division I, making multiple All-American teams. The following season, she became the first woman to lead D-I in per-game scoring and assists, and video highlights of her exploits began to go viral.
Her legend continued to grow in her junior season in 2022–23, in which she again led D-I in assists. Clark led Iowa to its first Final Four in 30 years, with especially notable performances being a buzzer-beating three to take down then-#2 Indiana in a late-season game and a 41-point torching of then-unbeaten #1 South Carolina in the Final Four. Sadly for Hawkeyes fans, they couldn't seal the deal in the national championship game, losing to LSU (a loss they avenged in the next season's Elite Eight). In 2023–24, Clark set multiple Division I career scoring records (see below), plus a few in other categories; she again led D-I in both scoring and assists, as well as three-pointers per game, and took them back to the title game, though they again fell short when South Carolina avenged their 2023 loss to the Hawkeyes. While Iowa never made that last step, Clark unquestionably elevated the team well beyond its ceiling without her; her supporting cast had far fewer WNBA prospects and a much shallower bench than many of the opponents she beat.note If you want a visual representation of just how good she was in this season, check out this graph
by the folks over at Secret Base. You might not see her datapoint at first. It's all the way over in the top right. "Dominating the rest of the league by a frankly ridiculous margin" still doesn't quite capture it. With her seemingly limitless shooting range, Clark's frequently been seen as a distaff counterpart to Stephen Curry—except that she may be a better passer in the women's game than Steph is on the men's side. Iowa immediately retired her #22 jersey after the end of her college career.
Clark's impact on interest in women's basketball was illustrated most strongly in her final season at Iowa. Inspired by Nebraska taking its women's volleyball home opener in August 2023 to its football stadium and drawing 92,000, Iowa played a preseason exhibition that November at its own football stadium. The game drew over 55,000, the largest attendance ever for a women's basketball game. The Hawkeyes also sold out their entire home schedule at their regular home of Carver–Hawkeye Arena (seating a hair under 15K) before the season; all but two of their away games sold out (the outliers being early-season neutral-site tournament games in Florida); and the Big Ten tournament sold out for the first time ever. Ticket prices on the secondary market for Clark's last regular-season home game were the highest on record for a women's game. As for TV, regular-season Iowa games were the most-viewed women's games of all time on six different networks.note This was before her final regular-season game, which drew the largest TV viewership for a regular-season women's game since 1999 and drew more viewers than all but one regular-season college men's game in that season. Each of Iowa's 2024 NCAA tournament games set a new TV viewership record of some type in women's college basketball. The first four all set a new record for a pre-Final Four tournament game, with the rematch against LSU being the most-viewed college women's game ever. This new record lasted only until the Hawkeyes' semifinal against UConn, and that game in turn was surpassed by the final against South Carolina (which drew more viewers than the men's tournament final the next night). The Clark effect, aided by the presence of several other charismatic players around the country, contributed to another stunning statistic—the 48 games in the first and second rounds of the 2024 NCAA tournament collectively drew more fans than all 63 games of the last pre-COVID tournament in 2019.note This effect has already started to show in the WNBA—two teams announced before the season that they would move a home game against the Fever to a larger venue, and less than a week after she was drafted, all 10 of the WNBA games with the highest ticket prices on the secondary market were Fever games.
With the dawn of the NIL (name, image, and likeness) era in college sports in 2021, Clark became one of the hottest commodities in that space. During her career at Iowa, she signed endorsement deals with Nike, State Farm (including one commercial so far with Jake), Gatorade, Bose, Buick, Goldman Sachs, and H&R Block, just to name a few. Many of these deals will carry over to her WNBA career. The Nike deal ran out after the end of her college career, but after a major bidding war she signed a new eight-year deal with the company that will pay her a reported $3.5 million a year and include a signature shoe. While that number is a relative pittance compared to NBA salaries, it's roughly 40 times what she'll make from her WNBA contract.
Due to COVID-19, the NCAA granted all basketball players active in the 2020–21 season an extra year of athletic eligibility, giving Clark the option to return for a fifth college season in 2024–25. She decided to call time on her college career after 2023–24 and declare for the WNBA draft, where the Fever made her the #1 overall pick. While it remains to be seen how Clark's game will translate to the next level, she will leave the college game with a long list of accomplishments. Stick around, we're going to be here for a while.
- Two-time Gatorade high school player of the year in Iowa (2019 and 2020)
- Iowa Miss Basketball (2020)
- McDonald's All-American (2020)
- Two-time gold medalist with Team USA in the FIBA U-19 Women's World Cup (2019 and 2021), being named tournament MVP in 2021
- Big Ten freshman of the year (2021)
- Both major national awards for Division I freshman of the year (2021; both shared with Paige Bueckers of UConn)
- Four-time first-team All-Big Ten (2021–2024)
- Three-time Big Ten player of the year (2022–2024)
- Big Ten women's athlete of the year across all sports (2023)
- Three-time Division I scoring leader (2021, 2022, 2024)
- Three-time Division I assists leader (2022–2024)
- All-American in all four of her Iowa seasons, with all major selectors naming her to the first team except in 2021, when the AP chose her for its second team
- Three-time winner of the Dawn Staley Award, presented to the top D-I guard regardless of role (2021–2023). Surprisingly, she didn't get this award in 2024.
- Three-time winner of the Nancy Lieberman Award, presented to the top D-I point guard (2022–2024)
- Received all major national player of the year awards in both 2023 and 2024, with the most prominent being the Naismith Trophy, Wooden Award, and Wade Trophy.
- Received two major Academic All-America awards from College Sports Communicators in 2022–23—first CSC's award for D-I women's basketball, followed by its award for all D-I sports. She claimed the women's basketball award again in 2023–24.
- First player in Division I women's or men's history with 3,000 career points and 1,000 career assists. The only other players (again, men's or women's) with even 2,000 points and 1,000 assists are current WNBA stars Courtney Vandersloot and Sabrina Ionescu.
- Only Division I women's player to score more than 1,000 points in two different seasons (2022–23 and 2023–24)
- Most points scored in a single NCAA D-I tournament, men's or women's (191 in 2023)
- Most assists in a single NCAA D-I women's tournament (60, also in 2023)
- Recipient of the James E. Sullivan Award for both 2022 and 2023,note given by the Amateur Athletic Union to the top college or Olympic athlete in the US. Clark is the first two-time recipient in the award's history.
- 17 career triple-doubles at Iowa, second in D-I history (again, women or men) to Ionescu.
- One of only two NCAA men's or women's players with triple-doubles in four different seasons, Ionescu being the other.
- Most three-pointers in a season in D-I women's or men's history (201 in 2023–24, which also gave her the single-season per-game record)
- Most career three-pointers in D-I women's history
- Scoring records: In the last few weeks of her final college season, she set a slew of new records...
- First, she surpassed current WNBA star Kelsey Plum for the career Division I scoring lead,
- Less than two weeks later, she became the all-time scoring leader in women's major-college basketball, passing Hall of Famer Lynette Woodard. Woodard's record was not recognized by the NCAA because her career predated NCAA sponsorship of women's sports.
- Then in her final regular-season game, she surpassed Pete Maravich's D-I men's scoring record.note
- And then during the NCAA tournament, she passed Plum for the most points in a season in D-I women's history.
- Finally, during the championship game, she secured the D-I women's record for career points per game, as well as the women's record for most career NCAA tournament points.
Oh, and by the way... she's not to be confused with late American actress Caitlin Clarke.
