49 Amazing Parts From Wright Thompson's Caitlin Clark Piece

Because 48 would not be nearly enough

Nobody reads.

But if nobody reads -- how are you reading this? It's not subtitles on your television or captions on your TikTok feed.

Is it possible you, too, love the printed word as much as your writer?

If so, my next question: how much do you love the printed word?

The incomparable Wright Thompson dropped an atomic bomb of a piece for ESPN on Wednesday about the last four years of Caitlin Clark at Iowa (and oh-so much more). I teared up three times during and cried at the end.

I don't know how many words it is, but I can tell you how many minutes it is. A short article is usually five minutes. An intermediate? Closer to 15. Long might push you to 30 minutes. Really long? Maybe 45. This piece is an hour and 35 minutes long. It's got everything. Read it and don't read this.

But if you don't have that kind of time? Allow me to attempt to distill the brilliance in some way.

Let's go.

1. So weird to picture Clark drinking

In summer 2023, as a reward for their Final Four season, the Iowa coaches arranged a boondoggle of an international preseason run through Italy and Croatia, grown-ass women, pockets thick with NIL money to burn. They saw places they'd never seen, spoke strange languages and walked narrow cobblestone streets. "One of the best nights was when we got bottles of wine and just sat on the rooftop of the hotel," Caitlin said.

2. Clark chartering YACHTS in Croatia.

They needed a yacht. Like a real one, the kind of boat where Pat Riley and Jay-Z might be drinking mojitos on a summer Sunday. So McIntire found himself with the hotel concierge looking at photographs of boats. He asked Caitlin about the price of one that looked perfect. "Book it right now," she said.

3. Clark's brother saying she's trash at Fortnite.

"You should hear her play Fortnite," McIntire said, pointing to Caitlin. "Is she good?" Brent asked. "No," he laughed.

4. Clark celebrating her "negative" COVID test.

There was the time Caitlin needed to pass a COVID-19 test for games in Mexico. She showed up in the practice gym, throwing her mask on the ground while waving her phone and crowing, "I'm negative, bitches!" ... until one of her teammates looked at the email and realized Caitlin had read it wrong, so she quickly grabbed her mask and bolted.

5. Of course Kate Martin being the type to ask the kind of questions that make you feel good.

"Happy birthday, Caitlin," Kate Martin said, turning to her left and asking her, "What was the best thing that happened in Year 21?"

6. Assistant coach Jan Jensen being wildly philosophical.

"She's figuring out how to really live with getting what she's always wanted," she said.

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"She's uncensored," Jensen said. "So many times women have to be censored."

7. Jensen's bonkers high school scoring average somehow being topped only by her grandma's dope nickname.

Jensen averaged 66 points a game in high school in the days when girls played 6-on-6. She is in Iowa's girls high school basketball Hall of Fame. Her grandmother, Dorcas Andersen Randolph, who went by "Lottie" because she scored a lot of points, is too. Jensen still has her uniform.

8. Priscilla Presley off the top rope!

I had a meeting with Priscilla Presley for another project later that day across town. We talked about life in the fishbowl with Elvis. She told me about how only a handful of memories remained hers alone even all these years later. I thought about Caitlin somewhere 30,000 feet in the air on a plane home from New York City after she received her final award of the 2023 season.

9. Clark desecrating one of her trophies with, presumably... White Claw?

When Caitlin gave her Associated Press Player of the Year trophy to her parents, her mom looked inside and gasped -- some of the metal on the inside was already peeling and rusting. "What happened?" she asked Caitlin. Caitlin shrugged sheepishly. "The managers got it," she said. It turns out the trophy, her mom said with a shake of the head, holds two beers. (Actually, the managers fact-checked -- it's two hard seltzers.)

10. Harder than picturing an elite level athlete drinking is the same elite level athlete having a pepperoni pizza (in New York).

Caitlin ordered a pepperoni slice, which arrived greasy on a stack of cheap paper plates. She folded it like a veteran.

11. Leveraging DM pow with every celebrity but The Boy.

Luke Combs commented on her social media a few hours ago. She got free tickets and backstage passes to see him over the summer and also got tickets to Taylor Swift's "The Eras Tour." She invited the biggest Swifties on the team, trying to use her new superpowers for good. The Hawkeyes are forever asking her to DM their celebrity crushes and invite them to games. She laughs and tries to explain why she can't get Drake to Iowa City.

12. Global superstar... but still 22-years-old.

She earns seven figures and has deals with Bose, Nike and State Farm. The Iowa grocery store chain Hy-Vee, another corporate partner, sometimes pays for her private security at public events. Meanwhile, her mother still does her laundry.

13. Her sibling having thee most adorable childhood nickname for her.

Her younger brother Colin hooked up the portable speaker. He's a freshman at Creighton, where he has found a community of his own. He and his sister adore each other. When he was a baby, the family called her "Caitie Mommy" because she took such good care of him, and now Brent and Anne love to see him celebrate her success.

14. Did... anyone also not know the bird's name was Walter? (from the outdoor basketball game at Kinnick)

Caitlin went into the football locker room to get ready. Outside, the stadium pulsed with energy. Walter the Hawk swooped down from the press box. Then the dozens of speakers ringing the main bowl started thumping. "Back in Black" again. The whole place shook. Caitlin stepped into the light pouring into the mouth of the tunnel.

15. Addison O'Grady taking shit (more on her later).

Caitlin fought her temper as several of her young teammates made mistakes. The main object of her scorn was a sophomore named Addison O'Grady, No. 44, who had become a bit of a punching bag.

16. The entire Clark family being generational Beatles of Dowling Catholic High School.

I drove across Des Moines to see where all this began. Although Caitlin hasn't been a student at Dowling Catholic for almost four years, her presence -- and her family's presence -- remains palpable in the halls. Her older brother won two state titles in football. Her younger brother won a state title in track. Caitlin's grandfather, her mom's dad, was the beloved football coach there for years. Once after an emotional game he gathered his team at midfield and burned Des Moines Register articles about his team he didn't like.

17. Caitlin's passing skills being on the X-Men level of gifted powers.

When Caitlin saw a player come open, or more often realized that a player would be coming open momentarily, look out! The ball was in the air and flying at their heads. This made her teammates nervous, and they'd shut down, which Caitlin didn't understand. Soon she just stopped passing. "It was hard for her to understand what other people would feel," Meyer said. Caitlin was, in real time, learning how to use her gift. *i've always wondered about this* Meyer started showing her film of her body language, something the Iowa coaches still do. They'd sit down and watch in silence as Caitlin stomped and gestured.

18. Clark admitting preps basketball was more challenging than the collegiate level.

"High school basketball was honestly harder for me than college," Caitlin told me. "I mean that in the most positive, respectful way to my teammates. The basketball IQ wasn't there. At the end of the day they didn't care if we won or lost, really. It wasn't gonna affect their life that much. They just didn't get it on the same level.

19. Knew Clark never won a state title in high school... but not even making the postseason as a senior?!?!?!?!? HOW.

Caitlin led the state in scoring a couple of times, but Dowling never won a state title during her career. Her senior year the team didn't even make the state tournament.

20. Sage ass Jensen + Kate Martin putting Clark's high school experience into a framework.

Both Jensen and Kate Martin told me they didn't think she had any true friends outside her tight-knit family before she got to Iowa. They didn't mean she wasn't popular, or didn't have a group to hang with, only that there was no one in her orbit who was wired like her. Legends like Tiger Woods and Joe DiMaggio often seemed alone too, even surrounded by huge crowds, solitary citizens living in a world of their own ambitions and fears. "Were you lonely?" I asked. She thought about it. "I would say I was lonely in the aspect of no one understood how I was thinking," she said. "I wasn't surrounded by people who wanted to achieve the same things as me."

21. Think most of us, by now, knew Clark heavily considered Notre Dame... but did we know the name of ND's coach?!

Meyer told me that Caitlin remained pretty calm during her recruitment -- except when Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw came to town.

22. No love from Geno!

The lack of interest from UConn stung. "Honestly," she said, "it was more I wanted them to recruit me to say I got recruited. I loved UConn. I think they're the coolest place on Earth, and I wanted to say I got recruited by them. They called my AAU coach a few times, but they never talked to my family and never talked to me."

23. Clark's road alias.

Caitlin's fake name for orders and hotel rooms is Hallie Parker from "The Parent Trap"

24. Kate Martin owning October like Michael Myers.

...this past Halloween, they dressed in costumes and climbed up balconies to sneak into teammates' apartments to scare each other. Sydney Affolter nearly had a heart attack when she approached her sliding balcony door to find, staring at her, a full gorilla costume with a giddy Kate Martin inside.

25. Clark being impenetrable to sports psych...

Her teammates came to understand that they were dealing with someone like Mozart. She wasn't rude, nor necessarily nice, just a different species. At one point that year a sports psychologist came in to work with the team. She started going around the room and asking the players when they felt stressed and anxious and how they reacted to those feelings. One by one, the young women described familiar symptoms and scenarios: sweaty hands, a fear of the free throw line, struggling with breathing, anxiety about the last possession. Finally it was Caitlin's turn. She seemed a little embarrassed. "I never am," she said. Everyone in the room somehow understood she was being more vulnerable than cocky. "Stone cold," one witness told me. "It was so cool."

26. ...or maybe it just comes out in different ways.

I pressed her once on how she must have seemed to her teammates that first year. "People know I'll have their backs and I'll ride for them every single day," she said. "Obviously there is a switch that flips when I step on the court like I want to kill someone. I'm here to cause havoc. Some of the biggest challenges are I have all this emotion, I'm a freshman and I'm starting and how do I channel this? At times they were definitely like, 'Why is this girl a psycho?'"

27. Teared up.

"I want her in my foxhole," Martin said. "That's the type of player you want at the end of a game in a battle."

28. Kate Martin so fucking sage.

Maybe earlier than anyone, Martin realized that Caitlin's emotional outbursts were a byproduct of a young woman trying to marshal forces too powerful to fully control. Caitlin could take them to glory if they could help her be her best self. They all needed one another. Her teammates' understanding grew. They saw her get the blame for all the losses and knew the ball would always be in her hands with the game on the line. At a team meeting that season, when hurt feelings over Caitlin's lack of trust had come to the surface, it was Martin who rose to speak. "I got something," she said. The team fell silent. "Everybody thinks they want to be Caitlin," she said. "I don't know if you want to be Caitlin." The women knew immediately what she meant. "The crown she wears is heavy."

29. Too yoked for denim.

This night would let Iowa know if it'd come together in time to make a run, and to let Caitlin know if all the hard mental and emotional work she'd put in -- in addition to all the hours in the gym and weight room, where she complained to the strength coaches that they had made her thighs get too big for all her jeans.

30. Controlling all elements in the arena, pre-Indiana buzzer beater.

The game was tied late when the Hoosiers went to the line with less than a second left and two foul shots to take the lead. Caitlin started yelling at the officials to review the clock. "Time! Time! Time!" She alone realized that the officials had messed up the clock. That's the basketball IQ coaches are forever talking about. She stayed calm and the officials went to check the replay monitors and sure enough, she was right.

31. A calm vs. Georgia.

The Bulldogs kept fouling hard, playing with intensity, trying to stay in the game. During a television timeout, Caitlin stood next to the referee waiting to restart play. The ref held the ball, and a Georgia defender stood next to them. "You're not as good as you think," the Bulldogs player said. Caitlin smiled and turned to the ref. "Do you think I'm a good basketball player?" The referee started laughing. The Iowa coaches knew, in that moment, that she had entered chrysalis stage. She'd become the player she had always had the potential to be. Calm, ruthless. A winner. She simply would not engage with the negativity. She hit two foul shots with a second left and the game was over.

32. Packing like champions/hitting the 1's and 2's.

Bluder told her team to pack for two games in Seattle, and then for two games in Dallas at the Final Four. The Hawkeyes were not going home. They flew into Seattle and walked into the hotel where the players saw a DJ booth set up in the lobby. Caitlin pulled her hood up and went up and pretended to be spinning records in a club and everyone laughed. "Oh my god, this kid," Iowa staff member Kathryn Reynolds said with a wistful laugh. "We were on the ride of our lives."

33. Tears after the natty.

After losing to LSU the Hawkeyes cried in the locker room. "Bawled," Caitlin said. She and Kate Martin hugged McKenna Warnock and Monika Czinano. They'd become sisters. Two weeks of adrenaline ran out, and they awakened to lives that had changed in ways they never could have imagined on the flight out to Seattle. Now they just wanted to go home.

34. Tender moment with her dad after the natty.

Everyone headed back to the team hotel to meet their families and friends. Caitlin hadn't even taken off her uniform. She kept it together until she saw her father. He waited for her in the lobby. She burst into tears and buried her head in his shoulder. "You have so much to be proud of," he told her. "I know but still it's sad, Dad," she said.

35. Ripping shots after losing the natty.

Then she led her teammates three blocks away from the hotel to toast their season. The name of the bar was Happiest Hour, and the staff didn't seem prepared for two dozen very tired, very nostalgic, very thirsty women. "I don't think you should write about any of this," Caitlin said with a smile, "but I'm gonna tell you anyway." An Iowa fan asked Caitlin if he could buy the team a drink. "Twenty-two shots!" she said. Soon a tray showed up. Twenty-two. That night might end up being Caitlin's favorite memory from college. This group of women truly loved one another and for the rest of their lives when they looked at their Final Four rings, or came to some anniversary and saw the banner hanging in the rafters, it is that love they would remember. And evenings like the one in Dallas after they lost the biggest game of their lives but still had one another. She changed her mind about wanting people to know about that night. "You can write about that," she said. "I don't really care."

36. Kate Martin's sub order specifics... for some reason.

They wore hoodies and sunglasses. Kate Martin cradled a Jimmy John's submarine sandwich in the lobby. No. 5, the Vito -- salami, capocollo and provolone.

37. Clark learning about wealth consolidation.

They went their separate ways, and Caitlin sank into her summer. She signed millions of dollars of contracts and flew to Los Angeles to shoot big-budget commercials where a grip held an umbrella over her head to block the sun. She tried to hold it for herself. She couldn't believe how much free stuff she got. "This is why the rich are so rich," she said. "They get things for free. It's so weird."

38. Bluder and Jensen seeing change in real time to a sport they've dedicated so much time and energy towards.

The Iowa women's season tickets sold out for the first time ever on Aug. 2. Lisa Bluder and Jan Jensen were sitting together when they got the call from the ticket office and both women cried. They'd never ridden a wave like this one, after a lifetime dedicated to furthering their sport. They also worried about the toll all this exponentially growing attention was having on their young phenom.

39. Jensen, again, sage.

I asked Jensen once how she could tell when Caitlin felt overwhelmed. Easy, she told me. She always hits the practice gym with a bounce, with a smile and an inner ferocity, and when she is drained, it's immediately obvious. "When was the last time you saw her like that?" I asked. There was a long pause. "This summer she was really busy," Jensen said finally. The Iowa coaches found themselves organizing the entire team practice calendar around Caitlin's travel schedule. They wanted her to be able to go receive awards and soak up the glory. But it all got to be a lot. "She wants to be a kid, too," Jensen said. "It's summer, you know? This summer was taxing on her."

40. The bigs trying to play their way out of Monika's shadow to start this season.

Once at practice Caitlin came flying down the court in transition. Addi O'Grady was wide open around the free throw line. Caitlin got to the logo and jacked up a 3-pointer, which went in. O'Grady never once yelled for the ball. Jensen threw up her hands in disgust and yelled, "Ugh!" Caitlin came right to her. "The reason I didn't throw it ..." she began to explain. Jensen cut her off and said that it was Addi's fault for not screaming for the ball and that the coaches were annoyed about that. Bluder and Jensen wanted all the centers to act like Monika Czinano and expect the ball every single trip down the court, to call for it, to deliver once she received the pass. To them Caitlin didn't do anything wrong. The center needs to demand respect. "She can detect weakness," Bluder told me. "I think she likes strong people. People that are good leaders. People who will use their voice."

41. Dinner with Ted Lasso.

Jason Sudeikis and Sue Bird came to sit courtside. During a television timeout, Sudeikis did his Ted Lasso dance on the jumbotron and Carver-Hawkeye rocked in the reflected celebrity. Afterward Caitlin and her family took Jason out to dinner. They sat in the window at Basta on Iowa Avenue. "He talks just like he does in the show!" Caitlin gushed to her mom after.

42. Dogs make children of us all.

"I want her to learn how to manage all this," Jensen told me. "The NIL stuff. The popularity. The stardom. I want her to manage that and still love the game, you know?" Everyone looked to make sure Caitlin didn't lose her sense of wonder. "She seems like a child when we bring dogs into the facility and she gets on the floor and is rolling around with them and being a kid and screaming," Jensen said. "She goes from one extreme to the other so quickly: 'I'm this unbelievable athlete' to 'I'm this little kid.'"

43. Caitlin Pippen.

We all went to the airport and flew back to Cedar Rapids, where university charter buses picked us up to drive back to campus. We parked outside the garage where the players keep their cars for away games. Everyone climbed off the bus -- except Caitlin. She was in the little bathroom in the way back throwing her guts up. I left her and went to the garage. The first person I saw was Kate Martin. I asked what was wrong. "Migraines," Martin said. "She gets 'em really bad."

44. Kate Martin vs. DA WORLD.

The teammates told Anne what they saw of the incident after the game in Columbus. Kate Martin, they said gleefully, threatened to fight the Ohio State student section. She'd be Charles Oakley to Caitlin's Michael Jordan. Everyone laughed. Caitlin the loudest. "I see Caitlin on the ground and I just start seeing red," Martin explained.

45. Advice on navigating future court stormings from her brother.

Caitlin took off at a dead sprint -- "which was problem number one," she said -- and never saw the Ohio State student until they collided. When she picked up her phone, she saw a text from her former football player brother: "Next time explode through their sternum."

46. Clark impersonating enraged Kate Martin.

Around 4 a.m., once they got home from the game, Caitlin got a text from Monika Czinano asking if she needed to hire a hit man. Martin sounded embarrassed as she described to all of us at dinner how she stalked around cursing at people and trying to find someone to fight. She was repeating the wilder things she said and then Caitlin started doing her impression of Martin. "Whatever," Kate said. "I'm ride or die for my ladies."

47. Kate Martin parking terribly and everyone -- including Wright Thompson himself -- helping move the car... except Clark.

Then Kate sheepishly revealed she'd had a bit of parking trouble when she'd pulled up outside earlier. Her car was, she admitted, parked on top of a curb and a snowdrift. She needed help pushing it out. Jada, Will McIntire and I got low and started to push. Martin sat behind the wheel. We all made sure not to let Caitlin anywhere near the operation. None of us wanted to be responsible for a tire rolling over her foot and ending the greatest college basketball season anyone has ever had. "Twenty-two is not touching this car!" I said. Gyamfi laughed. "This is a job for two-three," she said. "I gotta get this on video!" Caitlin said.

48. ...but even that youthful, college anecdote still having its own existentialism.

We all pushed, then leaned in and pushed harder, as Kate spun her tires then caught a little traction and lurched to safety. Everyone cheered, me included, and Caitlin was part of the action, but also separate from it, her life pulling her in one direction and her teammates in another. Finally, she stopped recording and I watched them all go out into the night, still celebrating.

49. Addi being the dark horse hero and connector of the whole damn story's humanity.

A bit later, during a scrimmage, Addi O'Grady, who had at one point retreated into an introverted shell in response to the barrage of pressure from Caitlin, got down on the post and just knocked one of the team managers on his ass. This was everything Caitlin Clark loved about basketball. The competition, the aggression, the way that every moment produced a winner and a loser, the willingness to go hard, to risk. O'Grady had won the moment. She'd know what that felt like now. She could do it again. Caitlin ran to her. She jumped up and down and screamed and praised and threw around joyous curses and exaltations. The coaches beamed. This was a team. Jan Jensen cried about it later, she said. They'd traveled the road. They'd put last season in its place and made this one its own. It was February. The doors were closed and there were no cameras. Nobody sat courtside or wanted autographs. Caitlin was at the center of it but not hitting 3s or firing passes behind her back. She was all out in praise of a teammate. She believed. "YES!" she screamed. "ADDI!!"

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