Iowa State guard Caitlin Clark, 22, goes to the basket during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Rutgers guard Destiny Adams, 1, on Friday, Jan. 5, 2024, in Piscataway, N.J. Heading out (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)
Iowa's 6-foot-0 point guard Caitlin Clark revolutionized women's basketball, resulting in the first women's NCAA Championship final between Iowa and South Carolina to be better than the men's final between Purdue and Connecticut. It attracted many TV viewers. .
An average of 18.9 million viewers watched women compared to 14.8 men. This is four times the number of female viewers two years ago. The women's numbers are even more impressive because the women played on a Sunday afternoon and the men played in prime time on a Monday night.
Clark is the best overall basketball player I've seen since Larry Bird. She doesn't hog the ball and completely controls the game. Her scoring range is comparable to the greatest shooter of all time, Stephen Curry. Similar to Curry, her release is almost instantaneous, allowing her to hit off shots in the blink of an eye.
She is a great passer and also a good rebounder for a guard. Her combination of scoring, passing, and her constant movement reminds me of Bill Bradley. She's a smaller version of my favorite basketball player, Larry Bird. She is the best female basketball player I have ever seen.
Clark was the No. 1 pick in the Women's National Basketball League (WNBA) draft. I rarely watch women's professional basketball, but I sometimes tune in to watch Clark's performance.
While I'm fascinated by Caitlin Clark's on-court basketball skills, I'm also wary of the intrusion of professionalism into college sports: paying athletes for the use of their names, images, and likenesses. Increasingly disgusting (NIL) It's becoming ubiquitous.
The root cause of my disillusionment with the state of amateur athletes is detailed in a half-hour New York Times Daily podcast titled “The Wild World of Money in College Sports.” An excellent podcast by New York Times investigative reporter David A. Fahrenhold that explores the shadows of nonprofit charities created to circumvent NCAA guidelines that prohibit universities from directly paying athletes. Reveal the world. These so-called charities use most of the money they raise to lure high school football players to certain colleges with promises of large sums of money.
This podcast tells the story of a young man recruited from the University of Oregon to the University of Texas by a group of university supporters/donors to strengthen the University of Texas' offensive line. The players were given $50,000, which was used to help their families. University of Texas supporters used these tactics to convince seven players to come to Texas. They were able to rebuild the team's weak offensive line and turn their one-loss record into one of the four teams participating in this year's national championship.
Essentially, big-time college football is increasingly becoming the NFL's minor leagues. I don't watch much minor league baseball, and I don't plan on watching much college football in the next few years.
I have always viewed sports as a microcosm of society, where trials and tribulations and the “pain of defeat and thrill of victory” are commonplace. However, if you think about it, professional sports are not a microcosm of society for women, as men and women compete against each other in society. But in sports they are separated. Perhaps it is time to integrate our sports and enjoy the benefits of heterogeneity and homogeneity.
My novel idea is to establish a coed professional basketball league made up of exemplary male and female basketball players and have them play in teams of equal numbers of men and women, e.g. teams of 3 men. That's it. and two women, or two men and three women. The rules could be current NBA rules.
To test the appeal of this concept, we propose a mixed-gender All-Star Game with mixed teams of Eastern and Western NBA/WNBA superstars. I have a sneaking suspicion that this game will garner a lot of interest. Whether it has legs or not is an open question.
As in the case of immigration, problems can arise in the case of heterogeneity, but there are also potential opportunities. Perhaps the integration of men and women on the court will result in higher levels of teamwork, greater cohesiveness, and more ball sharing than in single-sex leagues, allowing basketball to be played at a different level than before. It will be.
I'm generally pretty pessimistic about the future of our country and worried about the future of our democracy. I believe our best defense against this situation is to increase the number of women elected to high-level positions in government, philanthropy, and business. We found that female leaders are more empathetic, caring, willing to collaborate, and far more willing to subjugate personal interests for the common good. Who knows what level of basketball will emerge from fully incorporating women into the sport?
Erwin Stoolmacher is president of Stoolmacher Consulting Group, a fundraising and strategic planning firm that works with nonprofit organizations serving the truly poor.
