Caitlin Clark explains why her team-mates ‘GOT MAD AT HER’ and were left in disbelief
WNBA star Caitlin Clark showed promise in various sports before committing to basketball.
Caitlin Clark has been teeing it up during the off-season (Image: Getty)
Caitlin Clark took the WNBA by storm in her debut season, picking up Rookie of the Year and posting 19.2 points per game for the Indiana Fever.
Though her glittering NCAA career made it seem as though she would always go on to become a big hitter in the basketball world, things actually could have turned out differently. Clark showed promise in a variety of sports during high school, including football.
But her passion for basketball transcended every other sport. And Clark’s football team-mates were left baffled when, after a day of lessons, she would often squeeze in a taxing session of on-court training before turning up to a match.
Speaking at the Women’s Leadership Conference at the LPGA’s The Annika pro-am, the 22-year-old said: “I remember in high school I played soccer, I was on varsity and I loved it.
“But my team-mates would get mad because I would go and practice and work out and do basketball after school right before we would have our soccer games. And they couldn’t believe I was doing that. So I eventually had to give up soccer, even though I loved it. I think it was the will I had to want to get better at it.”
Caitlin Clark was crowned the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year (Image: Getty)
Relentless work ethic is a key part of what makes Clark one of the WNBA’s standout stars. That stems back to her school days at Dowling High in West Des Moines, Iowa, where she often spun multiple plates at once.
“I grew up playing literally everything, and my parents just kind of tossed me out there and wanted me to get my energy out, whether it was soccer, softball, golf, track – I really did it all,” she explained.
“Then when I got into high school, I knew basketball was my future. And I loved it. I wanted to practice, I think that is what was different. I wanted to get better at it, I wanted to spend time working on my game. That was probably what set that apart from all the other sports that I played, just kind of for fun with my friends.
“I was really competitive about it but I didn’t take extra time out of my day to go and work on my game and want to be better, be better than everybody else. I think that’s what kind of helped me figure out the path that I wanted to take.”
