"How 'bout a Fresca?!"
Time for a Real Discussion About Caitlin Clark
- Thread starter wenkeej
- Start date
I've used "See you on deck, Senator." more than I probably should have over the years.
"The world needs ditch diggers too"
I don’t listen to or respect any “Cyclone media/voice” that openly cheers for iowa in anything. It’s so embarrassing, and helps cement the “little brother” mindset
It will be a great day when iowa loses, hopefully its next game. Fingers crossed!
Interesting I always find fans than can’t appreciate certain aspects of your rival as insecure and that perpetuates the “little brother” mindset.I don’t listen to or respect any “Cyclone media/voice” that openly cheers for iowa in anything. It’s so embarrassing, and helps cement the “little brother” mindset
It will be a great day when iowa loses, hopefully its next game. Fingers crossed!
Why didn’t you @ CW and let him know how you feel.I don’t listen to or respect any “Cyclone media/voice” that openly cheers for iowa in anything. It’s so embarrassing, and helps cement the “little brother” mindset
It will be a great day when iowa loses, hopefully its next game. Fingers crossed!
I think I can agree on a skill/stats kind of way but I'll give CC credit where I can't for Young; she's pushed and pulled two teams to a Final Four and Young...got whatever he got for going to OU and never seemed all that interested in the team's success.
Granted he was only there for a season.
LOL I used to feel the same way - then I moved outside of Iowa for the first time when I was 23! Holy *bleep!* Anyone who has never *lived* outside of Iowa has *no* idea the sheer amount and *level* of disrespect this entire state gets on a regular basis outside its borders (and no, you can't say, "I've visited," or even "I lived one semester/one year outside of the state." Visiting and/or short stints away from the state exposes you to *very little* of it! Only once you've lived away from the state for *several years* does the sheer size and scale of the disrespect dawn on you! My immediate family - mom, dad, and sister - are the only members of my family who live in Iowa, and *multiple times a year,* we'd go visit family outside of Iowa - mainly because they *very rarely* wanted to come visit *us.* That *alone* was a clue, and I received *several other* clues every time I visited and even studied abroad for a semester. But when I finally graduated from Iowa State and moved out of the state permanently for the first time - wow! Do people feel no shame? Sheesh)!I don’t listen to or respect any “Cyclone media/voice” that openly cheers for iowa in anything. It’s so embarrassing, and helps cement the “little brother” mindset
It will be a great day when iowa loses, hopefully its next game. Fingers crossed!
And maybe you have and still feel the same - I can understand that. But for me, after living nearly a decade outside of the state, it's nearly impossible for me *not* to want my state (and any and all entities in it) to shatter any and all stereotypes of this state *every* chance we get! Caitlin Clark is *certainly* doing that right now - and I've used this opportunity to basically tell everyone, "Oh, Caitlin Clark is not an outlier! This is *normal!* My home town and its university - a town called *Ames, IA,* population 70,000 - has produced 20 Olympians, 15 Olympic medalists, and *8* Olympic Gold Medalists! If we were the size of New York (8.62 million people), we'd have produced ~2200 Olympic athletes and ~890 Gold Medalists (not sure about total Olympians all-time, but the *entire* state of New York has produced 261 Olympic gold medalists *total!* And no, they're not "all from NYC." This last Olympics, the state of NY sent 27 total athletes, but only 13 were from the NYC area https://swimswam.com/the-golden-states-which-u-s-states-are-home-to-the-most-olympic-medalists/)!
And for much bigger cities, like Des Moines (i.e., where Caitlin Clark comes from), entire Wikipedia pages are needed for all the notable people that come from there - which isn't uncommon. But yes, given that Des Moines' population is <212,000, and NYC's is ~8.62 million (~43 times the size of Des Moines), Des Moines *indeed* produces a disproportionate amount of talent!
Anyway, my point being, yes, the rivalry still indeed matters to me. I still feel so *so* happy whenever we beat Iowa and lift the Cy-Hawk trophy! I love trash talking my Hawkeye friends on social media. And yes, whenever I run into a Hawkeye alum outside the state (all *two* times it's happened XD), we definitely have some friendly trash talk - unlike the one time I met a UNI alum and there was *no* trash talk (I just saw his UNI shirt and I asked, "Wow! Did you go to UNI?" When he said, "Yeah," I said, "I went to Iowa State. I grew up in Ames." We are now social media friends)! But (in addition to the fact that I still feel pretty excited when I meet someone from *any* major Iowa university outside the state - because it happens *so rarely*) it's become impossible for me not to see any player or entity from Iowa shattering stereotypes or achieving success and for me *not* to say, "Yes, show them! Show everyone how wrong they are about our *entire* state! Make them feel absolutely embarrassed they ever disrespected our state!"
CW likes to act like he watches womens basketball outside of ISU and Iowa. And then he botches names all the time like he did with Van Lith last week. It's all show, just like he claims he's a Tulane fan. He's never watched more than a quarter of Tulane football, but he thinks it sounds cool.
I don't doubt he anticipated watching the game. I was excited to watch. But all of the womens basketball love this year is lip service.
Don't blaspheme Chris like that. Might be true he doesn't watch random Women's College Basketball games, but as a fan of Men's College Basketball, I also didn't watch many random games, and probably none at all that didn't have some kind of tie to ISU (Big 12 games etc.) Chris is a busy guy and doesn't have time to watch the women's Wisconsin vs. Michigan game.
Chris isn't big on pronunciations, I think he'd be the first to admit that. I think it might be part of his schtick and I find it hilarious when Hassell has to correct him.
Knowing how to pronounce Van Lith, who has been one of the biggest stars in the sport, involved in the most high profile transfer of the year, and playing for the defending national champion, doesn't require loads of homework. It was just a giveaway that he watches the ISU women and Caitlin Clark. But all this posturing about how the LSU/Iowa game is his most anticipated sporting event ever is just lip service hyperbole about womens basketball because it's the cool thing to say right now. He's busy, I get it.
"I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber."
"Didn't want to do it."
There's been a lot of talk about this, and yes, I completely agree that that's one serious (and *fair)* discussion about Caitlin Clark that needs to be had. There are several very accomplished athletes around the world for whom poor sportsmanship ruined their image - perhaps most notable (and any whiner crying "no one cares about soccer," you can shove it! Over 100 million Americans watch the world's most popular sport and more Americans participate in the sport than in any other nation on this planet! Go cry a river somewhere else) is Zinedine Zidane. One of the greatest of all time! Almost unanimously the greatest player of his generation! But he'll always be remembered for his hot-headedness (literally when it comes to the 2006 World Cup final, his final career game, where he headbutted a player and got himself sent off in possibly the biggest game of his career, costing his entire nation the ultimate crown in the sport)!
And oh, the similarities are also hilariously particular in regards to *how* their hotheadness came out. Zidane was particularly famous for yelling at refs and opponents constantly, getting involved in pointless shoving matches, and committing dumb fouls away from the play that were very costly to him and his teams (i.e., see the 2006 World Cup final example from above - very similar to the incident this whole thread began with, except imagine if that had been the NCAA tournament championship game, Clark had gotten a flagrant 2 and been ejected, and Iowa had went on to lose because of that! Zidane did stuff like that *a lot*)!
Yes, Caitlin needs to be careful if she doesn't want to end up like Zidane! And to be clear, Zidane is still beloved all over the world, but his hot-headedness still leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth! And to be completely fair to *both* athletes, the hotheadness - though inexcusable - actually came from *somewhere.* Yes, both Zidane and Clark, due to their immense talent, have (thoughout their entire lives) regularly been targets of attempts by opponents to seriously injure them (and refs and leagues have had a notorious lack of common sense in dealing with those situations - and please, no one pretend you haven't noticed! This is an ISU forum! We've *all* noticed because it's happened to *our* teams so *so* many times)! That's where all the jawing at refs, jawing at opponents after every bump and foul, and the retaliation to regular fouls with ejection-level fouls *often* comes from (not always! I can't speak for CC, but for example, Zidane's infamous heatbutt happened because the guy he headbutted insulted his sister. Yes, there was some shirt-tugging before, but he in no way felt the guy was intending to injure him. I don't know if there's a similar incident with Clark, but I wouldn't be surprised).
But, once again, like with Zidane, that's no excuse and it *won't* save you in the court of public opinion!
And yes, sadly, there *are* double-standards because she's a woman (yes, *several* male athletes have been notoriously bad sportsmen or awful human beings, yet are still beloved and their attitude is seen as "part of why they're so great." Oof)! That *can't* be ignored! I do agree that more than a bit of the backlash against Clark has indeed been quite sexist. But that being said, there *is* precedent for even revolutionary athletes' legacies being clouded by constant arguing with and yelling at refs and opponents and committing reckless fouls away from the ball! CC needs to be aware of that and find a more constructive way to "fight back" when she feels disrespected, warranted or not.
I'd recommend taking after MJ's example! Whenever he took it personally, he'd trash-talk, yes, but he's far more famous for putting up 50 points and embarrassing the other person. He'd go out of his way *not* to do something reckless so he could stay on the court and embarrass them *with his game.* I'd highly recommend Clark do *that!* If she receives a perceived slight, I'd highly recommend her saying, "Oh, you're gonna pay for that," or "Ok, this is personal now," and then if she's on pace for a 40-point near-triple-double, make it her goal to get a 50-point triple-double and then look right at the opponent she perceived to have slighted her in a clear "you brought this on your team" message, a la MJ during the 90s (and maybe add something innocuous - like the shrug MJ added with *commentator* Magic Johnson in the 1992 Finals, or reciprocating Mutombo's finger wag, like he did after dunking on Dikembe Mutombo in the 1997 playoffs)!
That's my take on this situation! If Clark doesn't want to go down as another Zidane, and wants to go down as the female MJ, *that* is how she needs to approach this!
And for anyone crying, "she's a Hawkeye, stop 'cheering' her on," I responded that claim in another comment! You can find my response to that claim above!
