Caitlin Clark was launched to Indiana as a member of the Fever for the primary time Wednesday, because the No. 1 draft decide joined with basic supervisor Lin Dunn and coach Christie Sides to satisfy with media at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The reception awaiting Clark dwarfed any crowd that has lined the Fever in current reminiscence, as would be the case for many of her firsts within the WNBA.
Among the many credentialed media in attendance was Gregg Doyel, an award-winning columnist for The Indianapolis Star. When it was his flip to pose a query to Clark, Doyel made a coronary heart gesture together with his fingers in her route, which Clark acknowledged because the sign she provides her household after each sport. That gesture has change into related to Clark and was featured in one among her State Farm commercials. When Clark made the affiliation, Doyel responded, “Begin doing it to me, and we’ll get alongside simply superb.”
Reporter: 🫶
Caitlin Clark: “You want that?”
Reporter: “I like that you just’re right here.”
Caitlin: “Yeah, I do this at my household after each sport.”
Reporter: “Begin doing it to me and we’ll get alongside simply superb.”
Caitlin: 😳
(by way of @IndianaFever / YT)pic.twitter.com/BBjU881K7a
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) April 17, 2024
The response to Doyel’s feedback was swift and unfavorable. There was near-universal settlement that what Doyel mentioned was inappropriate, disrespectful to Clark and usually uncomfortable. The uproar was so overwhelming that Doyel felt compelled to precise regret for his remarks, writing on X, “My remark afterward was clumsy and awkward. I sincerely apologize. Please know my coronary heart (actually and figuratively) was well-intentioned. I’ll do higher.”
Doyel additionally wrote a column in The Indianapolis Star apologizing to Clark for the interplay.
As Clark’s star strikes to the WNBA, she is inadvertently shining a light-weight on a press corps that has been fairly sparse on account of a relative lack of media funding in ladies’s basketball. Because of this, reporters who don’t have expertise protecting ladies’s sports activities are parachuting in to be a part of the Clark phenomenon, which is able to end in some rising pains as they find out about ladies’s basketball. However that doesn’t excuse a scarcity of tact in the case of coping with WNBA athletes. The league and its groups should develop a extra sturdy system in the case of credentialing reporters as curiosity within the sport grows, however the media itself has a accountability to deal with gamers with respect and professionalism. That bar wasn’t met in Indianapolis on Wednesday.
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(Photograph: Ron Hoskins / Getty Photos)
