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PARIS — Shortly after learning she'd been removed from the U.S. Olympic women's basketball team roster last month, Caitlin Clark received a text message from her high school coach.
Christine Meyer wanted to remind Clark how she reacted the last time someone told her, “You're not good enough.”
In May 2018, as he was finishing up his sophomore year of high school, Clark flew to Colorado Springs to try out for the U.S. U-17 World Cup team. Clark was hopeful he would make the cut, having been a rotation player on the team that helped the U.S. reach the U-17 World Cup the previous summer.
At the time, Clark wasn't yet inundated with autograph requests, social media followers or endorsement deals, but the flashy play we know today was already apparent: a frail girl blasting long-distance three-pointers, making high-risk passes through traffic and fooling defenders with her behind-the-back dribble.
Meyer remembers thinking Clark “played well” at tryouts, but USA Basketball's youth selection committee was full of future college stars. Eight of the 12 players on the previous year's U-16 team had been selected. Of the four players the committee decided not to bring back, Clark was the highest-rated prospect.
“She broke her pinkie finger early in tryouts, but I don't think that was necessarily the deciding factor,” Meyer told Yahoo Sports. “I think the committee just thought there were a few players who played better than her.”
As Haley Jones, Paige Bueckers and Aliyah Boston prepared to lead the U.S. U-17 World Cup team to a gold medal in Belarus, Clark returned to her hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, to hone her skills. The embarrassment of being eliminated and the realization that there were others better than her inspired Clark to keep looking for ways to improve rather than resting on her talent.
“She's always trained hard and loved being in the gym, but that summer her maturity was different,” Meyer said. “When she was in the gym, she was just so focused. She was really motivated to get better.”
Clark improved a lot between the end of tryouts and the start of his junior season, and Meyer said every key element of his game has gotten sharper, from his handling to his decision-making with the ball in his hands to his shooting percentage at all three levels.
Caitlin 1.0 might attempt an unnecessarily risky no-look pass early on the shot clock or take a shot from 27 feet. Caitlin 2.0 resists that temptation more often and is more efficient when she does attempt a bold play.
While Caitlin 1.0 might have stomped her foot away or thrown her hands up in frustration when a referee made a wrong call or a precise pass bounced off an unsuspecting teammate's hands, Caitlin 2.0 was still an expressive competitor, only just beginning to understand how her body language and disposition affected those around her.
At the end of her junior year at Dowling Catholic High School, Clark was one of the youngest players invited to try out for the team that would represent the United States at the U-19 World Championships in Bangkok that summer. The 17-year-old Clark was named to a star-studded team that included Rhyne Howard, Bueckers and Boston.
Clark averaged a modest 14.7 minutes over the seven games in Bangkok, but coach Jeff Waltz trusted her with the U.S. trailing by three in the final minute of the gold-medal game against Australia. After an Australian player's elbow struck Howard in the nose, forcing him to briefly leave the game, Waltz called for Clark to take the free throws.
Two years later, Clark averaged 26.6 points per game as a freshman at the University of Iowa, earning her a natural selection to the U.S. U-19 World Championship team for 2021. This time around, she led the U.S. to a 7-0 record, averaging team-highs of 14.3 points and 5.6 assists, and was named the tournament MVP.
Over the next three years, Clark became famous for playing basketball. famousShe famously led the University of Iowa to two title game appearances and the world woke up to her brilliance, her stage size growing with every logo-printed 3-pointer, YouTube-worthy assist, daring behind-the-back dribble and Jordan shrug.
Fans who previously didn't follow women's sports flocked to their living rooms, packed arenas to watch Clark play, and sports discussion shows that had previously ignored women's basketball devoted segments to her insults and scoring feats.
Though Clarke is now one of the hottest stars in sports, USA Basketball Association officials insisted that her ability to bring new attention to the sport was not important when selecting the Olympic team. As USA Basketball Association selection committee chair Jen Rizzotti told The Associated Press this summer, “It is not our prerogative to decide how many people will watch or how many people will root for the United States. Our prerogative is to field the best team we can.”
Clark was unavailable because Iowa's participation in the Women's Final Four was the weekend the United States Basketball Association held its Olympic training camp, and as a result, the committee was only able to study the first four weeks of her rookie season in evaluating her against WNBA players.
While Clark was on the Indiana Fever bus on the way to the game, USA Basketball Association officials told her she had not been selected for the Olympic team. Clark politely handled the disregard in an interview with a reporter, but it was telling of what she supposedly told Fever coach Christy Sides.
“Coach, they woke up a monster,” Sides recalled Clark saying.
An email Clark received from her high school coach prompted her to adopt that mindset: Meyer reminded Clark that the biggest leaps in her game came when she missed out on the U.S. U-17 World Cup team during her sophomore and junior years of high school, and after Iowa lost to Creighton in the second round of the NCAA Tournament during her sophomore and junior years of college.
“When adversity hits, she can either crumble and feel sorry for herself or dig deeper,” Meyer said. “Those truly hurtful and disappointing experiences have historically helped her take her game, her attitude, her preparation and her work ethic to the next level.”
Meyer already saw signs from afar that history was repeating itself. In the 11 games before she was cut from the U.S. team, Clark averaged 15.6 points and 6.3 assists. In the 15 games after, she averaged 18.2 points and 9.5 assists. In one game, she recorded the first triple-double by a WNBA rookie. In another, she broke the WNBA single-game record with 19 assists.
“Very few people have watched as many of Kaitlyn's basketball games as I have, and I'm still amazed at what she can do against that level of competition,” Meyer said. “Just when you think she can't impress anymore, she pulls off a pass, a shot or a read on the court that makes you have to rewind and watch it three or four times.”
Clarke insisted that the win was not a “redemption” for her when she helped the WNBA All-Stars beat the U.S. Olympic team on July 20. She said she was looking forward to taking a few weeks off and watching the U.S. women's team “dominate” without her.
I hold no grudge.
Just four years of motivation.
