Caitlin Clark and the Future of Women’s Sports
As Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese raise the profile of female athletics, Donald Trump’s Supreme Court lowers federal standards for Women’s rights.
WNBA and Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on July 14th, 2024. The photo image is courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon dismissed Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s federal indictment for mishandling classified documents against former US President Donald Trump.
Judge Cannon’s ruling is another stark reminder of the federal courts’ destructive role in this year’s American presidential election. It comes less than a month after the US Supreme Court gifted Donald Trump with a perplexing yet historically significant legal victory.
Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s incoherent legal reasoning in his majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 mirrored the Supreme Court on July 1st when it granted Trump partial immunity from Special Counsel Smith’s election subversion case. As Public Health Policy Reviews has continuously reported since April, every daily event magnifies the ramifications for women’s health and civil rights as election day approaches on November 5th.
All the recent federal court rulings should be alarming to women’s rights advocates, who are simultaneously observing a public explosion in the popularity of female sports and athletics.
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Caitlin Clark is taking practice shots before the 2024 national championship game in Cleveland, Ohio. The photo image is courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Just three nights ago, basketball phenom Caitlin Clark continued to make WNBA history by becoming the first rookie to post multiple games of 20-plus points and 10-plus assists.
Ms. Clark scored 20 points on 8-of-16 shooting, 13 assists, and six rebounds in a 95-86 win over the Phoenix Mercury. Two nights earlier, on Wednesday, July 11th, the rookie scored 29 and 13 during a win against the Washington Mystics.
Clark’s basketball achievement was only the third time a rookie posted at least 20 points and ten assists in a game. Now, Clark is the only WNBA rookie who has done it twice.
Fellow rookie and college basketball rival Angel Reese is also having a record-setting season. Ms. Reese, a forward for the Chicago Sky, who is challenging Caitlin Clark for WNBA Rookie of the Year honors, had a record double-double streak end at 15 straight games on July 13th during an 81-67 loss to the New York Liberty.
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WNBA and Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 3rd, 2024. The photo image is courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
The rivalry between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese has significantly increased the popularity of women’s basketball and public awareness of women’s sports over the past two years.
Reese’s Louisiana State University (LSU) Tigers defeated Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes 102-85 in a historic NCAA Women’s Basketball National Championship game on Sunday, April 2nd, 2023. LSU broke a record for the most points ever scored in a national championship game while winning their first women’s basketball title.
Head Coach Kim Mulkey led the Tigers to the championship in just her second season as head coach at LSU. Mulkey earned her fourth national title after a stellar career at Baylor University. However, the end-game histrionics and post-game comments of Angel Reese overshadowed LSU’s 2023 championship victory. Most sports media writers and basketball fans on Twitter/X wanted to weigh in on Reese’s taunts toward Clark and her Iowa Hawkeye teammates near the end of the championship game.
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Angel Reese taunted Caitlin Clark near the end of the NCAA Women’s College Basketball National Championship on Sunday, April 2nd, 2023. Image: Twitter.
The media furor over Angel Reese’s actions and statements perfectly set up a rematch the following year between the two players and their respective teams in the 2024 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes exacted revenge with a 94-87 victory in an Elite Eight victory over Reese and her LSU Tigers. Clark and Reese entertained a sold-out MVP Arena in Albany, New York, in one of the highest-scoring games of this year’s tournament.
Reese finished with seventeen points and twenty rebounds, earning her 10th straight NCAA tournament double-double, extending her incredible performances from the 2023 tournament. But Clark was magnificent in 2024, scoring forty-one points on 13 of 29 shots and 9 of 20 from the three-point line.
Caitlin Clark led her Iowa team to the championship again, but they lost 75 to 87 to the eventual champion South Carolina Gamecocks. Clark’s transcendent popularity comes as unique challenges beset women’s sports.
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Former collegiate athlete and opponent of transgender sports inclusion Riley Gaines-Barker speaks at a campaign event for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday, June 2nd, 2023, in Greenville, South Carolina. The photo image is courtesy of rileygaines.com/.
The Biden administration, the NCAA, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are all pushing US state and federal courts to allow biological males to participate in women’s sports under a rubric of “inclusion” for transgender athletes.
Some women’s rights activists have made common cause with conservatives to oppose transgender participation to preserve the Title IX (Title Nine [9]) rights of girls and female athletes. All this is happening at a time when GOP-dominated “red state” legislatures across America are eliminating the public access of females to abortions, reproductive rights, and sex education.
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The weekend attempt on the life of former US President Donald Trump is changing the race landscape for the White House at warp speed.
The assassination effort at a GOP campaign event for Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania is overshadowing the impact of his public health policies on US citizens during his four-year term in office.
We should enjoy the exploits of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese as best we can. There is no telling what the conservative Christians dominating the federal courts have in store for the freedom and autonomy of American women after they help Donald Trump take back the White House in November.