Caitlin Clark is interviewed during Monday’s WNBA draft in New York.
Associated Press
THERE’S NO POINT in going long on it — Monday night’s WNBA draft was a coronation ceremony and Caitlin Clark is the new Princess America.
A year ago, it was Taylor Swift. Ten years ago, it was Michelle Obama. Thirty years ago, it was Oprah Winfrey.
Sports, music, politics, media — there’s always a new world coming. What Helen Reddy (“I Am Woman”) and Title IX helped uncork back in ’72 now runs through the streets like Joan of Arc and her oui people during the siege of Orleans.
That Princess Caitlin has been consigned to professional servitude in Indianapolis is merely incidental. No less than Reggie Miller, Benjamin F. Harrison and Babyface Edmonds survived and thrived during extended stays in the Hoosier-red center of Flown Over, U.S.A.
A question that percolates is: Does Clark need the WNBA more than the WNBA needs her?
The same question arose back in 1993, when Michael Jordan was on the cusp of his stunning exile in Birmingham. David Falk, Jordan’s hyper-active agent, was asked, “In the wake of the Dream Team and its global impact at the 1992 Olympics, why not ditch the NBA and have Nike and other corporate sponsors fund and construct a worldwide barnstorming tour featuring No. 23?”
Falk’s reply: “Because a tour like that would have no enduring measurements to verify Michael’s greatness as a basketball player. The single most important thing any of the major sports leagues own is its record books. In the NBA, game after game, Michael presents statistical truths about where he stands in the history of the sport. You’re not going to have that from a series of one-off exhibitions.”
SO FOR NOW, the summation is that Princess Caitlin needs the WNBA at least as much as the league needs her.
Teammates and rivals can also never lose sight of the fact that it’s her boat that’s elevating all others currently in the harbor of women’s pro basketball. All of them, from 2023 MVP Breanna Stewart on down to Chicago’s newly very own Angel Reese have to keep it in their head that they are Caitlin-aires, with complete media benefits.
Any jealousies or resentments — of the kind that buried Pete Maravich during his initial years in the NBA — compromise the new riches of that harbor as certainly as the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge did to Baltimore.
She is civil, handsome in Prada and eminently marketable.
The fresh princess is set to go a-courtin’ with the best of the most determined girls.
America awaits.
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HEARTS AT THE DAILY HERALD are at half-staff this week over the passing of Carolyn Ray.
Mrs. Ray has been the lifetime soulmate and sounding board of Doug Ray, one of the most important individuals in the history of parent Paddock Publications. Along with the Paddock family, Dan Baumann and the late sports ambassador to the world Bob Frisk, Mr. Ray has been an all-timer in the growth of the company.
Carolyn Ray met her husband of 54 years when both were students at Southern Illinois University. She was there when he was out hustling stories as a local reporter and every step of the way along his drive on up to current status as chairman, publisher & CEO of Paddock Publications.
Mrs. Ray had myriad passions and hobbies. One of her biggest was golf. She was a two-time ladies champion at Kemper Lakes in Kildeer. Son Brad Ray has followed in those cart paths. A longtime PGA club pro, he recently opened the Northwest Golf Academy of Chicagoland in Barrington.
Granddaughter Campbell Ray — a freshman at Stevenson — tied for 10th in the IHSA Class 2A girls state tournament last October at Hickory Point in Decatur.
Son Scott Ray has followed his father into newspapers and niche publishing. He is the VP, general manager and director of Town Square Publications LLC, a division of Paddock Publications.
A funeral mass for Mrs. Ray will be said at 11 a.m. today at St. Mary of the Annunciation in Mundelein.
STREET-BEATIN’
Costco is not offering a watch-party package for tonight’s NBA play-in game between the Bulls and Atlanta (8:30 p.m., ESPN). That’s too bad. Maybe the giant retailer could take on Zach LaVine‘s bleak, franchise-wrecking contract and put it in with the discounted fish. …
Jerry Reinsdorf is back in the scramble for an area TV outlet to air future Bulls, White Sox and Blackhawks games. (Second prize is season tickets to ’24 Sox games — all you want.). The current deal with NBCSCH expires in October. Given that regional sports networks are dying, some sort of jiggered distribution system will result. …
In the wake of UFC 300 Saturday night in Las Vegas, Bill Adee reminds that the late Sen. John McCain once tried to have the mean game banned as “human cockfighting.” (Its popularity is some kind of commentary on the state of current American sensitivities.) …
And Susie Kwait, on news that the final round of Scottie Scheffler‘s Masters title Sunday drew only 9.6M viewers to CBS — the third-lowest ever: “They should have just replayed the Iowa-South Carolina women’s championship game inside of Butler Cabin.”
Jim O’Donnell’s Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.