Time to Clean up the WNBA

Women’s basketball should dispel the tired platitude that the world would be a much kinder place if women ran it.

I just watched yet another video of WNBA player Caitlin Clark on the receiving end of inappropriately violent behavior during a game. This time, Clark’s team, the Indiana Fever, was playing the Connecticut Sun. The Fever were up 10 points, and Clark was in possession of the ball when she was poked in the eye by the Sun’s Jacy Sheldon. As Clark was recoiling away from the jab, Sheldon deliberately bumped her, and then Sheldon’s teammate Marina Mabrey shoved Clark to the ground — all while Clark was still holding her painful eye. (Mabrey was apparently later given a Flagrant-2 foul, as was Clark’s teammate Sophie Cunningham, who retaliated by deliberately fouling Sheldon with only 46 seconds left in the game. “Flagrant” fouls have financial penalties attached, although the WNBA does not disclose how much players are fined.)

To her credit, Clark refused to back down. She came back from the multiple fouls and hit a series of free throws that helped the Fever clinch the win. Still, these were hardly isolated occurrences. Other clips posted on X appear to show Sheldon gouging Clark’s arm with her fingernails. And video footage from other games shows Clark being called a “b—-h” by former Chicago Sky player Chennedy Carter, getting slapped in the face (also by Mabrey) and elbowed in the throat by Atlanta Dream center Brittney Griner when Clark wasn’t even in possession of the ball.

Personal attacks against Clark have become such a regular feature of WNBA games when the Fever play that observers on X are now referring to Clark as the league’s “punching bag.” It sure looks that way. At this point, women’s basketball is starting to resemble mud wrestling without the mud. What’s next? Pulling hair?

Yes, I get it, basketball is a contact sport. And yes, these players are fiercely competitive. That can be said of men in certain sports as well. Hockey, for example, is notorious for the slams into the wall and fights that break out. But hockey players are wearing helmets, pads and other gear.

Bad behavior is bad behavior, in any sport. But this bad behavior reflects negatively on women’s sports, and at a time when women are fighting for the integrity of those sports. The women who have opportunities to play professionally should be role models for younger women and girls in college and high school who may have their sights set on playing professional ball, instead of setting poor examples by acting like spoiled brats on the court and in the press.

Some commentators opine that other WNBA players are jealous of the attention Clark has received since she went pro and joined the Fever. If that’s true, grow up. The athletes who feel that way should be glad that players like Clark are generating even more interest in their sport.

The gratuitous nastiness directed at Clark also encourages people to draw unfavorable comparisons between men’s and women’s sports. Sure, we’ve all seen unnecessary roughness in football (again, a sport where the players are at least partially protected by their gear) and intentional fouls in men’s basketball. But did you ever see another player poke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan or LeBron James in the eye because they were talented players and got too much attention?

Much of the fault for this nonsense must be laid at the feet of the league and the officials, who are too slow to call out violence that is more than just “aggressive defense,” eject players who display poor sportsmanship and — if need be — sanction teams that let it happen (or, dare I say, encourage it). In fact, both the coaches for the Sun and the Fever criticized the referees who should have stepped in sooner to quell the hot tempers. Fever coach Stephanie White said, “I started talking to the officials in the first quarter, and we knew this was going to happen. You could tell it was going to happen. So, they got to get control of it. They got to be better.” Rashid Meziane, who coaches the Sun, said, “The ref has to do their job, to clean up the game and make sure the best team won the game and not just who is more physical.”

It truly is in the league’s longer-term best interests to get this under control. As many headlines as the temper tantrums generate, it’s like a sugar high; some people are just tuning in to see who’s going to throw the next punch. Catfights may keep the public’s attention for a while, but they’ll eventually grow bored unless the games are about talent, exciting (and fair) competition and great play.

Ultimately, professional sports for women ( and men) should be about personal development, teamwork, and victories that are the product of hard work, a positive attitude and great sportsmanship. Female professional athletes have the potential to leave legacies that are more than just internet clicks and inflammatory headlines. They should take those opportunities as seriously as they do their season wins.

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