Caitlin Clark has changed the landscape of women’s basketball.
She’s become one of the most popular female athletes in history.
And Caitlin Clark made one big decision about her career that had this awful fallout.
Caitlin Clark almost went to Notre Dame
Indiana Fever point guard Caitlin Clark became the NCAA’s scoring leader in women’s basketball during her four-year career with the University of Iowa Hawkeyes.
Clark played high school basketball for Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines, Iowa.
She was at one point committed to play basketball for Notre Dame.
The basketball phenom explained why she ended up at Iowa during an appearance on the New Heights podcast with Travis and Jason Kelce.
“I basically narrowed it down pretty early on when I was going through my college recruitment that I wanted to be like in the midwest, just kind of a homebody,” Clark explained. “Family person. Just wanted to stay fairly close to home. So that narrowed a lot of stuff down.”
Notre Dame had the allure but a gut feeling had her switch her commitment to Iowa.
“As a kid, you want to go to Notre Dame,” Clark said. “It’s the same with Notre Dame football. It’s the coolest thing in the world. It’s Notre Dame, it has that tradition and they’ve had so many great players go through there in every single sport.”
Her family wanted her to go to Notre Dame, but she went with her gut and committed to Iowa.
She led Iowa to national runner-up appearances during her Junior and Senior seasons.
Former Notre Dame coach claims she’d still have a job if she landed Caitlin Clark
Former Notre Dame women’s basketball coach Muffet McGraw talked about recruiting Clark during an appearance on the Good Game With Sarah Spain podcast.
McGraw retired from coaching in April 2020, just months before Clark enrolled in college for her freshman season.
“I may still be coaching if Caitlin Clark came to Notre Dame,” McGraw said.
She didn’t feel like Clark’s commitment would stick when she was recruiting her.
“She committed to us, but I had a feeling it was kind of a soft commitment when she did, because she couldn’t decide, couldn’t decide,” McGraw explained. “And then finally she said, ‘I want to come.’ But it wasn’t like ‘I’m coming!’ It was kind of like ‘I made the decision.’”
Clark committed to Iowa in November 2019.
“After that, we waited and waited for her to announce it, because as you know, we’re not allowed to announce anything. The players have to do that themselves,” McGraw stated. “So she made the announcement a long time after that, I kept saying ‘When is it coming out?’ And then when she made the announcement, she was going to Iowa. But of course, she called me to tell me.”
McGraw announced her retirement five months after Clark decided to go to Iowa.
She admitted that Clark made a “pretty good decision” to continue her basketball career at Iowa.
Caitlin Clark’s decision to go to Iowa had a ripple effect on women’s college basketball.