Tuesdays with Torbee
Who would have thought that a skinny girl from West Des Moines with a gift for putting an orange round ball into an orange metal cylinder would become the catalyst for a 48-hour long kerfuffle over questions of race, misogyny and sportsmanship, involving every corner of the national sports media landscape?
But here we are. And there are Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese – two fierce competitors who likely have the utmost respect for each other’s games – but now find themselves as useful avatars for folks engaging in our country’s new favorite pastime, culture warring.
I don’t want to be hypocrite, so will admit up front that I am in the camp that believes Angel Reese behaved in a boorish and unsportsmanlike manner in the closing seconds of the national championship game. I also believe the Iowa fan reaction to that display of poor sportsmanship was emotional and visceral, but had little-or-nothing to do with race. Finally, I am dismayed that so many media types are flogging that alleged racial component of the incident to drive clicks.
Let me be clear, I apply that to both “sides.” I rolled my eyes at both Steven A. Smith’s rant on ESPN that castigated Iowa fans as a bunch of racist rubes as well as Jason Whitlock’s predictable “contrarian” take on The Blaze in which he compared Angel Reese hilariously to Fuzzy Zoeller to Caitlin Clark’s Tiger Woods.
It seems pretty obvious to me that Reese knew that in the aftermath making the incident about people finding her “too hood” and “too ghetto” was less embarrassing than admitting her antics stemmed from garden variety pettiness and jealousy at all the attention and praise heaped on Clark during the entire run of the tournament. And hey, I would be annoyed too if the best player on the runner up team shined brighter than my teammates and me!
I will also say that some of the fan reaction on social media absolutely had a cringey, racially insensitive component, some of that from Iowa fans. Nevertheless, these two things can be simultaneously true:
· LSU coach Kim Mulkey and her team are quite poor sports and conduct themselves in an unsportsmanlike fashion.
· Some Iowa fans have reacted to the former in a racially insensitive and frankly gross way.
I still submit that for the vast, vast majority of Iowa – and women’s college basketball fans – it was about personality and not race, full stop. It is interesting to note that not a single Iowa fan or player had anything bad to say about how hard and gritty Aliyah Boston from South Carolina played, but did badmouth the very white Hailey Van Lith of Louisville for her antics. So much for a racial double standard.
The more disturbing line of thought I saw pushed by some pundits is the notion that you are “racist” if you actually hold the expectation that Black players don’t taunt or behave in an unsportsmanlike manner. Frankly, I find that attitude patronizing toward and infantilizing to Black players and consider it more stereotypical and racially insensitive than holding Black players to the same standard as all other players.
When the dust settles on this sadly predictable made-for-media conflict, fans of both programs can relax and be justifiably proud that their two teams elevated the women’s game to such an extent that debate around its championship game made national headlines. The interest and eyeballs are fantastic for a sport that looks on the verge of truly exploding.
Clark did her best to turn the heat down on the furor Tuesday, stating unequivocally “Angel is a tremendous, tremendous player. I have nothing but respect for her. I love her game …I don’t think there should be any criticism for what she did.”
She may never say it out loud, but I also suspect Reese wishes she had spent more time celebrating with her teammates in the seconds after taking down a tremendous Iowa team rather than chasing Clark around the court looking for validation. Because she is good enough to not need it.
Does Iowa have another Final Four run in them needing to replace Monika Czinano and McKenna Warnock? With the greatest player in the history of the sport on their squad, it’s hard to bet against them. Keep in mind, Angel Reese is a sophomore and Caitlin Clark is very likely to play two more years of college ball. It is extremely likely their paths – and oversized orbits – will cross again, perhaps in another championship game. Hopefully, the next time the fireworks will be purely game-related and not a proxy war for political and cultural grievance. The game deservers that.
