PTFO - What Caitlin Clark Is Afraid Of

[0] Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out.

[1] I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

[2] She's so much more self -aware at 21 than Michael Jordan was at 50.

[3] Right after this ad.

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[6] One mistake can change the outcome of the game.

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[17] So just the very first thing that I need you to know today is that I, like much of America, have been paying a lot of attention to Caitlin Clark.

[18] who is a bona fide cultural phenomenon at this point at age 22, having spent the last six months being the most popular and most overhyped and most underrated women's basketball player in existence.

[19] And that is on top, by the way, of being grade A clickbait for all of this online culture war bullshit, which we'll get to later.

[20] But what is wild to me, most of all, is that while we love arguing about Caitlin Clark as a country, Caitlin Clark herself never engages, even as she was left off the U .S. Olympic team and being debated all across the WNBA.

[21] What was your level of disappointment not hearing your name on the roster?

[22] Honestly, no disappointment.

[23] Like, I think it just gives you something to work for.

[24] You know, that's a dream.

[25] You know, hopefully one day I can be there.

[26] And I think it's just a little more motivation.

[27] You remember that, and, you know, hopefully in four years, when four years comes back around, you know, I can be there.

[28] I cannot think of another athlete in America right now who is this scrutinized and yet this hidden, in plain sight.

[29] Because we don't really know what Caitlin Clark is really feeling.

[30] We mostly just project ourselves and our guesses at what we think she might be like, and she's also largely unplugged from social media, despite being 22.

[31] And so we have this surplus of opinions, but a truly embarrassing deficit of reporting, of actual knowledge.

[32] In fact, I know exactly one journalist who has reported a genuinely psychologically probing, in -depth profile of her, where they interviewed Caitlin as well as her coaches, like Lisa Boyd, Luter at Iowa and her teammates like Kate Martin, while Caitlin was still just a college senior six months ago, all of which is why that same journalist, ESPN's Wright -Thompson, is the exact person I had many questions for today.

[33] No, man, it's absolutely my pleasure.

[34] So how do you just sort of introduce yourself as a chronicler of people who are both incredibly, incredibly accomplished athletes and also kind of extreme figures.

[35] What's your catalog got in it, right?

[36] For people who are not familiar with your work?

[37] Well, I mean, everybody from Michael Jordan twice to Tiger Woods to Pat Riley, sort of the white whale beat.

[38] And so where is Caitlin Clark in this taxonomy of humans that have all done great things and are also all from the outside?

[39] kind of poorly understood.

[40] Man, she's the real thing.

[41] And, like, the real thing in a way that, honestly, I've been around a lot of college athletes, so have you.

[42] And this isn't hyperbole.

[43] She's the most self -aware college athlete I've ever met.

[44] And I'm not even entirely sure who's second.

[45] So self -aware to me was the big revelation.

[46] As I'm reading you, I'm hearing you talk about all the time you spent around her.

[47] because introspection, right, for any profile writer out there, that's the dream.

[48] And you got it in ways that I would not have anticipated.

[49] I walked out of that first interview, and she was incredible and, like, really thoughtful and really engaged in understanding what was happening to her, understanding the stakes.

[50] As you said at the top, everybody has an opinion on her, and almost none of those opinions are rooted in any sort of reality.

[51] and so she is having to live a real life and a fake life along parallel tracks and she seemed to understand that understanding and managing the fake one was absolutely essential for maximizing the real one.

[52] She was engaged in the process of understanding what it was that was happening to her and she understood that this thing happening to her was completely out of her control.

[53] We started talking pretty regularly and, you know, I think, I think I talked to her dad every day for six months.

[54] I mean, that's an exaggeration.

[55] Every other day for six months.

[56] That is, that's stalkerish, right, at a certain point.

[57] Hey, hey, you say potato.

[58] I say potato.

[59] Empathy as a term in your story.

[60] Sort of hit me. So tell the empathy story, please.

[61] So her high school basketball coach, who's a delight, said that she knew Kate one was different.

[62] and I think it was 10th or 11th grade, they had an assignment, and Caitlin didn't know the meaning of the word empathy and struggled a little bit to have it explained.

[63] You get the sense that until she found, especially Kate Martin, but until she found this Iowa team, that she had never had a tribe of people before, and that she had always been isolated.

[64] You know, these great stars, and you have talked about this, you know, these elite athletes are lonely?

[65] I don't know the right way to say this.

[66] Lonely, that's it.

[67] They're from a nation of their own talent.

[68] So the quote from Kristen Meyer, who was her basketball coach when she was in the 10th grade, Caitlin was, upon getting this sort of this introduction to a person who, quote, found it hard to understand what other people would feel, end quote.

[69] that coach, she turns out to be just one in a lineage, right, of people who are trying to make this person who can't naturally intuit empathy in Caitlin Clark realize what it's like to be on a team.

[70] And that is this through line in your reporting that just is undeniable.

[71] What's incredible is that whatever Phil Jackson sold to Michael Jordan, Lisa Bluter and Jan Jensen sold to Caitlin that this is a team.

[72] Basketball players need other basketball players to be great because basketball is just how you occupy and then don't occupy space.

[73] It's interesting that Caitlin understood I have to be able to be an essential part of a team not to be praised, not because it was the right thing to do where she felt guilty for not doing it, but because if she's going to be Caitlin Clark, she has to do that.

[74] I want to establish the degree of difficulty, though, for Caitlin Clark when it came to having to learn how to deal with people, because this is something that comes up again and again in ways that we did not know with this level of detail, but certainly got to glimpse it at times as you watch her play these games in college, which is to say, Caitlin Clark, behind the scenes in her private life, had...

[75] At times, the appearance of a total nightmare asshole to play with.

[76] She has no poker face.

[77] And her teammates saw the pressure she was under, specifically Kate Martin.

[78] I mean, Kate Martin is the young sung hero in all of this.

[79] And she recognized early and said in a team meeting, I think Caitlin's freshman or sophomore year, like, everybody thinks they want to be Caitlin, but I don't think you really do.

[80] And one of the things that Kate Martin said was heavy since the crown.

[81] So her teammates were oddly protective of her.

[82] You know, there are a couple of her teammates she just rode mercilessly.

[83] You know, there was eye rolling.

[84] There was frustration from the coaches.

[85] They would make Caitlin watch video not of games, but of practice and game cut -ups of her reactions after plays and tried to ask her, okay, pretend this is a stranger.

[86] Tell me, like, what do you think about this person?

[87] So, Katelyn was watching body language highlights, which is next level coach.

[88] I mean, that's Phil Jackson stuff.

[89] Oh, it's incredible.

[90] This is incredible.

[91] This is one of the greatest coaching jobs that's ever been done by, you know, Julie Fitz and Lisa Bluter and Jan Jensen.

[92] On those cutups, describe what they saw, what you saw watching them watch it.

[93] She was throwing her hands up in the air.

[94] She ran off the court once so she wouldn't just start motherfucking people on the court.

[95] And she was like, well, I thought that was a good reaction.

[96] I didn't scream at anybody.

[97] Right, the spinning.

[98] She would spin around, right?

[99] Oh, she would spin around and she would, you know, you.

[100] You know what?

[101] This is going to sound like serious, like a weird question.

[102] Have you ever driven a Ferrari?

[103] I asked because I, I asked because I did.

[104] We had different expense reports, right?

[105] We had different expense reports.

[106] No, no, but I did once, it is so hard to learn.

[107] how to start that car in first gear because of the torque.

[108] And so the thing I kept thinking about was Caitlin Clark has this unbelievably powerful vehicle that is her own talent, and she's having to figure out how to drive it without spinning it into walls.

[109] And her teammates, by the way, understood in real time that this was never going to happen again.

[110] And that, as opposed to complaining about it, whether it's the attention or her temper tantrums or her taking over a ballgame that, you know, especially I would say Kate Martin understood, like this is once -in -a -lifetime stuff.

[111] You know that terrible baseball movie, the Kevin Costner one?

[112] For the love of the game.

[113] Was that it?

[114] For the love of the game.

[115] Yeah.

[116] Where the John C. Riley character says, we're the best team in baseball right now, right this minute, because of you.

[117] There was that sense that, like, they understood.

[118] Like, it was beautiful, actually, to be around.

[119] Well, it reminds me of the other sort of quote from that movie, which we're both going to make fun of while also committing it to memory, which is, you know, the pitching Mount of Yankee Stadium is the loneliest place in the world.

[120] And there is Billy Chapel trying to push the sun back into the sky to give us one more day of summer.

[121] And give us one more day of summer.

[122] That shit with Caitlin, it's like, that's her spotlight.

[123] That's the person at the center, the gravitational center of all of this.

[124] well you know after they lost the national championship game her junior year they all went to this terrible suburban Dallas bar she got back to the hotel and was still wearing her uniform saw her father and that's when she lost it like that's when it all the adrenaline came running out and you know they went out and it was just this beautiful thing of the iowa hawkeyes you know some booster was like can i buy you ladies a drink and cable and was like well take 22 shots.

[125] And so, you know, it was hilarious.

[126] They kept buying rounds of 22.

[127] And, you know, I went out to dinner with her for her birthday, with her best, with a bunch of teammates and her parents just before she graduated.

[128] And they were all sort of telling the funny college stories that you didn't think you'd ever tell your parents, you know, because the whole power dynamic has changed by the time you're a senior.

[129] And it was just this beautiful, nostalgic moment.

[130] There was that sense at the end of it that they all knew.

[131] that something was ending and that it had been magic and that in some ways they would chase this for the rest of their lives.

[132] And that was really beautiful and it was really palpable up close.

[133] In the NFL, there is no margin for error.

[134] One mistake can change the outcome of the game.

[135] Science proves quality sleep can help boost reaction time, recovery time, and overall athletic performance.

[136] As the official sleep wellness partner of the NFL, Sleep Number's mission is to provide players with data and insights to optimize their sleep for the ultimate competitive edge.

[137] Sleep is essential for recovery, and we all have unique needs.

[138] That's why Sleep Number smart beds are perfect for couples, with individualized settings for each side.

[139] Since 2018, Sleep Number and the NFL have teamed up to bring quality sleep to elite athletes.

[140] Eight out of 10 NFL players, including 80 % of Kansas City Chiefs players, trust sleep number for their best rest.

[141] And now, during sleep number's biggest sale of the year, say 50 % on the sleep number limited edition smartbed, plus special financing for a limited time.

[142] Only at a sleep number store or sleep number .com.

[143] Sleep number, official sleep and wellness partner of the NFL.

[144] C store for details.

[145] Okay.

[146] If you haven't checked in on what Caitlin Clark has been up to as a professional, you should just know that the shorthand that has been developed for her is still pretty accurate.

[147] Caitlin Clark remains the Steph Curry of the WNBA, the single most unapologetic and entertaining practitioner of the three -point shot.

[148] The rookie record for which Caitlin just broke, by the way, and went over the Connecticut Sun on Wednesday night.

[149] Austin had her 11th double -double of the season.

[150] And Clark hits a three.

[151] At her 86 three -pointer of the year, and that is a new rookie record.

[152] but since the WMBA's Olympic break ended.

[153] The three -pointer isn't even the thing that has most distinguished Caitlin Clark's game.

[154] The news here is that she leads the league in assists per game now with more than eight per, and she had 19 of them against the Dallas Wings back in July, which broke the all -time single -game record.

[155] And Caitlin also just broke the rookie record for assists in a season.

[156] just last week, it has been one long highlight reel of creative deliveries to her teammates.

[157] Bark, bounce past it Smith again.

[158] It allows them.

[159] Oh, what a dime.

[160] My goodness, the past.

[161] So when Wright Thompson is talking about how Caitlin is this Ferrari with an engine that could power a team to the postseason or possibly spin out into a wall, it is worth remembering that her teammates' assignment here, given that torque, can be absolutely terrifying because their job is to keep up.

[162] Oh, I mean, the number of balls that bounce off people's hands and bounce off their heads.

[163] I'm imagining what it's like to have been the others, the background singers, and I imagine it's like coming into work, and there's this weather system.

[164] Have you seen the movie Free Solo?

[165] Yes.

[166] Okay.

[167] So I had the pleasure of one of these sorts of boondoggles.

[168] I was in France interviewing Alex Honnold.

[169] Part of his legend in the documentary that I wanted to also invade his privacy about was just the way his brain works.

[170] And his amygdala, as per the documentary, does not fire in the same ways that normal amygdala's do.

[171] Do you have no activation in your amygdala?

[172] There's just not much going on in my brain.

[173] it seems.

[174] Things that are typically stimulating for most of the rest of us are not really doing it for you.

[175] And he has some pushback on this and he does not like the simplification of it.

[176] But the whole notion is, oh, that guy's brain works differently.

[177] And I wonder when you got to the part where you're learning about how Caitlin feels about anxiety, I wonder if any of this began to look a little bit like each other.

[178] Her brain definitely works different.

[179] I don't know if it works different in the way that Alex's works different, but she is definitely, there is a complexity to her understanding of herself, but also a deep contagious simplicity.

[180] Her goals are not, I want this dollar shoe deal, and I want to win this many rings, and I want these stats.

[181] It's like I want to be the best that there ever was.

[182] She loves that song, the Luke Cohn song.

[183] where the wild things are.

[184] The line in their hearts on fire and crazy dreams.

[185] Like, I think she likes those angry, alive arenas.

[186] I was worried that the moment was going to get too big for her, just as someone who knew her family and, like, had become oddly invested.

[187] But it just never was.

[188] And, like, she's one of those people that the bigger the stage, the better.

[189] There's this story that you report about anxiety and whether she even feels it.

[190] And again, it's in the context of Iowa doing all of this stuff, which I did not realize until your story, where they are actively trying to make Caitlin Clark into a three -dimensional teammate and human that everybody can understand a bit better.

[191] And so a sports psychologist visits them.

[192] The sports psychologist asked him to go around the room, very simple, almost like name -ranked serial number, basic baseline question.

[193] and says, you know, what are you, when's the last time you were afraid?

[194] What are you afraid of?

[195] And it gets to Caitlin, and now she's not flexing.

[196] She's embarrassed because she's trying to be honest, but she also knows how it's going to sound.

[197] And she's like, I don't get nervous.

[198] And everybody sort of looked at each other like, holy shit.

[199] Well, look, the teammates, you know, in this meeting with the sports psychologist, they're all saying the stuff that you'd expect for basketball players of a certain age to describe, Even veterans, even retired players, right?

[200] Like, oh, the free throw line, they struggle breathing, they have these sweaty palms.

[201] And Caitlin, just to give you the quote that you have in the piece, she just says, quote, I never am.

[202] What was even more interesting to me than this, which was clearly non -performative and actually sincere, a vulnerable confession of invulnerability, right?

[203] What is even more interesting is the self -awareness.

[204] that she goes on to explain to you, which is she says this, quote, at times, speaking of her teammates, they were definitely like, why is this girl a psycho?

[205] And so there is just like the I am this way and I know that and I can't always do what you want me to do about it even if I know that you're trying to get me to change.

[206] I hope this isn't speaking out of school and if it is, I apologize, Kate Martin.

[207] But when we finished our, we talked to the phone one time, She said, are we done?

[208] I'm like, yeah, can I ask you a question?

[209] She goes, you've been around a lot of really great athletes, right?

[210] And I was like, I mean, I've been around some, yeah.

[211] And she said, what does Caitlin have that they have?

[212] Like, she was trying to understand.

[213] And, you know, legitimately.

[214] And like what was just sort of, like, this is her best friend.

[215] Right.

[216] Was just sort of like, what is this?

[217] She has that effect on people, right?

[218] Yeah, like, what, like, what?

[219] What do you think is going on here?

[220] And I was just like, man, she's, I mean, I think exactly what I said was, like, she's a real fucking thing, man. Like, I was blown away.

[221] Not like, she's funny and smart and nice and all of that.

[222] But like, so are lots of people.

[223] And that's not that interesting.

[224] Just the degree to which she was doing really hard work with the stated goal of understanding herself in order to become the basketball player she wants to be was rare and ultimately, and I don't know if you agree or disagree with this, but like, to me, that's the pulsing energy of the whole story.

[225] I want to get to the ways in which all of this can read like, oh, she's a bad teammate.

[226] Because when you are trying to understand someone who is forced to watch highlight reels of her low lights, which are just body language videos, it makes me want to understand why she is that way.

[227] I think two things.

[228] I think, one, you know, the caveat to that is always, she's the best teammate there ever was if it's a four -on -two break.

[229] You know what I mean?

[230] Like, you want an open look, she's the best teammate that ever was.

[231] You want to pass across the floor through three defenders that hits you in the hand perfectly in stride, she's a great team.

[232] I think how people are the way they are is less interesting than watching them try to be able to answer that question for themselves so that they can maximize whatever they want to maximus.

[233] Yes.

[234] Because, you know, I have all sorts of weird quirks and shit that the older I get, I'm just like, this is not normal.

[235] Yeah, I've noticed.

[236] And, oh, that's great, thanks.

[237] And, but I don't know why.

[238] Now, it's important to understand what of that is cosmetic and what of that is, like, real interior load -bearing shit that I have to deal with.

[239] Like, some of it's just funny.

[240] You know, I like to order for other people at a restaurant.

[241] That's fine.

[242] I want America to know that you are the Caitlin Clark, full court, perfectly dropped in pass of restaurant orders.

[243] I trust you.

[244] I trust you to deliver the ball where it needs to be.

[245] I'm not saying you can't order.

[246] I'm just saying...

[247] You have a vision.

[248] I want to play jazz.

[249] I want to order what I want to order and I want us all to share it.

[250] Now, if you want to order something separate, I'm in no way offended or threatened by that, but I want to do my thing.

[251] And I want the fucking wine list.

[252] I'm sorry.

[253] But by the way, to bring it all the way back, I mean, first of all, Caitlin's brother, bourbon nerd.

[254] So that helped me on account of the Papi Land.

[255] I'm kind of being one of America's foremost bourbon writers.

[256] Do you know what?

[257] That helps you more in the world of sports than you might imagine.

[258] I am deeply unshocked to hear that.

[259] On the level of access, something that made me laugh reading your story about Caitlin's teammates, asking her to be like, hey, could you DM this celebrity?

[260] Now that you're Caitlin.

[261] Oh, dude.

[262] Yeah, yeah.

[263] They wanted to know Kaylin could get Drake to Iowa City.

[264] And Caitlin was like, guys, I don't know Drake.

[265] Caitlin did get Amherstor tickets, which is like, that's tough.

[266] I mean, I just had to get tickets for a three and a six -year -old to go to the Superdome.

[267] And I'm going to be paying off favors for the rest of my life.

[268] All of which is to say, though, that she was in Chrysalis, in public, trying to understand what she was going to turn into in real time and do it fast enough to not self -destruct.

[269] There's a difference, as you put it, between being a watcher, which we are, we're in that category forever, and the watched, an inner circle human being who is watched.

[270] One of the ways that I thought about the story was Caitlin Clark, who her whole life had been a watcher.

[271] I mean, she's an obsessive sports fan.

[272] And so, you know, she gossiped about people on the internet.

[273] She loves Patrick Mahomes.

[274] She loves Travis Kelsey before the Taylor Swift stuff.

[275] She's a huge chiefs fan.

[276] She was transforming from being one of the watchers to one of the watched and was figuring out how that reorders everything about how you consume media, how you live your life, how you move through the real world and the virtual world, how you work on your craft, how you have to behave in public, whether or not you can go to Target.

[277] She loves Target and can't go to the Target in downtown Iowa City anymore, which is a heartbreaker for her.

[278] And so she's learning all this in real time while she's doing these interviews and playing these basketball games and is the absolute center of the world.

[279] It's the depth that is unseen when you just view someone as a culture war object.

[280] You realize, oh, wait a minute, hold on.

[281] She not only talked to the sports psychologist, not only was consensually watching cut -ups of how she was an asshole, she has this performance consultant, Brett Ledbetter, who comes into the story, the degree to which she tried to be a better teammate because she wants to be better at basketball, even better than she was, I do want to establish that this was done not from like a fuzzy woo -woo.

[282] This was like, hey, we need to win games together and there's this thing about taking off the cape that you quote here.

[283] What does that mean?

[284] How does this all sort of like meld together under the old -school desire to actually win in sports?

[285] All of the work they were doing was not in some altruistic desire to create holistic young women to go out and better the world.

[286] You know, these are basketball coaches, very good ones, very competitive ones who want to win basketball games.

[287] She has to trust her teammates.

[288] She also has to know that she can just be a person around them, that she can be vulnerable, that she can talk about her hopes and dreams and her heartbreaks and her, you know, and the things going on in her life.

[289] I mean, one of the reasons I think the team works so well is that they saw her, like, do superhuman things while dealing with things in her private life that never became public.

[290] And so, you know, they were watching.

[291] in all, you know, because I don't know how I'd handle that, but like, you know, the coaches and Caitlin were actively working against a loudly ticking clock to make this group of people be able to go out and win games.

[292] One of the things, one of the tips that she was given by this coach was a thing that, I think typically were very wary of advising women to do.

[293] But Caitlin seemed to get the premise, which was you got to smile more.

[294] You got to smile at people.

[295] One of the things is, I want you to smile at every person you encounter, and then I want you to come back and tell me how they responded to you and how that was different than usual.

[296] But this is part of the, you know, with Steve Jobs, it was the reality distortion field they used to talk about.

[297] Like when you were in his presence, you were, again, orbiting him and things seemed both possible and also at times awful.

[298] With Caitlin Clark, the power of a smile because everybody is attending and watching her, it actually makes a difference on this very real human level, it sounds like.

[299] And she's very good with, like, you know, remembering reporters' names, little stuff that matters to be.

[300] Super polite.

[301] I mean, like, dude, like I sat next to the grizzled old Iowa beat writers at a game, and they talked about her like she was Kurt Ferrence or Dan Gable.

[302] Like, nothing but respect, no caveats, no, she's great for a, just unequivocal, total respect.

[303] The degree to which she is doing the stuff that for a sports writer, of course, is catnip, like, meditating upon what praise does to her.

[304] You know, like, this is the shit that you hope that, this is stuff that you got from Michael Jordan at the very, very, very, end.

[305] She's doing this at age 21.

[306] She's so much more self -aware at 21 than Michael Jordan was at 50.

[307] The addiction to praise and that specifically.

[308] Her view on that is, it's like, I want to be at that point where I am not getting high off of tweets saying, great podcast.

[309] And she, like, and she says that because she was doing it.

[310] You know, I mean, she's Googled herself.

[311] And just that way lies madness.

[312] and, you know, her getting caught in the culture war was terrifying to her because she understood how you can blow yourself up in that space.

[313] All right, so I have been alluding to the culture war part of Caitlin's story throughout this whole episode now, and I just got to refresh your memory because Caitlin's primary antagonist is star -forward Angel Reese from LSU who was picked seventh overall by the Chicago Sky in this year's draft.

[314] And there's a saying in boxing that I think applies here to Caitlin and Angel and their now multi -year rivalry.

[315] And that phrase is styles make fights.

[316] Caitlin is a finesse player.

[317] Angel leads the league in rebounding.

[318] Caitlin is white.

[319] Angel is black.

[320] Angel is a member of the majority group inside the WMBA that is a minority outside of it.

[321] As we have previously discussed on this show.

[322] And onto all of this is everything we want to project, up to and including the presidential election, incidentally.

[323] Even though Caitlin has never self -identified as a Republican and her idol growing up, just for the record, was Maya Moore.

[324] But one thing Caitlin and Angel pretty clearly share is a mutual appreciation for demonstrative gestures, which the The nation saw when LSU beat Iowa to win the national title in April 2023, and Caitlin got a taste of her own celebration.

[325] The whole John Cena hand in front of your face, You Can't See Me, thing, which was followed by Angel highlighting one particular finger.

[326] And Angel Reese knows a ring is coming.

[327] Caitlin proceeded to beat Angel in the Elite 8 in April of this year at a game that I was lucky enough to watch in person.

[328] But Caitlin, conspicuously unlike the alleged fans who are all commenting all the time in her name on the internet, she has refused any contribution to a verbal back and forth, which is an apparent anxiety that I did not realize Caitlin Clark could even feel until I got to one particular scene in Wright Thompson's story.

[329] The total lack of anxiety around on -court's high -pressure moments, in contrast with the scene you have where she's being interviewed on television about angelries.

[330] You know, one of the things people talk about is race as a component of this.

[331] Your thoughts?

[332] Yeah, you know, I don't think Angel should be criticized at all.

[333] You know, no matter which way it goes, you know, she should never be criticized for what she did.

[334] You know, I'm just one that competes and she competed.

[335] So I think everybody knew there was going to be a little trash shock in the entire tournament.

[336] It's not just me and Angel.

[337] So, you know, I don't think she should be criticized.

[338] Like I said, LSU deserves it.

[339] They played so well.

[340] And like I said, I'm a big fan of hers.

[341] What happens when Jeremy Shapp stops asking the questions and the interview ends?

[342] She starts shaking.

[343] She has like, her anxiety is so hot.

[344] She starts shaking.

[345] She starts calling her mom and Lisa Bluder and Jan Jensen be like, was that okay?

[346] How did I do?

[347] And what she said to me was...

[348] If you do one wrong thing, your life can really end.

[349] Yeah.

[350] And like, so she was caught up in a culture war that, you know, I think she and Angel Reese understand each other perfectly.

[351] Or at least, you know...

[352] In a commercial some day, eventually.

[353] Oh, yeah, it's funny because Angel Reese is bird and Caitlin is magic.

[354] They're incredible competitors, and Caitlin, and I've never met Angel, so I don't want to speak for Angel, but I imagine watching how great she is.

[355] Dude, that game she had where they lost, where LSU lost to Iowa, where it was so clear that Angel Reese was hurt, watching that performance, I imagine that both of them think all of the sort of maelstrom around a big game, all the shit talking and all the boot.

[356] and cheering, I bet they love it.

[357] Like, as opposed to being threatened by it, I bet they love it.

[358] I mean, you know, this move, the shaking the ring finger, I bet on a certain level, Caitlin loves that shit.

[359] And is like, all right, you know, you got me this time.

[360] So the culture war aspect of it was really interesting because it was non -existent in her interior life and omnipresent in the life that people, people were projecting on her.

[361] And, like, I mean, I thought there was really interesting story in the gap between those two things.

[362] Yeah, and look, I heard from people who played in the WMBA, who wanted to hear her say things to weigh in on the culture war because, and this is the Taylor Swift parallel, like, what do you do, we've done episodes about this, right?

[363] What do you do when your Stan Army, when your fan base, even, is doing things that you are not directing them to or even worse, what is it like when a bunch of people do stuff allegedly on your behalf?

[364] And maybe they're not even fans, maybe they're just bots.

[365] So the question of a responsibility in that sort of online culture way is different, right, from everybody else that we're talking about, the older athletes have had to deal with.

[366] If she were my friend or my sister or my daughter, I would say you don't ever, engage good or bad with the mob.

[367] The act of becoming Caitlin Clark is revolutionary and way more revolutionary than what some dumb shit says on Twitter.

[368] She is actually changing the world for little girls and little boys and redefining what it means to be a sports hero and a sports fan.

[369] I mean, she's doing this on both ends of the commodity chain.

[370] Right.

[371] And the thing that's most exciting to me, having read your story, is that her philosophy as much as she still struggles with.

[372] And we see, by the way, in the WMBA, we see her throwing looks at times.

[373] We see her spinning, right?

[374] It's not like she has cured herself of this thing.

[375] But her philosophy clearly is not might makes right.

[376] Her philosophy is not, because I am so great, you must enable this.

[377] She has worked at trying to be better in ways that are so shocking, given the history of how, society has reverse engineered the way you should be based on how good you are at something.

[378] It's just a remarkable bit of actual human maturity.

[379] Dude, it is...

[380] I mean, Brent and Ann Clark did a great job because, like, that's real.

[381] And, you know, like, her brother...

[382] Like, her family is, like, really Catholic, but in sort of that solid Midwestern way, not in the scary way.

[383] Yeah, not in the scary...

[384] You know what I mean?

[385] You guys took the wrong message and the DaVinci Code sort of a way.

[386] They're just really thoughtful, intellectual people engaged in the sort of big idea of being a human being on a spinning rock.

[387] They say rosaries at the games.

[388] They're really superstitious.

[389] They have to sit in the same seats.

[390] It's, you know, it...

[391] It was a hell of a thing that happened to all of them.

[392] The fact that millions upon millions of people will follow her, will watch her, will make a point to pay attention to her at a time when attention is so scarcely paid to that magnitude is we just haven't seen it in that category from female athletes, we just have not seen that.

[393] Oh, dude, their last three games, those TV ratings were, you know, blew the World Series out of the water, blew the Sunday of the Masters out of the water.

[394] Every NBA game on ESPN was being, Eden by Iowa basketball game.

[395] And also the interesting thing is none of us know how this is going to end.

[396] She could be Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant or LeBronjeet, whatever.

[397] You know, like, I don't want to get, like, but it hasn't happened yet.

[398] What do you think to yourself when you see in the WMBA the stuff that her coaches at Iowa put on those low light reels?

[399] When you see her get frustrated and begin to lapse, what goes through your mind?

[400] Look, man, people don't really change.

[401] You know, like, you can control it to a degree.

[402] But, you know, I think as long as she's engaged in the intellectual fight to be self -aware, to know when this helps fuel her and when it moves past the needle and starts becoming a hindrance, you know, as long as she's aware of the mask eating the face, that I think it's all good.

[403] I mean, I don't, you know, Michael Jordan never turned it off.

[404] I would like us to have this exact same conversation 10 years from now and see what happened.

[405] Because I know what she wants.

[406] I know what we all would want for her and I know what seems possible.

[407] I mean, even on certain days and the right likely, but we have no idea.

[408] And so what you're watching is someone with an enormous amount of potential, with an enormous capacity for work and for invention and reinvention and self -analysis and really critical data -driven looks in the mirror, you're watching that person try to put all of those things together to be the greatest to whoever he was.

[409] And there's no way to know if that's going to happen.

[410] I mean, that's the drama to me. Can she realize these things that must feel both close enough to touch but so far away is to be deeply anxiety -inducing.

[411] I mean, that's interesting to me. Yes.

[412] No, it's an experiment.

[413] We're watching an experiment.

[414] It's an experiment.

[415] That's exactly right.

[416] On terms that, until I read your story, I did not realize what was happening.

[417] So, right, Thompson, at the end here, I look forward to you ordering dinner for me in exactly 10 years.

[418] And I will be in New York at the end of September.

[419] Oh, yeah, right.

[420] You will order dinner for me a lot sooner than that.

[421] Pablo Torre finds out is produced by Michael Antonucci, Walter Avaroma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McGray, Rachel Miller, Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tumenello, and Juliet Warren.

[422] Engineering by RG Systems, sound designed by NGW Post, our theme song by John Bravo.

[423] All of us will see you on Tuesday.

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