Caitlin Clark on Joining the WNBA, New Fame, and Being Inspired by Serena Williams

On Friday night, basketball super star Caitlin Clark was interviewed at the Mercedes-Benz event during Masters weekend in Augusta, Georgia. The Indiana Fever player played a few rounds of golf, before opening up about her new experiences moving from college basketball to the WNBA.

When asked about the biggest difference between the two, Clark explained how she moved rapidly from training camp to being drafted, which didn’t give her much time to adjust mentally to the huge transition.

“So you basically go home for one day and pack up your whole life and then move to a new city, the city that you get drafted to,” she shared. “So I think it’s just the adjustment period that you have.”

But Clark added that she was grateful to stay in the midwest where she’s familiar with the fans, even if the venues have changed.

She added, “I think the biggest difference is just how fast you have to move on and change from being a college student, a college athlete, and then you’re like a professional athlete and there’s a lot that comes with that too.”

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When asked about which professional athletes she has always looked up to for inspiration, Clark was quick to say, “I loved Serena Williams. Like she was probably my favorite athlete of all time. I just, you know, thought she was the greatest thing ever and then also I was a young girl being able to look up to that. I thought that was incredible.”

However, Clark admitted that her own tennis career was “short-lived.”

“I got kicked out of tennis class when I was like 10, so that didn’t last long,” she laughed. “I got mad at the instructor because I thought it was too easy.”

With her new position in the WNBA, Clark has become even more famous, though she had quite a following in her college days. Expanding on how it feels to suddenly be in such an intense spotlight, Clark said she feels like just a “normal person.”

“That’s how I try to live my life every single day and you know I still tell people, like, I still go to the grocery store, I still buy my own groceries, like I still do all of that and I don’t think people always realize that. But I always had big dreams and big aspirations, like I always wanted to be a professional athlete,” she added. “I don’t think I could have ever imagined it to be on the level that it is. And to see where women’s sports is going, I think it is absolutely incredible.”

Clark said that we are only “scratching the surface” of potential interest in women’s sports, and it is “exciting” that so many “people that have never watched women’s basketball before now really enjoy it.”

“I think that is the coolest part of it, but I don’t think you ever get used to that by any means,” she said, continuing to say that the growth of women’s sports “just gives young girls an opportunity to be successful, to find confidence in themselves.”

“I think the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life have been through sports, and I think that’s so impactful for young people,” Clark shared. “So the more young girls that we can get to start playing it and then continue to play it, I think it’s incredible, and then the more opportunities we can have, you know, playing on ESPN, the more we’re on ESPN, more people watch, the more people that buy a ticket, they continue to come back.”

Clark encouraged fans who want to support women in sports to simply “turn the TV on or buy a ticket and come watch us play.”