Caitlin Clark has revealed that she managed to avoid postseason surgery after rupturing her eardrum during her rookie WNBA season.
Speaking to Travis Kelce and his brother Jason on their special episode of New Heights, Clark revealed that she may have had to go under the knife to fix the rare issue.
The Indiana Fever rookie suffered the unfortunate injury during just her 11th game in the WNBA after being drafted out of Iowa last year.
Clark, who was named TIME Athlete of the Year for 2024, was hit with a screen by the New York Liberty’s Jonquel Jones but collided with her opponent and popped her eardrum.
Clark told the Kelce brothers that he hearing was affected for weeks but it has now fully healed.
She said: ‘It was early on, like our tenth game of the year. We were playing in New York against the Liberty, who ended up winning the championship this year.
Caitlin Clark told the Kelce brothers she managed to avoid surgery after rupturing her eardrum
Christie Sides and Caitlin Clark talk in Brooklyn after the rookie suffered a ruptured eardrum
‘Someone set a screen on me and I hit my ear just perfect on the girl where my ear drum like, popped and ruptured.
‘I knew it right away because I had done it before. It hurts so bad, I don’t know if you guys have ever done that?’
Jason, who revealed he ruptured his eardrum diving in high school, asked Clark how she did it before and she replied: ‘I was tubing. I got launched off a tube in the middle of a lake. I was under water like “am I ok?”
‘There’s not really much you can do. It takes months to heal so after the season the doctor had to go back in and look and see if it had closed and if it doesn’t close you have to have a minor procedure.
‘Luckily enough, it closed so I was fine. You have to be careful about getting water in there, you can’t go in lakes or pools. Sometimes it’ll bleed when it pops but mine didn’t, thankfully.
‘It’s just really annoying. Your hearing is off for a few weeks.’
The 22-year-old sensation is generating more interest in the women’s game than ever before after a staggering 18.9 million people tuned in for that March Madness finale against South Carolina – going down as the second most-watched female sporting event in US history.
Her unique appeal has followed her to the professional ranks, too, with Clark’s Fever appearing in the most-watched WNBA games ever on a number of networks last season.
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) possesses the ball in her first playoff series
Clark took a number of hard fouls this season, which some fans have blamed on jealous rivals allegedly targeting the first-overall draft pick.
She broke six rookie records for points and assists, four franchise records as a Fever player and set as many all-time WNBA records, including for the most assists in a single game (19).
However, Clark’s first year in the top tier of women’s basketball was not without controversy.
The 2024 WNBA season also proved a toxic one at times amid her on-court rivalry with fellow rookie Angel Reese, which sparked a race war both in the media and amongst fans online.
Reese was infamously seen laughing with teammate Chennedy Carter after the Chicago Sky player produced a brutal bodycheck on Clark during a game over the summer, leading to claims that black players in the league were being racist towards the Fever rookie.
And later in the season, Reese alleged that she had received racist abuse from Indiana fans amid her rivalry with Clark.
