I don’t watch a ton of sports, but I’ve seen enough to know that it’s fairly common for a championship team to thank their opponents while celebrating a big win. Maybe the opposing team’s coach will get a shout-out by name. Maybe a star player will be singled out with a “thank you for making us better,” or some other sportsmanlike platitude.
However, when Dawn Staley, head coach of the NCAA Championship–winning South Carolina Gamecocks, took the podium on Sunday, April 7, following her team’s big win, she went out of her way to dedicate an entire paragraph of her speech to Caitlin Clark, the record-breaking college basketball star for the Iowa Hawkeyes.
“I want to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport,” Staley said. “She carried a heavy load for our sport and it’s just not going to stop here on the collegiate tour, but when she is the number one pick in the WNBA draft, she’s going to lift up that league up as well.”
She added, “Caitlin Clark, if you’re out there, you are one of the GOATs of our game and we appreciate you.”
Staley’s decision to call Clark a GOAT seems pointed, especially after some fans believed the South Carolina coach questioned Clark’s GOAT status in a previous interview.
“If Caitlin wins the championship, she’s pretty damn good, yeah, she’s a GOAT,” Staley said the day before the final game, per Yahoo! Sports. “I mean, she’s really damn good regardless. But winning the championship would seal the deal. I hope to the dear Lord she doesn’t.”
In her own press conference following Staley’s comments, Clark rebuked the idea that a championship is a prerequisite for GOAT status: “I’ve played basketball at this university for four years, and for it to come down to two games and that be whether or not I’m proud of myself and proud of the way I’ve carried myself and proud of the way I’ve impacted people in their lives, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment,” she said, according to USA Today.
