Caitlin Clark is not losing sleep over the great GOAT debate taking over March Madness.
On April 6, Clark appeared to respond to South Carolina coach Dawn Staley’s recent claims that the 22-year-old basketball star can’t be considered one of the greatest woman’s college basketball player of all time without having won a championship, despite her record-breaking run.
“If Caitlin wins the championship, she’s pretty damn good, yeah, she’s a GOAT,” Staley said, 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.” That last part is definitely understandable, considering Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes are currently facing off against Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks for that very title.
To be fair, the 53-year-old coach referenced her experience as a three-time Olympic gold medalist and Hall of Fame player who played for Virginia between 1988 and 1992. “I was really good in college, never won a championship,” Staley said. “You’ve got to win a championship. That’s me, personally. Like I had a great career. But it’s always, did you win a championship?”
Meanwhile, Clark says she’s not counting wins when thinking about her overall college career. “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 told reporters during a press conference on April 6, per USA Today.
“I don’t want my legacy to be ‘oh, Caitlin won X amount of games or Caitlin scored X amount of points.’ It’s, I hope, what I was able to do for the game of women’s basketball,” she continued. “I hope it is the young boys and young girls that are inspired to play this sport or dream to do whatever they want to do in their lives.”
