Dear Caitlin Clark,
My heart will be forever grateful to you when I think back on the summer of 2024. This is the year you (and the rest of your amazing team) showed my son that women’s sports matter. And not just to us, in our family – but to our community of Indianapolis at large.
It started two college seasons ago when our family started really paying attention to you in our household during the NCAA tournament. Man, we were amazed at just how far you could shoot that ball!
But my son was young then, and besides the exposure to women’s basketball on his parents’ TV, I didn’t think much more would come from that.
Cut to last college season. I was trying to find ways to watch your Iowa games when we could. Your run late into the playoffs was watched by my son (who is now 4 ½ years old). Soon, he was asking if we were going to be watching “The Two Two Girl” each night. I’m pretty sure he thinks Taylor Swift’s “22” is written for you. (And really, if you’re not picked to be Taylor’s “22” kid when she stops in Indianapolis in November, WHAT is Taylor thinking?)
When you declared for the draft, the giddy dance I did in my kitchen was probably embarrassing if any of my neighbors had seen me. I knew that most likely, I was going to be able to tell my son that Caitlin Clark was coming to Indiana – not just Indiana, but Indianapolis where we live!
We rushed him home after his T-ball game in April to watch you officially get drafted to the Fever. We had taken him to a Fever game the prior season, so he was well-versed in Freddy Fever-dom. After your name was called, we sat there and watched the next 12 or so talented women get drafted to begin their next step in their career goals, and we would have watched all night if it hadn’t been bedtime.
Watching the Fever play on TV has been our summer pastime. He now owns two Fever shirts and a special Caitlin Clark shirt. He loves wearing them to school to tell people about them. We watch the games as a family, and he plays around pretending to be you on the court. He often comments that I’m wearing my hair “just like Caitlin Clark does” when I have it up in a ponytail and a thin, stretchy headband (I mean, really, it is the best hairstyle).
After seeing it on the news, we had to take a special trip downtown just to see you on the side of the JW Marriot. He loved seeing you larger-than-life on the skyline of Indianapolis. He would look for you any time we were downtown or traveling around the city on 465. He was a little bummed when some Colts players replaced you later in the summer.
We were honored to take in a game over the summer before the Olympics break. We had purposely gotten tickets to the “summer camp” game, a Wednesday noon game typically occupied by school groups and summer camps. As a camp counselor, I had taken my own camp kids to that game a decade earlier.
When we walked into Gainbridge Fieldhouse almost 90 minutes before tip-off, I felt tears rolling down my face as we took the elevator down. The number of people in that building an hour and a half early for a mid-day weekday women’s game was astounding.
As we settled into our seats, the team was practicing before tip-off. The moment he laid his eyes on you, he stopped in his tracks to stare at you practicing. He later would tell people he had “seen Caitlin Clark with his own eyes.”
We came home with happy hearts and new stickers of you to hang around his room.
He is starting to know some of the other incredible athletes on the team and has so many questions about each of the opposing teams’ colors, where they are from, and whether they took an airplane or a bus to get to Indianapolis.
One day I found him asking our Alexa device, “How old is Caitlin Clark?” (He was DELIGHTED to find out you are 22 this year) and another time, “What is Caitlin Clark’s middle name?”
We talked a lot about how the Fever had to take a break for the Olympics. He understood you and your teammates deserved a break. But I am not sure how we are going to cope when the season comes to an end.
But before it does, thank you. Thank you for 2024. We cannot wait to keep watching you and your teammates in the seasons to come. Hopefully his little brother likes watching basketball just as much as the rest of the family.
Love,
An Indianapolis Mom
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