Caitlin Clark Could've Been a Soccer Star
There's no question that Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark is a generational talent on the basketball court.
But her athleticism isn't limited to basketball. Clark is also an adept golfer and has recently displayed her baseball-playing abilities by smacking what she deemed a "Dinger!" in a minor league baseball batting cage and then showcasing her cannon of an arm when the Fever were throwing autographed basketballs to their home fans a few days later.
Despite her skills in these non-basketball sports, it appears her soccer-playing prowess reigns supreme over them all.
An excerpt from a February 2024 article by Chad Leistikow of HawkCentral is going viral on X, which conveys how great of a scorer Clark once was on the soccer pitch.
"Because Clark was busy representing Team USA (and winning a gold medal) in the FIBA Under-16 Americas Championship in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she only played in six soccer games as a high school freshman," the article wrote.
"In those half-dozen games, Clark scored 26 goals. She was the only freshman named first-team all-state.
“'She was D-I material in soccer, easily,' Pearson said. 'She did have a way to go, but if she would have stayed in soccer and made that her No. 1 sport …,'" Leistikow added.
"Pearson’s sentence trailed off there, perhaps not wanting to sound hyperbolic. Instead, he just stated simply, 'She was good.”'"
bro caitlin clark only played six football games in highschool as a freshman but still managed to be the only freshman named first-team all-state.
— cc akgae (@clrkszn) September 19, 2024
the reason why she played so few games?
she was representing the USA in the u-16 FIBA world cup 😭😭😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/I9TEpemdM6
The fact that Clark averaged over four goals per game as a freshman is blowing people away.
Although, perhaps unsurprisingly, the article then states how her inability to control when she got the ball proved frustrating.
"In basketball, Clark is the maestro and distributor, in addition to the record-setting scorer, as the Hawkeyes' point guard," Leistikow wrote. "In soccer, she needed to rely on others to get her the ball. That aspect could become frustrating for Clark, but her determination helped devise unique methods of getting open, even when defenders knew she was the one they had to stop."
Clark ultimately quit soccer once basketball recruiting took off during her junior year of high school. So while we may never know how great Clark could have been in that sport, she took many of her best attributes from there into basketball — where her greatness has already been (and will continue to be) showcased.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.