Caitlin Clark Revealed How Her Basketball Passion Irritated High School Soccer Teammates
A February 2024 article by Chad Leistikow of HawkCentral conveyed to the world how great of a soccer player Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark once was.
"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," Leistikow wrote.
"In those half-dozen games, Clark scored 26 goals. She was the only freshman named first-team all-state," he added.
Clark averaging over four goals per game as a freshman in high school sent social media into a frenzy.
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
While she was also an elite basketball talent at that point, many fans wondered what went into Clark ultimately quitting soccer after her sophomore season and focusing solely on basketball, given her astounding scoring prowess on the pitch.
And Clark provided a fascinating answer to this during Tuesday's LPGA Women's Leadership Summit conversation, before the golfing Pro-Am event she's competing in on Wednesday.
"When I got into high school, I kind of knew basketball was my future, and I loved it, and I wanted to practice," Clark said, per X user @nosyone4. "And I think that's what was different. I wanted to get better at it, I wanted to spend time working on my game. And that was probably what set that apart from all the other sports I played... so I think that's what kind of helped me figure out the path I wanted to take."
She continued, saying, "I remember in high school, I played soccer and I was on varsity, and I loved it. But my teammates would get mad because I would go practice and work out and do basketball after school, right before we had our soccer games. And they couldn't believe that I was doing that.
"So I eventually had to give up soccer, even though I loved it," Clark added.
Caitlin said her varsity soccer teammates used to get mad at her for doing full basketball practices before games. And she picked basketball because she would actually practice that sport. Mind you she scored 26 goals in 6 games…😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/zgJPROprfm
— correlation (@nosyone4) November 12, 2024
Clark clearly made the right choice in choosing basketball over soccer despite her staggering high school success.
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.