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Caitlin Clark Gave New Fever Coach Stephanie White a Big Shout During Jersey Retirement

White made the trip to Iowa to support her star player.

Josh Wilson

Clark gives a speech after her jersey number was retired
Clark gives a speech after her jersey number was retired / @ShowCaseShabazz on X
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No player will ever wear No. 22 for the Iowa women's basketball program after the Hawkeyes sent her jersey to the rafters on Sunday afternoon. Clark has since gone on to take the WNBA by storm, but her legacy left behind at Iowa will likely never be unthroned. She leads the program all-time in points and assists, and is the all-time highest scorer in women's basketball history (3,951 points).

The only thing Clark could not accomplish was a title, as her Hawkeyes were twice the runner-up in the tournament ('23, '24).

Now, Clark's aspirations are set on the WNBA, where she hopes to take the franchise that drafted her, the Indiana Fever, to a title at the professional level. Her first year saw her win Rookie of the Year after a slow start.

After her first season, the Fever fired their head coach, Christie Sides, and shortly after hired Stephanie White. The new coach and Clark are already gelling, with White traveling to Iowa Sunday along with plenty of other Fever support. Clark was sure to give her a shout during her jersey retirement speech.

"Hopefully year two is even better than year one [with the Fever], and I know it will be," Clark said. "We've got some good players, we've got a good coach ... Thanks for being here [Steph]," Clark said.

White being in Iowa to see a jersey retirement banner head up to the rafters is fitting, considering White made it clear that, "hanging banners," is the goal with Clark and Aliyah Boston leading the way as the franchise's foundational pieces.

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Josh Wilson
JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

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