Caitlin Clark concludes her college career

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
My eyes are still hurting mine too. This is like an hour ago.
Yeah, Susan sent an email ofwhat she saw though in Cincinnati. It's
pretty cool. Yeah. The totality, I mean, that's the money.
If you're not in totality, hejust doesn't make a difference, you know
what I mean? Great day fortee totalers h what's that? It's it's

(00:26):
an old expression of those who abstainfrom alcohol completely tee totally. Every time
you say a totality, I thinkof te total tee. Totalism is the
practice or promotion of total personal abstinencefrom the consumption of alcohol. Right,
No, I complete and utter,pointless sidetrack on my part. I apologize.

(00:48):
That's okay. I enjoy learning newterms. Prohibitionists prohibitionist a term you
could also probably use for the peoplewho are going and completely out of their
way to generate people against the consumptionof alcohol, people against the consumption of

(01:11):
alcohol. So peca paka no prohibitionist, Like that's the term. How about
the ethical treatment? No, no, no, no, no, we're
not doing that. Oh no,those people actually do exist, and I
am not interested in talking about them. Okay, they don't care about animals

(01:33):
anyway. Uh, But that's thething is like so many people are just
like united, right, Like,have you seen any negative like spin on
this? No, nobody's just like, oh the world's coming to an end.
Oh No, nobody cares about this. It's kind of refreshing. I
enjoy that. I don't like tolook for anger. I don't like to
go out of my way to justbe angry all the time. I get

(01:56):
angry. I think we all do. Things make me angry all the time.
I was driving here today in mycar. I like my car,
but my car is supposed to connectto my phone when I get in the
car, so I can listen tothe music off of my phone. And
I love to listen to certain musicon my way to work. And this
thing just would not connect for somereason today. And you know how much

(02:20):
it took it took me to notjust like right hook the dash in the
screen on in my car. Youknow, like, you know how hard
it was for me to just likenot do that. So don't think I
don't get angry. I get realangry. I just don't like to live

(02:46):
my life looking for reasons to beangry, because if I did, I
mean, let's be honest, I'dbe angry a lot. I'd be angry
a lot. So I found itquite interesting that so many people former players
of women's basketball, at least atthe collegiate level. Maybe they're in the

(03:07):
WNBA right now, maybe you knowthey've been retired or coaches. It seemingly
just have no interest in giving CaitlinClark the kind of flowers that the rest
of society seems to be giving her. Diana Tarassi going out of her way
to say she's in for a rootawakening when she plays, you know,
grown women in the WNBA. Ithink she is going to have to make

(03:30):
adjustments. But why would you saythat? They said the same thing about
Steph Curry, by the way,It took him a little bit too though.
He really didn't become a guy fornot right away. It was like
four or five years. Would yousay four or five? I thought he
was I thought it was just twoor three. He was drafted in two
thousand and nine and they won theirfirst title in fifteen. Well, but

(03:53):
he was. He'd been good fora couple of years at that point,
so four years it was his year. I think they won their first title.
I mean he had moments, ButI just don't think he was that
big of a guy until like fouryears in. And the point is it
took an adjustment period and then voila, Seph Curry became one of the greatest

(04:15):
ever do it, especially at shootingthe basketball. I mean, is he
he's unequivocally the best shooter who everlived? Right? Yeah, quite literally
was empowered to change the way weplayed the game. Without Steph Curry,
There's no Kaitlyn Clark. She doesnot do what she's doing if she didn't
have Steph Curry to watch and modelor game after. She goes as far

(04:35):
to also emulate his defense as well, oh got him there as just yeah,
it is what it is, allright. So the reason I bring
this up is in victory, SouthCarolina defeats the iowahaw Gys in the National
Championship Game, and you have allthese people just throwing all this shade at

(04:59):
Kaitlyn Clark that are professional players orthey everybody just wants to try to knock
her down for all that she's accomplished, sated. Well, it's really not
as great as we're all making itout to be. And I've been and
we sat here on this show.And I've told you I've always been a
skeptic of the way that she's playedbecause I just don't know how much you
can win like that. But ifyou think about it, the team that

(05:24):
she has, and this is nodisrespect to the teammates that she's played with
at Iowa, but to carry thatgroup of girls to where they went the
National Championship game back to back yearswhen we basically agree that there's not a
player not named Caitlin Clark that couldeven suit up for South Carolina. The

(05:45):
way that they're built, there's noway. So you're saying it was a
little bit like space Jam without themagic water bottle. Yeah, something like
that. She just carried them.Man. She was this lightning rod for
conversation because she broke all these records, and rightly so. But everybody was

(06:05):
just like, well, she playedanother year than p Maravich, so that
shouldn't count Lynette Woodard of all people, who, again we've never heard of
before, but she had the alltime women's scoring record from the AIAW days,
which is before the NCAA started governingwomen's college basketball in the eighties.

(06:28):
And I hate to break it toLynette. But the only reason anybody knows
her name now is because Iowa broughther to Iowa City so she could be
a part of Caitlin Clark's senior nightto celebrate her on what she accomplished too.
And now she went on the record. She was speaking at some engagement
and said, nobody's broken my record. Play with the men's sized basketball and

(06:51):
a two point shot and then tellme and then you can break my record.
Nobody's broken my record. And thenshe had to go on Twitter and
apologize and basically said she never tweets, by the way, She just like
re logged into her Twitter just topost an apology and said, hey,
my comments were misconstrued. I wastrying to lift her up and she actually

(07:12):
does have the record on that stuff. It's too late, it's too late.
You said what you said in frontof all those people, and it
went viral on social media. Whyare people like Diana Tarassi again, one
of the great players ever in women'sbasketball, I mean, was dominant with
an incredible Yukon team back in thetwo thousand oughts and it's been one of
the best, if not the best, and most accomplished WNBA player in the

(07:36):
history of that league, and theleague's you know, knocking on thirty years
old. Now if you can believethat. Okay, so you're thinking about
all that stuff they've been crying fordecades. Watch us, watch us work.
There she goes, there, shegoes again, running through my brain.

(07:58):
Yeah, watch me watch us,turn us on. We're on ESPN
or ABC or whatever. Right,and here's a girl that actually did that
got people to watch women's basketball.And what, as Diana to Rossi says,
she's in for a root awakening whenshe gets to the league. Is
that supposed to make me want towatch her play in the WNBA or does

(08:20):
that make me just feel like DianaTarrossi's incredibly bitter that she never got the
kind of spot like Kaitlin Clark hasgot. I just don't understand that.
So I found it fascinating in victoryto hear what Don Staley had to say.
And she didn't even wait until shegot back into the locker room.
We'll play it what she said aboutCaitlyn Clark and the other things that maybe

(08:45):
she said that made it quite aninteresting weekend for people in the media with
Don Staley National Championship coach South Carolina, and we'll talk about that coming up
next on news Radio eleven ten KFABand Rae's songer on news Radio eleven TENFAB
Women's basketball scene. Now, I'vetold you, I just like basketball in
general, and women's basketball is avery different brand of basketball than like say

(09:09):
men's basketball or the NBA. Especiallymen's college basketball for me, is a
tough watch a lot of times.First of all, the constant timeouts.
I mean literally every four minutes ofgame action, there's like a four minute
time out. I hate that there'sone less commercial break. Because of the
quarters that the women's game does,it's just a better flowing game men's college

(09:31):
basketball. Also, most of theteams that you just watch, these random
teams, like there's not a lotof skill, right, you know,
the coach tries to implement a systemand try to get guys open. And
I'm not saying it's not exciting,but I prefer watching like the NBA,
especially when you get to playoff timeand the intensity ratchets up. You're with
me on that, aren't you,Matt? I Am. I was just

(09:52):
sitting here thinking that Purdue NC Stategame was a rough watch. This last
weekend. Yeah, so many turnoversand that's just what it is, right,
And some people they like that,Well, I'm telling you women's basketball,
especially in the WNBA, it's cleaner. The intensity is still there,
but it's team basketball. There's notone person going one on one all the
time. It's very team oriented,which is going to be really exciting to

(10:15):
watch Kaitlyn Clark play with actually likehigh level teammates when she goes to the
WNBA, A couple of which sheplayed against who were at South Carolina the
year before. Right, So Iwill lose is all this discourse about whether
or not Kaitlyn Clark can make itin the WNBA and all this stuff,
And I just have no idea whypeople would say negative things about her like

(10:37):
this. But on the trophy standas she's doing her speech, Don Staley,
who is obviously an incredibly gifted recruiteringcoach now for South Carolina and she
had a great playing career as wellwell, she went out of her way
at the end of like their Iasked her questions about her team and all

(11:00):
this stuff, and then she hadthis to say about Caitlyn Clark before she
decided or before she gave the micup. And this was on the floor
during the trophy ceremony, not likein the locker room, not in the
press conference, not well after thefact. This was while she was on
national TV accepting the trophy for winningnational champion. Awesome, awesome, and

(11:24):
I want to arsenally thank Kitlyn Clarkfor lifting up our sport. Hush,
she carried a she carried a heavylow for our sport. And it just
is not gonna stop here on acollegiate tour. But when she is the
number one pick in a WNBA draft, she's gonna she's gonna lift that league

(11:46):
up as well. So, soKatelyn Clark, if you're out there,
you are one of the goats ofour games that we appreciate you. Thank
you, coach. All Right,So that that is down Staley talking about
Caitlyn Clark. Incredibly gracious to saythat about your opponent after well, like

(12:11):
while you're accepting the trophy for winning, especially considering the discourse that I'm sure
she knew about. She's no dummyfor her to say that, I think
that's a stamp of approval from maybethe best women's coach in college basketball.
Yeah, certainly, acknowledging the momentthis, you know, the moment of

(12:31):
Caitlyn Clark. This was her lastgame and yeah, my last game for
Iowa, which for Iowa fans Iknow, is pretty bittersweet that she couldn't
get that done. You know,she couldn't she couldn't be that person that
could get Iowa over the hump andwin their first national championship. I understand

(12:56):
that. I get that. Atthe same time, matt women's basketball has
been fighting for attention from the publicfor decades and it just knew its place.
It was never going to try tocompete at that level with the men,

(13:16):
but now all of a sudden theycan. Because what do you think
the rating was? I don't knowif we have it yet. I'm going
to try to find it for yesterday. But do you see the number that
they had for the final four game? Yeah, Iowa Yukon almost fifteen Like
was it fourteen yeah a half?Yeah, almost fifteen Yeah, so that

(13:41):
the official number fourteen point two wasthe average it got up to like that.
The fourteen point two is huge,Okay. Most watched basketball game on
ESPN before that was the twenty eighteenEastern Conference Finals game. Seven between Lebron

(14:05):
and the Cavaliers in the Boston Celticsit was thirteen point five. Wow.
Kayln Clark and pagebackers in the IowaUkon matchup beat them in CAA men's basketball
championship game last year. Got whatSan Diego State and Yukon men's national title

(14:26):
game last year? Fourteen point eight? Okay, it almost beat that.
And that's it's the men's I mean, come on, only the World Cup,
in the Super Bowl or like achievingthese kind of numbers in our country.
When we get that number, we'lllet you know. But we don't

(14:48):
have the number yet. It's gotto be more right Sunday afternoon, you
would think, so championship game,all the hype, South Carolina going for
an unbeaten season, Kaylan Clark goingfor that national title. The point is
South Carolina was good three years ago, five years ago, Yukon was great,

(15:11):
seven, ten, twelve years ago. There have been great teams in
women's college basketball. Nobody paid attentionlike this until Caitlin Clark in the Iowaha
g has made their run. Nomatter how much you want to try to
discredit the way she plays, Nono matter how much you want to try
to discredit what she can't do onthe basketball floor as well, or what

(15:33):
kind of struggles she might have whenshe makes the attempt to go to the
WNBA. But you know what,it's awfully rich for a lot of people,
not Don Staley because she obviously getsit, but for a lot of
these other people, like the Dianata Rossis and the Lynette Woodards and the
Sue Birds and some of these othersthat are going completely out of their way
to find a way to discredit whatshe has accomplished when all they've been crying

(15:58):
about for the better part of turytwenty five years since the WNBA became a
thing for women's basketball to get therespect that they think it deserves. And
she's finally bringing that attention to it. And it's going to work with the
WNBA too, I'm telling you guys, it's going to work. The Las
Vegas Ace has just announced they aregoing to be moving from their typical arena,
which seats like twelve thousand, whichthey sell out a lot of the

(16:21):
time, to T Mobile Arena,where the Vegas Golden Knights play their big
arena where the Nbal strigame was.This is twenty thousand seed Arena. If
there's ever an NBA team moving toVegas, it's going to be there.
They're moving their game against the IndianaFever there because they know Caitlin Clark's going
to be there and they'll sell thatplace out. Okay, women's basketball,

(16:41):
including the WNBA, is about toget the attention they keep craving about.
Yet they just keep knocking her downand I don't understand why they do that.
If you have an idea women talkingbadly about women, I know sounds
pretty insane. A lot of peoplemake that joke on social media. I
don't think that that's what this is. I think it's old heads who play
the game. And you kind ofsee that a little bit in the NBA

(17:03):
too. On the men's side,guys who are from like the eighties and
nineties saying, well, Lebron couldn'thave done all he's doing right now in
my era because it's way more physicaland there's I understand that, but more
people were actually watching the games inthe nineties because of lack of cable.
They had Michael Jordan, who wasyou know, you could make the arguments

(17:26):
the most watched athlete ever at leastin the United States. I know this
stuff exists, but if you wantto have some of that discourse with us,
you try to come up with theoriesas to why that's being the approach
from these women. You can atfour h two five five eight eleven ten.
Four H two five five eight eleventen. We'll also have another pretty

(17:47):
trans polarizing comment that don Staley hadabout transgender athletes in sports and women's sports
specifically that she said over the weekend. And I know this could probably fire
people up as well. That isalso going to be on the way to
stick around. Emory Songer with youon news radio eleven ten KFA and Maurice
Sung on news Radio eleven ten kfabB. And we're all just kind of

(18:11):
sitting there looking up in the skytrying to, you know, take in
a rare occurrence that you know,we'll only see a few times in our
lives, a solar eclipse. That'sfine, And usually I'm the guy that's
telling you that we shouldn't be asdivisive as we are a lot of the
time, because we only get tolive life one time. I want to

(18:34):
spend it smiling as much as Ipossibly can, and laughing and having fun.
But sometimes I just got to bethe bad guy. And that's what
I'm gonna do right now. IsI have to bring up something that was
brought up. This isn't basketball relatednecessarily, but it was said by a
basketball coach, the national champion,Don Staley, who I give a ton

(18:56):
of credit as a coach. Shewon with a ton of class, thanked
God as soon as she I mean, talked about the God that she serves
and everything. I mean, there'sso many people out there that are just
like, Okay, enough with theGod stuff, right, But this is
a woman obviously a faith There's nota lot to dislike about her and her

(19:17):
demeanor. But she was asked ina press conference at the Final four on
her way to winning the national titleagain. She was asked a question by
dan zak Sheski from OutKick. Ofcourse, that's our friendic Clay Travis created

(19:40):
that platform, and we know Clayand you listen to Clay with Buck Sexton
every day before my show here onKFAB, and you know they're they're always
trying to stir the pot. Sodan zach Shesky basically did what you do?

(20:02):
You know, you ask a questionand you want an answer. And
dan Zakssky asked Don Staley about oneof the hotter topics in collegiate sports transgender
females playing female sports that are biologicalmales that say they are identifying as females

(20:23):
playing women's sports. And here's whatDon Staley had to say about that this
weekend. I I I'm on theI mean, I'm on the the opinion
of of if you're a woman,you should play. If you considered yourself

(20:48):
a woman and you want to playsports or vice versa, you should be
able to play. That's that's myopinion. You want me to go deeper.
Do you do you think uh,transgender women should be able to participate
in that's your question I want toask, I mean you want to ask,
so I'll give you that. Yes. Yes. So now the barn

(21:11):
storm of people are going to floodmy timeline and be a distraction to me
and one of the biggest uh daysof of of our game. And I'm
okay with that, I really am. So that's Don Staley's reaction. And
you heard the voice of dan ZakShesky from out Kick asking the question,

(21:37):
and this is on the heels ofthe failed bill in Nebraska to ban this
from happening. It didn't didn't quitepass this time, and I have questions
about legislation specifically. It's a littletrickier, I think in a lot of
ways. I think mostly because Idon't know what the legal ramifications are on

(22:06):
that, and I know that aninterpretation of kind of our constitution in our
laws. This was not a problemthat our founding fathers thought of. This
is something that we're trying to figureout as it becomes more prevalent in our
society. It's incredibly notable as wellthat today we talk about the nc DOUBA

(22:30):
a lot. Well, there's anotherinstitution or association of colleges, you know
what. That is the NAIA,the National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics, which
I went to a school that wasin AIA. There's a lot of NAIA
schools out there. It's hard tocompare like them with nc DOUBLEA. NCAA

(22:53):
has all the power and the money. Most of the NAIA schools are,
at least from my experience, quitea bit smaller. Well, the NAIA
today has officially banned transgender athletes fromcompeting in women's sports. They said it's
supported fair and safe competition for allstudent athletes, and title not insures there

(23:15):
are separate and equal opportunities for femaleathletes. Here are the quotes from the
NAIA. Participation by students in sportsdesignated as male by the NAIA, all
eligible NAIA students athletes may participate inmale sports. Participation by students in sports
designated as female only NAIA student athleteswho biological sex is female may participate in

(23:40):
those sports. So basically, ifyou're a woman trying to play baseball,
you can. There's no biological advantageto you trying to do that. If
you are a woman trying to runa one hundred meter dash against men,
you can do that. There's nobiological advantage to you doing that. But
the NAIA says, we are notwe are stepping in. We are not

(24:02):
going to allow this. On theother side, the NAIA said, a
student who has not begun any masculineany masculinizing hormone therapy may participate without limitation.
They also added all activities that areinternal to an institution, including workouts,
practices, team activities, such participationis at the discretion of the nai

(24:30):
A member institution when the student isenrolled external competition that is not accountable contest
is defined by the defined by theNAIA. Such participation is at the discretion
of that member institution as well.So essentially, if it's NAI school versus
ANAIA school, INNI says transgender athleteswho are female trying or male trying to

(24:52):
be female cannot participate against females,but within their own institution or workouts in
practice, the school can make thedistermination whatever. So this was voted twenty
to nothing unanimous from the Council ofPresidents from the NAIA, and we'll go
into effect August the first for thenupcoming school year. My bigger question is,

(25:18):
I don't know how many people thisactually affects. I have no idea
that I think in NC DOUBLEA institutionsthere were like thirty two. I think
I saw the number thirty two transgenderathletes that were women competing in women's sports
that used to be male across theentirety of the you know, hundreds of
schools. That's a small percentage.But if it affects or displaces even one

(25:40):
or five or ten or thirty womenof any variety, whether it's taking of
scholarships, whether it's taking a spoton the team, whether it's the it's
like a basketball situation where it's acontact sport, do they clash the physicality

(26:03):
of that, certainly seems that thatwould be an issue. The NAI says
we're not messing with that. TheNCAA has not done that to this point,
and you just heard from Don Staley, who's the national championship women's basketball
coach, that she thinks they shouldbe able to play again. I don't
think she's run into this problem tothis point. Maybe it will take somebody
trying to be this person for thatto be the case. You got thoughts

(26:26):
on this with the NAI. Didwhat Don Saley had to say about transgender
females men who identify as females playingwomen's sports. Now's the time I am
opening the floor for real four htwo five five eight, eleven ten and
we can talk about it. It'srelevant today on news radio eleven ten KFAB
and Marie's songer on news radio eleventen KFAB. By the way, I

(26:48):
found that number the amount of NAIAschools two hundred and forty one. It's
not a small number either, butthey they're gonna make sure the title nine
is a in entrusted and they arenot going to allow men who are transitioning
to be female participate in women's collegiateathletes and that's just athletics, and that's
just what they made that decision today. We want your opinion on this.

(27:14):
You can call us a four ortwo five five eight eleven ten four H
two five five eight eleven ten.Rob's on the line. Rob, thank
you so much for calling in andbeing a part of our show today.
What do you got in your mind? You know, I just hear you
guys everyone talking about how they wantto be able to be allowed to play
in them women's sports. But Iget it. Why don't you guys keep
the women's sports to the women andif the transgender women want to play in

(27:37):
sports, make their own league.What's wrong with that? Yeah? And
I think Rob, if there wasand I think swimming like there's an end,
like the swimming governing body in NorthAmerica, I think they are experimenting
with this because obviously they were thefirst ones. I had to deal with
it when Leah Thomas won one ofthe national championships. But I think the

(28:02):
governing body made like a division fortransgender females. I think that that might
be the answer my biggest problem.And I guess this is my thing,
and this is this is why Idon't like to talk about this. It's
because I'm just not real sure howbig of a problem it is for everyone,
right, Like we're talking about thisas if like this is a giant
number of people there are. Iwas able to confirm there are a total

(28:26):
of thirty two transgender female student athletesat like six hundred and something in Cuba
schools, So it's a small it'sa small numbers. It would it would
quite literally be like there might beone. There's not even one per state,
one transgender female student athlete per statein the NCUBLEA right now, So

(28:52):
it's not fair. There's actually identifyas a woman and wanted to go box
in a women's league. Well,and I think the NAIA doing this right
now, I think that sets thestage for the NCAA saying something about it,
because they cite Title nine over andover again, which was a huge
thing. Right, So it's it'snot about even trying to be like politically
correct. I think it's just aboutsafety and fairness and how fair is it

(29:15):
to biological females that this is somethingthat could happen when somebody with a biological
advantage could be competing against you forthe exact same prize, that you only
have this option to do. Youknow what I mean? Absolutely, you
know. I just hear the talk. Everyone's going around saying, oh,
is it fair? Is is allowedto be in this or allowed to be
in that? But nobody I haven'theard anyone say make their own league.

(29:37):
Yeah, yeah, you got women'ssports, you transgender sports, and Rob,
I think if this number grows,I think that definitely is the answer
so they can particularly Like, Idon't want to tell people that can't participate,
but it's just not fair. Itreally just is not fair if you
just put a man on a floorwith on the court with a woman and

(29:59):
just expect them to be equals.That's just not how it works. Rob,
appreciate you calling in man. Thankyou. Yeah, if you got
thoughts, you could call us tofour H two five five eight eleven ten.
Four H two five five eight eleventen. The Nebraska legislature could not
figure this out in the unic camera. They did not make the decision as
far as like the total vote tohave this happen. And certainly that is

(30:22):
something that we are going to keepmonitoring as time continues to go on.
Because now as the NAIA has madethis determination for their member institutions, and
I don't know how many people arein the NIA that are transgender females that
they have to figure this out.But when the NAIA today cites Title nine

(30:44):
and says we are just not goingto allow this to take place, when
two NAIA institutions are playing each other, I think the NCAA they're on the
clock. This conversation has to comeup. And are you afraid of getting
canceled? Are you afraid of peopletalking badly about you on social media?
Or are you afraid that women can'tparticipate in sports with the level playing field?

(31:04):
And again, it's not a hugeproblem right now, but could it
become a huge problem. Does ithave to become a huge problem before somebody
does something. I guess that's whatwe're gonna have to find out as time
goes on. As always, youcan talk to us about this at four
H two five five eight eleven ten, four L two five five eight eleven
ten. You can also email meEmory at kfab dot com, and we'll
talk to you there as well.We roll onto the four o'clock hour.

(31:26):
Emory Soger with you on news radioeleven ten kfab