Caitlin Clark Reveals Her Painful 'Welcome To The WNBA' Moment
01/02/2025 02:23 PM
Caitlin Clark took the WNBA - and the greater sports world - by storm in her first season, winning the Rookie of the Year award and leading her team to the playoffs for the first time in nearly a decade.
The Clark Effect was felt throughout the league as fans packed stadiums and tuned in to watch her play, but the first-year player says she ran into a rare roadblock - perhaps literally - during her inaugural campaign.
"Somebody set a screen on me and I hit my ear just perfect on the girl where my eardrum popped and it ruptured," Clark said during an appearance on Jason and Travis Kelce's "New Heights" podcast.
"I knew it right away because I've done it before [while tubing in a lake]. It hurts so bad … That was my welcome to the W moment."
Clark ran into that screen in an early June matchup against the eventual WNBA champion New York Liberty, and she says it set the tone for how physical the game would be.
"It takes months to heal," she added, continuing to mention the ruptured eardrum.
"So after the season, the doctor had to go back and look and see if it closed, and if it doesn't close you have to have a minor procedure. But lucky enough it didn't close, so I was fine."
Clark went on to have an All-Star season, setting several league and rookie records along the way. She helped a team of WNBA All-Stars earn a victory over the USA women's basketball team that won gold in Paris - an important win after not being selected for that Olympic roster.
Clark is now taking a well-earned break after a hectic year that began with her breaking the NCAA's all-time scoring record. She only had a few weeks to prepare for the WNBA after losing to South Carolina in the national championship game as well.
With a full offseason ahead of her and ample time to rest, we'll see what Clark can do for an encore.
After her incredible rookie season, she'll be one of the key players in the league giving the new crop of rookies their own "Welcome to the WNBA" moment.
Related: Caitlin Clark's Boyfriend Uses One Word To Describe Her In 2025
