Dom Amore: WNBA’s response to racist, sexist abuse of players too little, too late

UNCASVILLE — The Connecticut Sun eliminated the Indiana Fever and advanced to the WNBA semifinals for the fourth year in a row. … Alyssa Thomas played two solid games, Marina Mabrey and DeWanna Bonner made a cluster of clutch shots.

… Caitlin Clark had 25 points and nine assists; her rookie season ended, but not without one more reminder of how great she will be in the pros.

In an ideal sports world, a simpler time, we would talking about these things today. It would be more enjoyable to search for adjectives to describe the sheer brilliance of UConn’s Napheesa Collier, who scored 80 points in two games as Minnesota eliminated Phoenix, possibly ending the epic career of Huskies legend Diana Taurasi.

Connecticut Sun sweep Indiana Fever with 87-81 win in WNBA Playoffs to advance to sixth straight semifinals

It’s not an ideal world nor a simpler time, inside or outside of sports, so this is what we will be discussing instead:

“Honestly, it’s been a lot of nonsense, ” Thomas began Wednesday night, after getting 19 points and 13 assists in the Sun’s 87-81 victory in Game 2. “In my 11-year career, I’ve never experienced the racial comments from the Indiana Fever fan base. It’s unacceptable, honestly. There’s no place for it. We’ve been professional throughout the whole entire thing, but I’ve never been called the things that I’ve been called on social media, and there’s no place for it.”

As Thomas spoke, teammate DiJonai Carrington nodded her head. Earlier in the day, Carrington, who had accidentally poked Clark in the eye in Game 1, received a vicious e-mail, pasted and posted it on her Instagram account. It included a racial slur and a call for harm to come to her.

“Basketball is headed in a great direction,” Thomas continued, “but we don’t want fans that are gonna degrade us and call us racial names. We already see what’s happening in the world and what we have to deal with in that aspect and we come to play basketball for our job and it’s fun, but we don’t want to go to work every day and have social media blown up over things like that. It’s uncalled for and something needs to be done, whether it’s them checking their fans, or this league checking it. There’s no time for it anymore.”

Shortly after the press conferences, which included similar thoughts from coaches Christie Sides of Indiana and Stephanie White of the Sun, the WNBA issued a statement:

“The WNBA is a competitive league with some of the most elite athletes in the world. While we welcome a growing fan base, the WNBA will not tolerate racist, derogatory, or threatening comments made about players, teams and anyone affiliated with the league. League security is actively monitoring threat-related activity and will work directly with teams and arenas to take appropriate measure, to include involving law enforcement, as necessary.”

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The sentiment was fine, but it’s too little, and a little late. Clark’s entry into the league as a record-setting collegian, a No.1 overall draft pick, brought millions of new fans to the WNBA, but the league failed to adequately prepare itself or its players for this maelstrom, political and social in nature, and get out in front of it when necessary.

“Sports is a microcosm of life,” White said. “We’ve seen a lot of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, throughout the course of our country. Sport is no exception, and it’s unacceptable, to be quite honest. The thing that frustrates me the most is that we — I say we because I worked in television as well — but we in the media have to do a better job of not allowing trolls on social media to become the story. I feel like we have allowed trolls in social media to frame the narrative of what the story is, and it’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable, and we have to do a better job.”

This genie escaped from its bottle early. It would have been perfectly appropriate, for instance, to point out that the WNBA is a different level of basketball, no rookie can be expected to dominate it from day one and Caitlin Clark would need time to adjust. There were ways to say that other than Taurasi’s “reality is coming,” and other remarks that made it sound as if The W elders were rooting for Clark to fall on her face. The wrong tone was set.

Of course, it’s annoying to veteran players that a rookie is drawing attention the league never had before. Clark is not the first great women’s basketball player, any more than Patrick Mahomes is the first great quarterback, or Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge are the first great baseball players. But they are what this generation has, and all are bringing more money into their sports that will benefit all.

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Clark, like some generational players, seems averse to speaking on hot-button political and social issues, and it’s hard to blame her. But in this time and place, that is hard to avoid. Many of the people Thomas was talking about are not Indiana Fever fans, nor, really, Clark fans. They are fans of what they want to believe she represents.

In June, Clark was asked about her name being used to promote racist or misogynist agendas and said it was “beyond her control.” Carrington criticized her on social media for not speaking out more forcefully, and Clark clarified later that day, saying it was “disappointing” and “unacceptable.”

During the season, Clark was on the wrong end of various flagrant fouls and when she was poked in the eye on Sunday, some assumed there was some connection to her earlier interaction with Carrington. Clark, herself, brushed it off as a “basketball play.” This is what it has come to, as White pointed out, social media controlling narratives. Even something as harmless as the Sun’s in-game “bandwagon cam,” poking fun at Indiana fans in the sellout crowd, kid stuff compared to what you might see at a Yankees game in Boston or Baltimore, a Red Sox game in New York or a Cowboys game in the Meadowlands, had the fun sucked out of it.

In September, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert awkwardly compared Clark and rookie Angel Reese to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. “There’s no more apathy,” she told CNBC. “Everybody cares. It is a little of that Bird-Magic moment if you recall from 1979, when those two rookies came in from a big college rivalry, one white, one Black. And so we have that moment with these two.”

That was rejected by various players, including Breanna Stewart, and Englebert later clarified, saying there was “no place for hate or racism in the WNBA or anywhere else.”

Sides, the Fever coach, was not asked about this specifically after her team was eliminated, but in talking about the Fever’s rise from a 1-8 start to make playoffs, she moved onto this topic, referring to abuse directed at Indiana players due to preseason expectations.

“It’s a lot of hurtful, hateful speech out there that’s happening, and it’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable for any of these guys,” Sides said. “This is basketball, and this is their job, and they’re doing the best they can. And when it gets personal to me that is just when, I mean, there’s no reason part, and these guys have to listen and watch that. Social media is their life. That’s just what they do. And they have to read and see these things constantly, and just all the stories that are made up just of what people see or think they see. … It’s just this new world that we’re in, and it is just not acceptable when it gets personal for these guys to have to deal with that.”

Clark and teammate Aliyah Boston flanked their coach on the dais, but were not asked to weigh in, and didn’t.

Anyone in the public eye, including sportswriters, can be a target for hateful correspondence. It has always been an unpleasant part of the job, unacceptable, no place for it, all true. But now that this genie is out of the bottle and so far out of control, it’s not going to be easy to contain it and find a solution. One can ignore it, easier said than done, and it may go away after a long period of time. One can respond, and risk giving attention, oxygen, to those who perpetrate such abuse.

Now that Clark’s long year in the intense spotlight is over, the next comparisons are bound to be made when TV ratings are revealed for playoff series to be played without her. By then, she will be trying to decompress, joked about playing some golf. Clark can use a break from all this, and so can The W, to reflect on its mishandling of a lustrous opportunity to grow in national sports awareness, and how to do it better going forward.

But in Connecticut, where women’s basketball has been a mainstream sport and treated as such for a long time, we can try to focus on the Sun and Napheesa Collier when the semifinals get here next week. That would be an ideal world, and a simpler time.