The WNBA Has Always Been Tough. It’s The Men Who Can’t Stop Crying

Women’s sports have started to gain the modicum of popularity they deserve. But with those viewership numbers, high-profile brand deals and equal pay settlements has also come a (sadly) to-be-expected amount of sexist criticism directed at the athletes — and at WNBA athletes in particular. 

Over the weekend, Chicago Sky teammates Angel Reese and Chennedy Carter became the latest to draw the ire of pearl-clutching hoops fans after the pair went toe-to-toe with Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark. 

Carter committed an off-the-ball foul against Clark, shouldering her to the ground prior to an inbound pass — a move that later earned her an elevated flagrant-1 violation after Saturday’s 71-70 Fever victory. When asked about the foul after the game, Carter simply responded: “I ain’t answering no Caitlin Clark questions.” 

Reese responded to Carter’s foul by leaping off the bench and cheering, then eventually greeting her teammate with a celebratory smile and one-armed embrace. Reese — who maintained a well-documented on-the-court NCAA rivalry with Clark — was later fined for deciding not to appear for a post-game interview. 

Viewers, perhaps many of whom were new to women’s basketball, were quick to condemn both Carter and Reese online while simultaneously voicing concern for Clark and her wellbeing.

“The cheap shots on Caitlin Clark are an embarrassment for the WNBA,” Jake Asman, a sports broadcaster and media personality, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Clark is the only reason I’m even watching a WNBA game right now. What a joke.” 

The real joke is the idea that these women athletes should be viewed as delicate flowers in need of rescuing by their growing fanbase — and not as fierce competitors with natural on-the-court rivals who, like their male counterparts, are vying for a “W.”

In fact, WNBA players both past and present have been low-key begging for the proverbial hand-wringing to stop. After Saturday’s game, Clark herself said that while she “wasn’t expecting” the foul from Carter, “it is what it is.” 

“It’s a physical game, go make the free throw and then execute on offense,” she continued.

Clark did in fact go on to sink her post-foul free throw, making it a one-point game in the 3rd quarter and helping her team secure their second win of the season.

During a May 25 matchup between the Connecticut Sun and Chicago Sky, star forward Alyssa Thomas grabbed Reese by the neck and threw her to the ground as the pair battled for a rebound. Thomas was called for a flagrant-2 foul and automatically ejected from the game. In her post-game press conference, Reese thanked — yes, thanked — Thomas for “sending her a message.” 

“I’m a player. I’m a basketball player … I mean. I want them to come at me every day; I want them to come at everybody,” Reese said. “I mean, they’re not supposed to be nice to me. I hope you all know that.” 

When she was competing at the NCAA level against Clark, Reese clarified that on-the-court trash talking is not personal. “Me and Caitlin Clark don’t hate each other. I want everybody to understand that,” she said. “It’s just a super competitive game.”

Clark agreed, telling the press that both players “want to win more than anything, and that’s how it should be when you’re a competitor.” 

Three-time WNBA champ and 5-time Olympic gold medalist Diana Taurasi even issued a would-be warning to newcomers about the level of physicality at the professional level, regardless of gender. 

“There’s levels to this thing, and that’s just life,” Taurasi told ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt. “We all went through it. You see it on the NBA side and you’re going to see it on this side.”

In other words: Basketball is a physical sport, especially at the collegiate and professional levels. There’s a reason why, as an admittedly sub-par point guard in high school and college, I stayed the hell out of the paint (gulp) and said a silent prayer before attempting to draw an offensive charge (it really hurts).

Clark, Reese and their fellow WNBA players are not lacing up their shoes for a friendly pick-me-up game at the local Y where, in the end, they all receive those participation trophies conservatives can’t stop demonizing. They’re all pushing, shoving, boxing out and shit-talking their way to potential basketball immortality. 

What’s arguably more frustrating is the undeniable fact that, surprise surprise, this level of play and on-the-court animosity is nothing new. Last year, a fight broke out between Layshia Clarendon and Brittney Sykes. In 2019, Kristine Anigwe, Taurasi, Briann January, Kayla Thornton, Kaela Davis and Brittney Griner were all ejected from a game (and on Griner’s bobble-head night no less, gasp!).

Hell, in 2008 there was an all-out bench-clearing brawl between the then-Detroit Shock (now the Dallas Wings) and the Los Angeles Sparks after Candace Parker — considered one of the best WNBA players of all time — was targeted as a rookie. (Legend Lisa Leslie was also involved.) As A’ja Wilson put it, women athletes are “not new to this. We’re true to this.”

It’s even more infuriating to see which players are treated like delicate flowers and which are branded as violent thugs. There’s a reason why no one clutched their pearls after Reese was thrown to the ground by her neck, or why Clark is not met with the same vitriol when she commits an obvious foul. Racism is alive and well in professional sports and has played a painfully obvious role in viewers’ assumptions that white players need protection from their Black opponents.

Athletes throw elbows, shoulder-check, mouth off and lose their cool, regardless of gender or race or the expectations of a chauvinistic society. While Republicans, Kansas City Chiefs kickers and Americans who wax nostalgic about the 1950s may yearn for the days when female athletes were predominantly white, wore skirts and had to be reminded that, “there’s no crying in baseball,” this is 2024. Women are here not to be palatable, dainty or polite, but to loudly and unapologetically take up space and compete, both on and off the court. 

In the words of Taylor Swift: “Players gonna play.”