In case you have been living on the dark side of the Moon for the last several months, last month Caitlin Clark entered the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as the no. 1 draft pick. She is the 22-year-old phenom from the University of Iowa who smashed records for NCAA women's (and men's) basketball total scoring, most tournament scoring, most single-season 3-pointers, and so on (and on).
Unfortunately, she made a poor choice of her skin pigmentation (she's white), so she has received more than the normal amount of rookie-year hazing from her fellow WNBAers.
It's not often that the WNBA dominates the nation's sports reporting, but that happened recently, when Chicago Sky player Chennedy Carter gave Clark a vicious blind-side shoulder shiver, a maneuver usually limited to NFL linemen trying to create a hole in the defense. It's a great football move but is illegal in basketball and, under the circumstances, was particularly inappropriate. Let us explain.
When James Naismith invented basketball in 1891, it was designed as a non-contact sport to allow athletes to compete during the winter without the fear of injuries such as occur with football. There were 13 original rules. No. 5:
No shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping or striking in any way the person of an opponent shall be allowed. The first infringement of this rule by any person shall count as a foul, the second shall disqualify him until the next goal is made, or if there was evident intent to injure the person, for the whole of the game, no substitute.
So, for years, basketball was considered a non-contact sport. This began to change in the 1950s and soon basketball was reclassified as a contact sport. But to indicate that it was still supposed to be less violent than football, a new category was created: "Collision Sports." Thus, basketball was still considered to be more genteel than football.
Meanwhile, the charging rule was created:
In basketball, a charging foul is an offensive foul that occurs when an offensive player makes significant contact with a defender who is in a legal guarding position. This can happen while dribbling, shooting, or without the ball. A defender is in a legal guarding position when they have both feet on the floor and are facing their opponent with their feet and torso.
How quaint. Now in the NCAA (college basketball) we have North Carolina State University male player D.J. Burns being lauded for using the "butt charge" – and his opponent getting charged with a foul. But perhaps because the new feminism dictates that women must act at least as badly as men, in the WNBA we now have players saying things and making gestures that are disagreeable enough to get them ejected.
Beyond that, there are unprovoked assaults, like Carter's on Clark, that would land the aggressor in jail if done in a civilian setting, but in the WNBA results only in a simple foul call. This combination of bad attitude and assault, if permitted, should result in a new category of sports, which for brevity we will call "BadAss Sports." (We coin that term disapprovingly.)
Of course, hockey is the original BadAss sport. Who could forget "enforcers" such as Dave "The Hammer" Schultz with a total of 2,294 penalty minutes, or Dave "Cementhead" Semenko, who went on to fight Muhammad Ali?
It seems clear that integral to this vibe we need nicknames, so in the tradition of BadAss sports we have some suggestions for the WNBA.
For Chennedy Carter, how about "Cheap-Shot Chennedy?" And for her number one cheerleader and teammate Angel Reese, how about "I'no Angel?"
And as in hockey, Caitlin Clark's team will need to provide her with a bodyguard. Since Cementhead probably isn't available, they might have to look within their roster. How about Victaria Saxton? At 6' 2" and 180 pounds, could she become "Vicious Victaria?" Or if that proves insufficient, how about 6' 5", 220-pound Aliyah Boston – "Ali-gator"? Caitlin Clark will, of course, need her own nickname. Since she appears to have a gender affinity different from many other WNBAers, perhaps she could be "Straight Cait."
But there is another group deserving of recognition: the referees. For their keen powers of observation in calling the nine-count knockdown of Caitlin Clark as just an ordinary foul – not a "flagrant" one or one worthy of expulsion from the game – they should receive the Stevie Wonder Vision Award.
Finally, there is the 87.5% diverse Women's Olympics Basketball Committee that recently decided that the U.S. team did not need the revenue or publicity that Caitlin would bring to the Olympics. Thus, her fans back in Iowa and the millions of others around the U.S. will just have to wait another four years to see the Greatest Player of All Time play in the world's greatest forum. After all, if the viewership of the women's event surpassed that of the men's (as happened in the NCAA finals, thanks to Caitlin), they might have to pay them the same. We guess we're not ready for that. For this group we have another special award; for their keen insights into the public's desires, the Bud Light Superior Marketing Prize.
Tom Hafer developed systems for neutralizing rockets and drones. He currently coaches teenage robotics teams. Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is the Glenn Swogger Distinguished Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health. Hafer and Miller were undergraduates together at MIT.