0:01

I'm going deep into my wife's family

0:03

history, digging up the cold case

0:05

of her murdered great-grandmother. And did I mention

0:07

that I'm looking into whether the murderer was actually

0:10

the beloved family patriarch? Binge

0:12

all episodes of Ghost Story ad-free

0:15

right now on Wondery Plus.

0:24

Emma, you recently wrote about a bus

0:26

ride that Iowa basketball star Caitlin

0:28

Clark took a few months ago.

0:30

Can you paint a picture of that bus ride for us

0:33

and explain what Caitlin Clark realized

0:35

at the end of it?

0:38

So the women's team is on the bus

0:40

back from the airport, flying home from

0:43

Dallas, where they played in the Final Four, advanced

0:45

to the first national title game in program history,

0:48

and lost. They've

1:04

been on the road for weeks through the

1:06

tournament, had this kind of fairy

1:08

tale ride that didn't end the way they wanted

1:10

to. And the players, I think, were all

1:12

just really kind of coming down off

1:15

this big emotional roller coaster and weren't

1:17

expecting there to be anything there for them because

1:19

they lost. But there are so

1:21

many people that have come out to meet

1:24

their bus, to welcome the team home to Iowa,

1:26

that they've had to move the whole

1:28

gathering. And local TV cameras are rolling

1:30

live, and they've been waiting for hours.

1:32

Hundreds of fans have come together here

1:34

at the Iowa River Landing to celebrate

1:37

the Hawkeyes coming home. No hard feelings

1:39

over yesterday's loss, as the fans here

1:41

are still happy over the team's historic

1:43

run. There are just hundreds and hundreds

1:46

of people who have come with posters and signs

1:48

and just want to greet this team and welcome them

1:50

back.

1:56

And for Kaitlin Clark, who's the star

1:58

of this team, she'd gotten on that bus. in her

2:00

pajamas because she didn't think there was going to be

2:02

anything on the end of the bus ride and had

2:04

to realize this had reached a totally new

2:07

level.

2:08

She'd always been a star in Iowa.

2:17

This is where she was born and raised and grew up and chose

2:19

to stay for college, but now this March Madness really

2:22

unlocked another level of how people

2:24

watch her, watch the theme and respond

2:26

to what they're doing. Let's go Hawks! Let's

2:29

go Hawks! Let's go Hawks! Let's

2:31

go Hawks! As

2:34

past season,

2:36

Iowa basketball star, excellent clerk, re-wrote just about

2:38

every individual record

2:40

in women's college basketball.

2:44

Along the way, she and her teammates sparked

2:47

a mania unlike anything seen in Iowa before.

3:00

Today,

3:04

M.F.B.A. walks through Caitlin Clark's journey

3:06

from

3:06

youth basketball prodigy to now

3:23

recipient

3:31

of the highest possible honor in Iowa, her

3:33

own butter sculpture at the Iowa

3:35

State Fair. Plus, can

3:37

Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes achieve the

3:39

one thing that has eluded her during

3:42

her college career? From wondering,

3:44

I'm

3:44

under Skelto. It's Wednesday,

3:46

November 1st. This is the

3:48

week. I

3:54

want to ask you more about this Caitlin

3:57

Clark mania as I believe you referred

3:59

to it in your story.

5:55

81 to 56

6:03

win over Illinois.

6:06

They get the regular season sweep and they're

6:08

gonna meet this first WNBA

6:10

picks in program history making

6:12

it back to the sweet six team for the first time in decades.

6:15

A player named Megan Gustafson

6:17

who was the first player of the year in 2018. A

6:19

lot of pass inside Juffison. She

6:21

catches to not bring the ball down and

6:23

lays it up and in. About Megan

6:26

Gustafson, 25 points, 15

6:30

rebounds, and

6:33

her 51st career double

6:35

double. And then of course you

6:37

have Kaitlin Clark coming on campus in 2020 and really taking

6:39

new heights. Alright

6:41

well as you mentioned just as Iowa

6:44

was finding its footing again as a national

6:47

powerhouse basketball program the

6:49

girl who would become I think inarguably

6:51

their best ever player who was finishing her ascent

6:54

as a youth basketball prodigy. Tell

6:56

us what you can about Kaitlin Clark's early

6:58

years. What made her stand out as a youth

7:00

player and just how much buzz was there around her when

7:02

she was growing up?

7:03

Yeah she was a player who had a little

7:06

bit slower of an arc compared to some teen

7:08

prodigies or she was really small really

7:10

skinny through middle school but once you hit high school

7:12

she was purely on another planet

7:14

from the talent around her. Kaitlin

7:16

Clark one-on-one puts Williams on

7:19

the spin cycle extra risk. She

7:21

was also a phenomenal soccer

7:22

player all state through the

7:24

middle of high school and she had to put it in the side and

7:27

that really helped her with her vision,

7:29

passing angles, her

7:31

scoring ability, her passing ability, off

7:33

the charts.

7:34

Kaitlin Clark up to 10.

7:36

She has 10 points, the rest of the team is 14. Those

7:40

youth national teams like completely

7:42

blowing away everyone around her by the time she's

7:45

early into high school and was clearly going

7:47

to have her pick a blue chip

7:49

program as one of the top prospects

7:51

in the country heading into her senior

7:53

year of high school. I'd say Oregon, Oregon

7:56

State, Ohio, Illinois, Miami,

7:58

too, Texas. for

8:01

probably the main tool. There's a lot. Yeah.

8:04

Yeah. So my five essentials I can take. So

8:06

we'll see what I do with that and then make

8:09

the best of the best decisions.

8:13

And you talked to current Iowa head coach, Lisa

8:15

Bluder about Caitlin Clark's time

8:17

at Iowa for the story that you wrote. What

8:20

did you learn about Caitlin Clark's impact when

8:22

she arrived as a freshman at Iowa? What

8:24

made her exceptional as a player

8:26

and what did coach Bluder think she needed

8:29

to work on?

8:30

Yeah, she presented a really interesting

8:32

dilemma for a coach and that you have a player

8:34

here who is transcendent in a

8:36

lot of ways. You can shoot from all over the court, demands

8:39

a lot of her teammates, but it's a system where

8:41

you need to teach her to refine that

8:43

energy in a lot of ways because she

8:45

was used to trying to do absolutely

8:48

everything. When high school on her

8:50

AAU team, she was so used

8:52

to being the single person that

8:55

when you're at a higher level and you're surrounded by more

8:57

talent, you don't have to score 50 points

8:59

a night. And you probably shouldn't be. And then

9:01

from a more emotional, mental teammate

9:04

side, she was really competitive, really intense, which

9:06

are great things, but you also have

9:08

to learn how to balance that. She'd been very

9:10

open about the fact that she wanted to lead Iowa

9:13

back to the final four, something it hadn't done in her

9:15

lifetime. And if you want to achieve

9:17

goals like that,

9:18

you have to be able to work as a team

9:20

and not be so competitive and so intense

9:22

about everything all the time.

9:26

She is super competitive about everything,

9:28

which with athletes, you hear this

9:30

a lot with ping pong or the driving

9:32

range. And teammates do say that it's

9:34

true about Caitlin, but it's also things

9:37

that are not a competitive structure at

9:39

all. A few of them brought up a pizza

9:41

making class, which was just supposed to be a casual,

9:44

laid back team bonding. And Caitlin

9:46

made it a competition and still insists her

9:48

pizza was the best of all the pizzas. So

9:51

just super intense with everything she does all

9:53

the time.

9:55

And how has Caitlin Clark

9:57

adapted and matured over the last couple of years?

10:00

of seasons, you know, both in terms of her playing

10:02

style within the team and in her mental

10:04

approach to the game.

10:06

In terms of her playing style, where you've seen the most

10:08

growth is her passing game.

10:10

What a scene!

10:12

All the finish for Mo. A

10:16

gorgeous lead pass from Taylor

10:18

Park. The

10:19

way that she runs the offense and facilitates,

10:22

there's been a pretty big... She

10:25

came into college pretty good at that. She

10:27

was averaging seven assists a game

10:29

as a freshman, but that went up to almost nine

10:31

assists last year. You can tell

10:34

the way that she's really running the offense

10:36

and working in her teammates is different

10:38

than if she was a freshman.

10:42

She's

10:47

not going off script so much. It was a term that Lisa

10:49

Bluder used. She understands

10:51

when you have to stick with what

10:53

a game calls for in a specific moment and when

10:56

it's final minute, you're down three, you have to

10:58

do something crazy. Truly, you know, Caitlin

11:00

has a different set of rules because she's a special player.

11:03

A couple years ago when she was a freshman,

11:04

I probably lost a

11:06

little bit of hair pulling my hair out at times and

11:08

we've come to a good agreement now on when those

11:10

shots are good and when they're not.

11:11

And it sounds like she's also grown

11:13

tremendously. As a teammate, as a person, she

11:16

really has invested a lot in reigning

11:18

in her emotions, in being a leader on

11:21

the floor off it. It's been a huge focus

11:23

and everyone says she's

11:24

come really far in that as well. And

11:26

Emma, you talked to Caitlin Clark for this story.

11:28

Did you talk to her about her playing style and

11:31

the evolution of her playing style at all? And

11:33

if so, what did she have to say about it? Yeah,

11:35

I mean, she doesn't apologize

11:38

for the way she plays. She thinks sometimes

11:40

there are some double standards here around gender

11:42

when we talk about a player who's really fiery

11:44

and emotional and that women's basketball

11:46

players should be able to talk trash and be intense

11:49

and celebrate, to be really excited about

11:51

wins and to take losses hard.

11:52

Women can be competitive, they can be fierce, they can

11:55

have fun, they can compete, they can show

11:57

emotion. And to me, that's how the game

11:59

should be played.

11:59

i've always played it obviously our game

12:01

but she did acknowledge they had to work on the

12:04

extremes they are they have to be able to know

12:06

when something is too much when a potentially

12:09

at risk for a technical or putting

12:11

myself or the team in a situation that we shouldn't be

12:13

an or

12:14

i'm a competitor be honest about the court

12:16

like as was not everything to me

12:18

i love my name on else on the have understood

12:21

as my time's gone college is like or

12:23

moss the role does it and she

12:24

wanted to work on this and has put in the effort

12:27

with a sports psychologists who with some

12:29

other professionals that the team has on south

12:31

to make sure that she's able to feel fully

12:33

in control and not let promotions

12:35

get away from her

12:37

okay and at the risk of make you talk

12:39

for about sixty minutes consecutively here

12:41

and i can just remind us what exactly caitlin

12:43

clark accomplished last season

12:46

yeah it was an incredible season national

12:48

player of the year basically every

12:50

a word that exists out there average

12:52

almost twenty points a game seven

12:54

rebounds almost nine assists see hide

12:57

it the first forty point triple doubles

12:59

in it than subtly tournament

13:01

by any player ever male or female

13:04

for santa player it has to backtrack forty

13:06

point games in the tournaments just as laundry

13:08

list says athletes and honors and things

13:10

that no one else had done she did

13:13

them all it's crazy range

13:15

making shots that seemingly no one else could make

13:17

great passing much more complete player than she

13:19

was even to see or ago this really

13:22

knock everyone sort of well

13:24

this i would team generated

13:26

so much buzz during as a tournament

13:29

this past spring and when they played alice you

13:31

in the as had a championship games

13:33

in early april the television viewership

13:35

numbers absolute went through the roof as

13:38

many people remember there was a moment during that

13:40

game that was talked about and dissected

13:42

for days if not weeks afterwards especially

13:44

online i'm a canoe just remind

13:47

us what unfolded between caitlin clarksville

13:49

as you start angel research and then how and

13:51

your opinion caitlin clark handle that

13:53

situation

13:56

he asked the scissors trash

13:58

talk seen around the

13:59

road. The last move at the

14:01

basketball leading

14:03

by 13. We've out posted LSU

14:06

firmly in control.

14:09

Angel Reese says it became clear that

14:11

LSU was going to win. She took a gesture

14:13

that Kaitlin Martin made the previous game of

14:16

waving her hand in front of her face like, I'm not fazed,

14:18

you can't see me. Took that, turned

14:21

it back on Iowa, also tapping to her

14:23

ring finger, being clear they were going to win.

14:24

And Angel Reese knows

14:27

a ring is coming. And

14:30

yes, those images traveled everywhere,

14:32

sparked lots of conversation with talk about gender

14:35

and race and how all of that is wrapped

14:37

up in how we discuss these things. She Angel

14:39

Reese is right. If you were going

14:41

to be critical of Kaitlin Clark

14:44

when she was talking trash, then

14:46

don't be critical of the black

14:48

girl. I'm just going to say it, of the black girl, of course,

14:50

when she does the same thing. Both

14:52

players made it clear that trash talk is part

14:54

of the game. They're both really passionate, intense

14:57

players. And that's part and

14:59

parcel of playing. I love a basketball.

15:01

Kaitlin said she didn't have any problem with Angel. She

15:04

played a good game and LSU won,

15:06

had the right to say what they wanted. The thing is, you

15:08

know, we're all competitive. We all show our emotions

15:10

in a different way. You know, Angel's a tremendous, tremendous

15:13

player. I have nothing but respect for her. I

15:15

love her game.

15:15

So I don't think there should be any criticism

15:17

for what she did. She also said

15:19

something similar after the fact. She

15:21

didn't have any problem with Kaitlin. It was just in

15:23

the moment, celebrating, being passionate.

15:26

Hey, Kaitlin Clark is a hell of a player for

15:28

sure. I wanted to pick her pocket, but I

15:30

had a moment at the end of the game and I was just in my bag.

15:33

I was in my moment.

15:35

They both seem to move on pretty quickly. The

15:37

rest of the world, not so much. But both

15:39

of them kind of put the message out there. It's just part of the

15:41

game that that's not some sign of some great, big,

15:43

personal petty beef. It was

15:45

just a championship game where they were both really intense

15:48

and going for it. And that was how

15:50

it came out.

15:53

Did that feel like another piece

15:55

in the Kaitlin Clark evolution for you as well

15:58

and like a sign of her maturing? even

16:00

more so as a player?

16:01

Absolutely. Being able to acknowledge after

16:03

the fact like, yes, we lost, it's

16:06

fixed.

16:06

This was painful, but here's what I took from it.

16:09

And I still respect her as a player,

16:11

all of that. She had put so much work into being

16:13

able to keep herself centered, not finding

16:15

herself going over the edge in really tense

16:17

emotional moments. I think that showed through both

16:20

in the moment and then with as much as she was invited

16:23

to talk about it afterwards.

16:24

But I think the biggest thing is, you know, it was a competitive,

16:26

super, super fun game. And I think that's

16:28

what's going to bring more people to our game. I'm just lucky

16:30

to be on that stage, you know, competing against some

16:32

of the best players. And I think people are really

16:34

starting to realize how good our game is.

16:37

All right. Well, let's now move on to the main

16:39

thing I wanted to ask you about today, Emma. The Caitlin

16:41

Clark fever that gripped the state

16:43

of Iowa during the season. And that seems to

16:45

have only grown since then. Tell

16:47

us about the signs or the

16:50

symptoms, I guess, of this Caitlin Clark

16:52

fever.

16:52

It seemed like everywhere she went this summer,

16:54

there was a crowd waiting. The

16:56

Hawkeye basketball superstar throughout

16:58

the first pitch today. The Iowa Cubs game.

17:01

Honestly, I'm just trying to throw a strike, throw

17:03

hard, get it there. I just don't want to make sports

17:05

center nuts on time. It was more than just the Iowa

17:07

Cubs. A minor league team held Caitlin Clark

17:10

tonight and it was the first time they sold out since before

17:12

the pandemic. Clark also spent an hour

17:14

or so signing autographs for

17:17

hundreds of fans that walked to the stadium.

17:19

When the team did its Europe

17:21

trip overseas in August, even

17:24

people that they saw in Croatia and Italy

17:26

recognized her on the street, asked for a photo. The

17:30

butter sculpture, as you mentioned, at the Iowa State

17:32

Fair every year has a butter cow.

17:34

And then they pick a few people to

17:37

sculpt besides the cow. And this year, one of

17:39

those was Caitlin Clark, which is a pretty big deal.

17:41

And we better not forget

17:43

Caitlin Clark, right? Her likeness will be right

17:45

next to the other athletes and by the famous butter

17:48

cow.

17:48

It's a really rare honor in the past.

17:50

You have Abraham Lincoln, Elvis,

17:53

Harry Potter, Tiger Woods, John

17:56

Wayne. You have to be in the upper echelon

17:58

of achievement in whatever. your field is to get

18:01

yourself sculpted in butter.

18:05

Okay. And beyond the butter sculptures

18:08

and minor league baseball games, which if I'm not mistaken,

18:10

also included Caitlin Clark, bobblehead dolls,

18:13

Emma, I understand that tickets for Iowa

18:15

Hawkeyes games have apparently become a very

18:17

hot commodity. Can you tell us what's happening on

18:20

that front?

18:20

So Iowa for the first time ever

18:23

has sold out its entire season for

18:25

women's basketball, 15,000 tickets roughly. For

18:28

each game well before this even started,

18:30

which is pretty wild considering this is

18:32

a program that has done well with attendance

18:34

in the last couple of years. But it has

18:37

sold out only a handful of games. And now

18:39

you're talking about selling out in an entire season.

18:42

Pretty remarkable. And I think says a lot about the

18:44

way that Iowa city and the state of Iowa

18:47

feels about Caitlin Clark and about this program. And

18:49

you also saw that in October when

18:52

the team had an exhibition game for charity

18:54

in their football stadium, trying to set a record

18:56

for the largest women's basketball crowd ever,

18:58

and they did it with more than 50,000 people in the stand.

19:01

55,646 people watching this basketball game. The

19:08

all time attendance record for

19:10

women's basketball set today.

19:13

And Caitlin had a triple double in that

19:15

game, gave the people what they came for.

19:18

There it is. And

19:21

a triple double outside.

19:24

It's been said before, but what

19:26

can't Caitlin Clark do?

19:29

Just showed, I think, how much intensity

19:31

there is for this program and what the energy

19:33

is like for the Iowa women's talk

19:35

guys right now.

19:36

And what's your sense of how Caitlin Clark is handling

19:39

all of this buzz and all of this excitement

19:41

and all of the expectations that she now faces?

19:44

For

19:47

any player in a face, you're

19:48

talking about someone who's 21 years old

19:51

and is being pulled in a lot of different

19:53

directions. But she seems

19:55

pretty true to herself,

19:58

but she hasn't sought a ton of advice. from

20:00

people outside her circle. So just really depending

20:02

on her family, her teammates, and

20:05

just trying to stay

20:07

centered as she navigates what I'd be

20:09

the last year for college career,

20:10

and then figuring

20:11

out everything else as it comes along. Coach

20:14

Woodroy says pressure is a privilege. I wouldn't

20:16

want it any other way. We want to be ranked in the top 10.

20:18

We want to sold out arena. We want fans on the

20:20

road doing us. Like, that's what a competitor

20:23

wants. You welcome it. You enjoy

20:25

it. And at the end of the day, you understand. Like,

20:27

this is special.

20:31

Okay, coming up, what stands between Caitlin Clark

20:33

and the one prize that has eluded her?

20:42

Have you ever seriously pissed off your in-laws? A

20:45

couple of years ago, I started investigating a murder in my wife's family.

20:49

Why would I do something so stupid? Well,

20:51

partly because I've come to suspect that the

20:53

woman who was killed is haunting the house I grew

20:55

up in. It was a weight in the bed like

20:58

somebody was in it. I

21:00

woke up because my bed was shaking.

21:02

That would be like, shake, shake, shake,

21:05

shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake,

21:07

shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. But mainly because I think someone

21:09

in the

21:09

family might have got away with murder. Am

21:11

I in-laws? Well, they're not exactly thrilled about it. You

21:14

are deconstructing an age-old story. We're

21:18

going to be more traumatized by this podcast than we were about

21:20

the murder, I'll tell you that. There is going to be blood-curdling.

21:24

There is going to be blowback.

21:27

I'm Tristan Redmond, and from Wandery and Pineapple

21:29

Three Studios, this is Ghost Story, a

21:32

podcast about the things that come back

21:34

to haunt us. Follow Ghost Story on the Wandery app

21:36

or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge

21:38

all episodes of Ghost Story ad-free right

21:40

now by joining Wandery Plus.

21:48

All right, spinning this forward a little bit here,

21:51

Emma, what is the outlook for the Iowa women's

21:53

basketball team this season? How much firepower

21:55

did they lose, and how do you expect

21:57

this year's team to compare to last year's team? going

22:00

to be a very different team from last year. Obviously

22:02

there is so much attention on Caitlin.

22:05

You still have her here leading this offense,

22:07

but her pick and roll partner and the

22:09

second score leading rebounder on this team,

22:12

Monica, as an Anno, she graduated.

22:14

She was also one of the best players in program

22:17

history. I think that kind of gets overlooked. That's

22:20

a big loss, both in terms of just the presence

22:22

and the pain, the connection she really seemed

22:24

to have with Caitlin. That's going to take

22:26

an adjustment after they spent years together. McKenna

22:29

Warnock, another player that graduated who

22:31

did a lot for this team. Some

22:33

players who had mostly been on the bench last year

22:35

will be taking a step forward. Notably

22:37

Hannah Stolke was big 10 sixth woman of the

22:39

year. Now she's going to be starting, but

22:42

it's going to be a different team. Getting back

22:44

to that title game is going to be really hard for Iowa,

22:46

but with the group that you have at the center here,

22:49

Caitlin Clark, Kate Martin, Gappy Marshall, it's

22:52

certainly possible to make a run like they did

22:54

last year. It's just going to be a bit more of an uphill

22:56

climb.

22:57

Which teams in your opinion will be their

22:59

biggest competition this season, both in the big 10

23:01

and nationally?

23:02

In the big 10 you have Ohio State who

23:04

has a phenomenal defense. I think they could easily

23:07

take the big 10 and soak it in Deanna, which

23:09

is also a phenomenal team. Nationally

23:11

you have LSU who obviously won

23:13

last year and then brought in some huge transfers

23:16

over the summer. That program looks

23:18

even better than it did last year. It's just a little bit scary.

23:20

You have UConn has been hampered

23:23

by injuries over the last couple of

23:25

years. And I think now you're looking at this group finally

23:27

getting to play full strength. If they stay healthy all

23:29

year round, I think they could easily win the title. South

23:32

Carolina is kind of taking a step back. They

23:34

had a lot of players graduate, but this

23:37

program has been so good for so long under

23:39

Don Salio that I don't think you can ever really count

23:41

them out. It should be a really fun season.

23:43

I think there's

23:43

a lot of great storylines in women's college ball right now

23:46

and lots to get excited about. Caitlin Clark

23:48

will be a senior this season, but because of the pandemic

23:50

shortened year, she'll actually have the option to

23:52

stay and play for a fifth year. How is

23:55

she thinking about that decision and what do you think

23:57

she will eventually decide to do?

23:59

into this year treating it as if it

24:02

will be her last year because she doesn't want to

24:04

have any regrets if it is her last

24:06

year. I think it's something me

24:08

going into

24:08

this year is I just don't want to live with any regret

24:11

of I don't know if I'm going to stay, I don't know if I'm

24:13

going to go. You know, I think it's just something

24:15

that your time in college is so special

24:17

and it's different. But she's being genuinely conflicted

24:20

as to

24:20

whether she'll stay for a fifth or not. The

24:22

thing is I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I'm just going

24:24

to enjoy every single experience that I have this

24:26

year because each one is unique and each

24:29

one is special in its own way.

24:30

There's a lot more complicating this question than

24:33

there used to be. There's NIL really

24:35

changes the landscape of what's

24:37

available to a player in college in terms of the

24:39

money you're making, the platform you have that

24:42

can make it really attractive to stay. There's

24:45

questions of what the draft lottery is going to be like

24:47

in the WNBA, which uses a two

24:49

year system for the lottery. So there's a couple

24:51

of factors in play there. So she

24:53

is treating it as her last, but is genuinely

24:56

unsure. And I think it is a much harder

24:58

decision than it used to be.

25:00

And lastly here, Emma, if and when Caitlin Clark

25:02

does decide to go pro, do you expect

25:08

the women's basketball fever that she has

25:10

created in Iowa to die off? Or

25:13

do you think it will persist at least to some degree,

25:15

even after she's gone?

25:17

I think it'll shift a little when you have

25:19

a player who's a singular talent like that. Obviously

25:21

that draws in a lot of eyeballs who are going to

25:24

eventually fall off. The

25:26

number of people she has drawn in, what this

25:29

team has done, I think you're going to

25:31

see really sustained interest for quite

25:33

a while.

25:37

Caitlin mentioned in our conversation, the

25:39

number of people that would come up to her and her

25:41

teammates and say, I never watched women's

25:44

basketball before. Now I'm watching you. I

25:46

love this. That's not just for

25:48

her. That's about the rest of the team. That's

25:50

about their

25:51

opponents. That's about

25:53

women's basketball as a whole. I just like

25:55

their energy and how they play and whatnot.

25:58

And I guess it makes me happy. and

26:00

like

26:00

it makes me want to play basketball

26:02

because like seeing how much fun they have with

26:04

it. Yeah,

26:06

some of it will change but I don't think it will fall off entirely

26:09

just because a lot of people are watching something that

26:11

they might not have paid attention to before and have

26:13

realized they actually really like it. No matter

26:15

win or lose or if the team members change around, the

26:17

fans here are still excited and

26:20

cheering on the Hawkeyes and in full support

26:22

of the team. I'm just glad that the

26:25

sport is growing and I can't wait to

26:27

see you next year.

26:31

Well, Emma, thanks for joining us and

26:34

may we both someday also have our likenesses

26:36

carved

26:36

into Buddha for the Iowa State Fair. Of

26:38

course, thank you.

26:41

You can find a link to Emma Batchelieri's story

26:44

about Caitlin Clark in our episode description and

26:46

you can follow all of her reporting at SI.com.

26:49

Thanks for listening today. This episode was produced

26:51

by Matt Biegel and edited by me, Alex

26:53

Bielke.