On Wednesday, just two days after being drafted into the WNBA, Caitlin Clark sat down for her first press conference as an Indiana Fever player. She gave an opening statement and fielded a question about what excites her most about joining the team, but less than four minutes into the conference, things took an uncomfortable turn.
After being given the mic to ask Clark a question, Indianapolis Star sports columnist Gregg Doyel made a heart shape with his hands at Clark, leading Clark to ask him, “You like that?” Doyel responded, “I like that you’re here.” Clark then replied, “I do that at my family after every game, so it’s pretty cool.” Instead of moving on from the awkward moment, Doyel said, “Okay, well, start doing it to me and we’ll get along just fine.”
Although people in the room seemed to laugh off the interaction, online, sports journalists and fans were unimpressed, calling Doyel’s behavior unprofessional, sexist, and creepy. To many, the episode is just the latest example of how women in sports aren’t treated with the same respect that men are, no matter their accomplishments. (Clark, college basketball’s highest scorer, is notably getting paid a base salary of $76,535 for her first year in the WNBA, while the NBA’s first draft pick is expected to make about $10.5 million in base salary in his first year.)
The backlash against Doyel was loud enough that, on Wednesday night, he apologized in a column published in the Star. “I’m devastated to realize I’m part of the problem,” he wrote. Doyel said he’s known locally “for having awkward conversations with people before asking brashly conversational questions.” He said he regularly has such interactions with players and coaches for men’s teams. Doyel said the moment with Clark came in his “haste to be clever, to be familiar and welcoming (or so I thought).” He concluded: “I now realize what I said and how I said it was wrong, wrong, wrong. I mean it was just wrong. Caitlin Clark, I’m so sorry.”
