Sheryl Swoopes is a women’s basketball legend. Four-time WNBA champion with the Houston Comets. Three-time league MVP. Six-time all-star. And a pioneer for the league as the first player to ever be signed.
But there’s one thing that she really, really struggles with when it comes to basketball – saying something intelligent about Iowa Hawkeye Caitlin Clark.
Clark recently broke the NCAA women’s basketball all-time scoring record. She achieved this feat during a game against Michigan on February 15th, where she scored a career-high 49 points.
Swoopes though, tried to downplay her record even before she had broken it by claiming Clark needed a fifth season to top Kelsey Plum, who had a total of 3,527 points over four seasons for the Washington Huskies.
“Because there’s a COVID year, and then there’s another year, you know what I mean?” Swoopes said, clearly not knowing what she herself meant. “So she’s already had an extra year to break that record. So, is it truly a broken record? I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
To use a basketball term, Swoopes’ assertion was a flagrant foul. Clark is in her fourth season at Iowa, achieving the record in the same amount of time as Plum. Swoopes’ confusion was based on the fact that she is eligible to play a fifth season due to a Covid pandemic rule.
Sheryl Swoopes was heavily criticized for the inane comments and pushed back on the assertion that her problem is with the fact that Caitlin Clark is white.
In a recent episode of former NBA star Gilbert Arenas’ podcast “Gil’s Arena,” Swoopes insisted she wasn’t racist.
“I’m gonna say this and then I want to be done with the whole conversation,” she insisted. “For people to come at me and say I made those comments because I’m a racist. First of all, black people can’t be racist. But that’s the farthest thing from my mind.”
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but black people can, in fact, be racist. Just as racist as white people even. Or any other race.
Swoopes went on to say that her background proves she’s not a racist. Which may be true, I’m not judging.
“Like, I grew up in a very small West Texas town – predominantly white. My best childhood friend is white. Went to a predominantly white college. Won a national championship, pretty much everyone on the team was white. We’re sisters to this day,” she explained. “That’s not a part of my DNA.”
That’s fine, Sheryl, but asserting an entire race of people can’t be racist is wrong.
Clark is closing in on Pete Maravich for the Division I men’s and women’s scoring mark. She currently sits just 50 points behind ‘Pistol Pete’s’ mark with two games left to play.
