Watch Colin Cowherd of FS1’s The Herd downplay the hysteria around another notable hard flagrant foul on Indiana Fever rookie star Caitlin Clark, as Colin says Clark’s punishment has simply been some rookie ‘hazing’ that all great phenoms across sports have had to endure.
Check out the segment above as Colin details why he thinks the natural chippiness of basketball is being hijacked by non-basketball media members parachuting into WNBA conversations who are trying to make Clark’s rookie baptism into something that it’s not.
Colin Cowherd: “This stuff is so predictable... Everybody's freaking out with Caitlin Clark... Angel Reese is picking on her and hard fouls... Major League Baseball is a good comp here. Because Major League Baseball and the WNBA always feel like they're ignored. They’re very protective of 'THERE’S A WAY TO PLAY THE GAME!’, it’s very insular, it’s a very ‘PAY YOUR DUES!’ mentality. So when good looking and cool Bryce Harper came into Major League Baseball basically out of high school, he got into a fist fight with one of his teammates. They were throwing at him, it was very much ‘YOU’RE THE PRODIGY! YOU’RE THE HOT SHOT!’, and it didn’t last 6-7 games, it lasted like three years. You heard a lot of this preachy stuff of ‘THERE’S A WAY TO PLAY THE GAME!’ Baseball is very insular. There is a way to play the game and there are ‘unwritten rules.'
The WNBA -- similarly ignored and lamenting the publicity -- and here comes the Iowa hot shot and it’s ‘PAY YOUR DUES TIME!’, and they’re pushing her around and there's flagrant fouls. The WNBA to a fault has a little bit of a ‘US vs. everybody else’, and Caitlin Clark is an outsider. They're going to make her pay her dues. I’ve seen this stuff before and so have you. Remember Kanye West and Taylor Swift? Is it race? Is it jealousy? Probably a little bit of both. There's all sorts of things converging here.
You see it in fraternities – hazing. You see it in the military. Insular, very tribal, certain societies; this is how we operate. This is hazing but not nearly as ugly as the private hazing that we've had historically at fraternities and in the military.
This is all very predictable. This is what Bryce Harper went through. Harper went through it for years, I don't think she will. She's a very good basketball player, she's getting better. She's now at 16 a game, six assists, five rebounds, she's great with the ball in her hands. She's fantastic, she sees the floor, she's a brilliant passer -- it's all working out, but this is predictable. The media doesn't quite know what to do with it, yet the women -- Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark do. This is a win for women's basketball. These flagrant fouls are a win. I defended Draymond Green forever so I'm going to be outraged by this? It's a flagrant foul. She got up and played, okay?
Women who have committed flagrant fouls are not all ‘villains’. Diana Taurasi had one last year, is she a villain? No, it's part of basketball. Every industry has got a little ugly side, a little provincial side, a little tribal side... This is it in basketball; NBA and the WNBA. The women are figuring out how to handle it. It's the people who parachute into this sport that never watched it that don't understand the chippiness that you get in the WNBA. People that don't watch the WNBA -- I'm one of them -- parachute in and are outraged. Spare me on your ‘outrage’, when like six months ago you didn't know the league existed. I’m so over outrage. Everybody's outraged on the internet, everybody's outraged on TikTok, give me a break. If you didn't know something existed six months ago, or didn't watch it, I'm not interested in your outrage today. Caitlin is fine, Angel Reese is excellent -- they're part of probably maybe the best WNBA rookie class of all time. Take a deep breath, we're all, especially Caitlin Clark, going to be okay.”
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