Kudos to Dawn Staley for her honesty and leadership here.
At the time, Caitlin Clark’s omission from the Paris Olympics USA women’s basketball roster was the snub heard around the world. (That is unless you have different ideas about what Team USA is supposed to represent.) After the Indiana Fever superstar’s recent rampage through the WNBA over the last month, she’s started to turn heads.
That apparently also applies to the USA Basketball committee.
In an interview with Mike Tirico on Sunday, Staley admitted that Clark’s string of dominance lately has folks with USA basketball seemingly reconsidering whether they made the right decision to leave her off the Olympic team.
While Staley didn’t outright say anyone made a mistake, her usage of “high consideration” makes it seem apparent she’s implying Clark probably would’ve been on the roster if they had seen her dominate like this earlier:
Dawn Staley, a member of the USWNT selection committee, asked about Caitlin Clark.
“If we had to do it all over again, the way that she’s playing, she would be in really high consideration of making the team because she is playing head and shoulders above a lot of people.” pic.twitter.com/hMYqTsPWzc
— Scott Agness (@ScottAgness) July 28, 2024
You know what? Shoutout to Dawn Staley.
This is what real leaders do. They don’t pout. They don’t react in defiance to criticism (though much of it felt unwarranted). They let the game do the talking and take accountability and responsibility for their actions in the event that new eye-opening information has shifted the paradigm for a key team decision.
In this case, Clark’s dominance pushed Staley to imply that she was an Olympics-worthy player on national television. It takes nerve to even suggest that you might have been wrong on such a large platform.
There’s a reason everyone rightfully respects Staley so much.
Clark didn’t make the Olympics this time. In hindsight, it might have been a huge mistake. But Team USA is likely still going to win gold running away, and 2028 will be around before we know it.
With candid comments like this from Staley, all the controversy should be water under the bridge.
