Fever with Headache

Share

In the world of entertainment, “best-known” doesn’t always mean “best.” Even without any snobby allusions to the ‘lowest common denominator’, it’s highly subjective. In sports, however, leaving aside some infamous examples, the names that ring out the loudest tend to have earned that honour.

Muhammad Ali. Michael Jordan. Wayne Gretzky. Serena Williams. Athletes who transcended their sports by dominating them.

Caitlin Clark is not the best player in women’s basketball. She’s very good, likely better than her critics would acknowledge... but not the best. And yet, people who couldn’t name another WNBA player, who’ve never seen so much as a highlight, know her name. For better or worse.

This week, the Caitlin Clark circus is coming to town. And some customs worker is going to have their hands full, because she comes with a lot of baggage.

Honestly, it’s why I’m ambivalent about seeing Tuesday’s game. From a basketball perspective, I should be excited. It’s the first home game in a stretch, it’s the LAST home game for a stretch, AND it’s Aneesah Morrow’s Toronto debut. And in terms of the Fever, in addition to Clark, the team’s big three includes Aliyah Boston, one of the best post-players in the game, and Kelsey Mitchell, a scoring machine with blistering pace. Plus, eyes on the game – to the degree that any local Caitlin stans will actually watch the game – should be a good thing. But all the non-basketball stuff - in fact, the stuff I use Tempo games to get away from - is also coming into the building.

In many ways, I feel bad for Caitlin Clark that she’s become this political figure. I think she’s in an impossible position, all the more so given her age. When the Republican Study Committee, consisting of members of Congress, writes a letter to the WNBA commissioner that includes the phrase “concerning reports suggest that many of these attacks against Caitlin Clark may be racially motivated,” I’m sure Clark wants to call them clowns and tell them to stay in their lane. Likewise when people online make similar arguments. But I totally get her not wanting to engage.

It’s easy for us to say she should repudiate this “white victim” nonsense with everything she has. But not only would it be a distraction for her, it could be dangerous. For many, saying they want to focus on basketball may be a cop out, but in her case, I believe it. She’s a 24-year-old from one red state playing in another. Despite the collapse of Western civilization, if anyone has a legitimate reason to sidestep the conversation, or at least soft-pedal it, it’s her.

Still, watching the Fever, the mist from the evaporated tears of mediocre white men is undeniably in the air. Even if they don’t enter the arena, the trolls are at the gate. And it doesn’t stop there. Because now, thanks to Caitlin’s teammate Sophie Cunningham, that gate may be unlocked.

In an ESPN profile titled “Love her or hate her, Sophie Cunningham won’t be ignored”, Sophie opened a can of worms inside a Pandora’s box. Here’s the offending quote – which, in fairness, wasn’t the main focus of the article – in its entirety:

“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.” I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

Sigh.

Okay, despite the “both sides” framing, which is almost always a flimsy cover for false equivalence, “young girls” and “men” gives away the game. If you’re even pretending that trans participation in sports is a real issue and that it’s about fairness, you’d use “young girls” and “young boys.”

Now, if I was looking to be charitable to Sophie, I would note that what she’s expressing is a half-formed thought, AND it’s a mainstream bigotry. Which doesn’t make it right, but people do come back from those. I’m old enough to remember when being against gay marriage was considered the moderate position. In a bygone but relatively recent era, so was opposing miscegenation… and at this point, I feel half-racist even knowing that word. I just like words and history, I swear!

But honestly, Sophie Cunningham should know better, if only from lived experience. Even if she doesn’t know that the ratio of trans athletes in the NCAA is literally less than one in fifty thousand, and that they aren’t dominant, she should know that there are no trans women playing D1 basketball. She should also know that the misogynistic underpinnings of the argument don’t hold water, given all the cis men she’s played against over the years. Including those she still plays against, namely those on the Fever practice squad!

And though this was likely coming with or without her, she gave the argument some legitimacy, and a few shitty cis men showed up to troll. Two former NBA players, one a Fox News bro, one a known domestic abuser, said they wanted to play in the WNBA, and thought they were terribly clever for doing so. As has been pointed out by many, this does nothing to suggest trans women would have some unfair advantage and that the WNBA has to do something to stop the onslaught, since that’s never happened and still hasn’t.

Credit where credit’s due: the WNBA didn’t take the bait. And I’ll admit, I would have, at least a little. I would’ve suggested going back to the old NCAA standard, before they caved to Republican pressure, where athletes would have to be a few years into hormone replacement therapy before they could compete. That, to me, would’ve been a fun way to call the stupid bluff. But the W responded with a statement highlighted by “We will approach these important conversations thoughtfully and in alignment with the values of our league. There are no immediate eligibility matters affecting the WNBA, and we strongly denounce the bad-faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others.”

That likely was the right way to deal with it. Just call it out for what it is. Because the irony is that it’s such a non-issue, it only exists as a matter of principle. By which I mean this: if the WNBA was to ban trans women, there’s no indication it would have any practical effect. There are no trans women players past or present, and there’s no reason to think any are coming. All a ban would do is express what the transphobes are actually saying, and that’s that trans people don’t belong in society. Which is why it’s meaningful to hold the line. And the W did.

Still, the trolls are in my head, and in that sense, they’ve won. Like always, because all they want is attention and to make people miserable. They say hateful nonsense, and if you respond, they win. And if you don’t, they win. Maybe with this dismissal, they won a little less… but I’m still going to be thinking about that poison. While I’ll mostly be watching a basketball game, when I see Sophie Cunningham, I’m going to feel it a little.

I mean, there’s more too. I skipped over the hard foul she took from DiJonai Carrington, and all the race-based fallout that ensued, because honestly, it’s too much. And also her turn as a UFC ring girl, the tackle of Jacy Sheldon that brought her to prominence, the pointing which became a meme, etcetera ad nauseum. (Okay, I used the pointing image, but that’s it!) I also won’t speculate on if she’s consciously trying to work her way into the MAGA aggrieved celebrity economy, because it’s too sad to imagine someone making that choice without being in dire financial straits.

Suffice it to say, there’s a lot. And if I know the Toronto faithful, she’s going to get booed. Often, and loudly. And I’m always torn about that too. Not from any sympathetic standpoint, mind you. But when we as a Toronto crowd do something like jeer at Joel Embiid every time he touches the ball, we’re not watching basketball. We’re doing something else.

And naturally, when I feel that, if the crowd is reacting to an actual issue, I get mad at myself. Because I’m basically thinking the equivalent of “Shut up and let them dribble.” Or “I know the systematic oppression of a vulnerable group is bad, but can we put a pin in that while the game is happening?”

That said, though this may seem like a justification, when I go to a Tempo game, it’s not just about escape; it’s about community. (Apologies for anyone who flashed to Dom Toretto there for a second.) One of the perks of living in a city is the relatively low level of intolerance, along with a relatively high level of intolerance for intolerance. And at a Tempo game, those levels are dialed up to 11. Okay, at the more corporate Scotiabank Arena, maybe a 10… but that’s still high. I really do want to feel the love.

So maybe I and anyone else needing to flush the toxicity out of our systems just needs to focus on that and do a mental reset. One player who’s a magnet for terrible people and one who’s a bit of a soiled sponge don’t overwhelm the balance of the WNBA community, players and fans alike. Which is why on Tuesday, though I suspect my mind will have moments of distraction, I’m going to lean on this old Canadian adage I just made up: “Don’t complain about the weather; appreciate being inside.”