Iowa honors Caitlin Clark by retiring her number and hanging it in the rafters

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Caitlin Clark wasn’t back in her home arena to play a game.

Still, the “butterflies,” the former Iowa guard said, were quite similar.

Clark returned to Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday to have her number 22 retired in a ceremony after the Hawkeyes’ 76-67 win over No. 4 USC, one season after she completed her historic college career.

“I feel like I already have those butterflies in your stomach when you walk in here,” Clark said during a pregame press conference. “Not so much for a basketball game now, but obviously just to be around everybody and to enjoy this environment. I don’t have to go and compete for 40 minutes, even though I wish maybe I could. I think it will definitely be a little bit more emotional that I don’t have to compete.”

Clark was at center court with her family as the No. 22 went up into the rafters. She was smiling throughout the ceremony.

The jersey retirement capped a historic career for Clark at Iowa. She became college basketball’s all-time leading scorer while leading the Hawkeyes to back-to-back appearances in the NCAA national championship game the last two seasons.

A sellout crowd of 14,998 included Lisa Bluder, Clark’s former coach at Iowa, and Stephanie White, Clark’s current coach with the WNBA’s Indiana Fever. The Fever will play an exhibition game at Iowa next season.

Former Iowa teammates Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall were in courtside seats alongside former talk-show host David Letterman. USC’s coaches and players stayed on the court after the game to witness the ceremony.

“I’m sure it wasn’t cheap to get in,” Clark quipped during the ceremony.

Iowa coach Jan Jensen told about seeing Clark for the first time as a freshman at West Des Moines Dowling High School.

“Our staff, we made a pact that we were going to do everything we could to be the last one standing,” Jensen said. “And we are so thankful that we were the last one standing. Caitlin, she’s truly generational. She changed the world.”

“The positive image that you’ve brought to this basketball program, this university, this state, and women’s basketball nationally, is unmeasurable,” Bluder said. “I’ve spent my entire career trying to empower young women. That’s what it’s all about. But you’ve done more than that in the last four years, more than anyone can imagine.”

Clark reflected before the game on her time with the Hawkeyes, when she was part of teams that reached four NCAA tournaments and won three Big Ten Tournament titles.

“The winning came because of the great culture that we had,” she said. “And for me, I hope that’s the thing that always stays intact, and I know it will, because of the great coaching staff we have and the type of players that they are here. We had players that were selfless. We had players that didn’t care how many points you were going to score. They’re going to do whatever they could for your teammates. They were going to hold their teammates accountable. And I think that’s a lost art in college these days, and you don’t always see that.”

Clark knows she is in a constant media spotlight these days, whether it’s attending concerts or joining Taylor Swift in a suite at a Kansas City Chiefs NFL playoff game. She said she understands the criticism that comes with the attention.

“I feel like one of my greatest skills is I really don’t care,” Clark said. “I don’t care — I believe in myself. I’m confident in myself. I’m confident in my teammates. I try to instill that in them. I’m confident in the coaching staff on whatever team I was on, whether that was here, whether that’s with the Fever now, and you just rely on those people. Nobody gets to step inside of your locker room. Everybody thinks they know everything and have an answer, but that’s just not reality.”

Clark's jersey was hung in the rafters on the same day that South Carolina retired A'ja Wilson's jersey. They both wore 22 in college.

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