WNBA Rough Notes: Happy Tears
6.23.24 / Indiana Fever @ Chicago Sky / Wintrust Arena but it felt like Another Planet / Chicago, Illinois
Where to even begin.
Midwestern summers can change in an instant, the lurch of a thunderstorm arriving like the tug of a child’s loose tooth. Did you ever accidentally swallow a tooth, as a kid, after it fell out? I remember the fear that at any moment, a tiny bone in my mouth would betray me and tumble inwards. In 2024, this is what I’m afraid could happen each time the Chicago Sky play the Indiana Fever. Every game changes us, somehow, but it’s hard to know how dangerous the process of transformation will be.
I get to Wintrust Arena two hours early and in time for T-Spoon’s pre-game press conference. A white man I’ve never seen before walks into the press room late, nearly too perfect a metaphor. But then I realize he isn’t some outsider, it’s just that I still don’t know most of the press corps. “There’s a lot of national press who live here in Chicago,” someone whispers to me. Right. Today is a day. And this shit is on ESPN. Ryan and Rebecca are somewhere getting groomed. And it’s bottom line a huge game for the Chicago Sky: ranked at 9 just below the Fever’s 8, something we must decidedly reverse if we want to make the playoffs.
Our beat reporters are sitting in the front row like a starting lineup. They tumble into questions: “What are your expectations about the environment?” one asks. “This is Chi-Town,” says T-Spoon. “The energy they bring into the building, they are just gonna pour it into us.” Then someone asks her about growth. “We’re still learning, and we’ve had to do it at a really fast pace,” she says, speaking with both a directness and warmth that makes me wonder when she also got a PhD in early childhood development. “We know what this game means to us,” T-Spoon says. I like when she does this, referencing something the team knows without revealing what it actually is, like shells collected at different beaches, or whatever lies in the bowels of an artist’s studio.
I head court side where there are flocks of people, mostly white folks and many of them under the age of 16, watching Caitlin Clark warm up. She looks focused, nearly dull. I am brimming with nervousness, brushing the edges of something both beautiful and very ugly, trying to put words to its meaning. I’m working on an article about national and local coverage of the so-called “Caitlin Clark Effect,” or actually I’m not working on it, since I’m sitting here writing these notes instead. Anyway what I hope to write is about the image of Caitlin and how it comes with a gnawing fascination about whiteness, its ever-seductive fantasy of belonging and keeping out. About the way so many WNBA fans will fight like hell to keep this narrative from consuming our league, predominantly and proudly Black, and holy too. About how in Chicago, Caitlin is not the main character. She is an interloper from the most-hated state we sit on top of. Here is the country of Hollywood, of Barbie, of T-Spoon and Izzy and Kamilla and Dana and the Kennedy Expressway that slashes through a grid of streets whose names millions of people know. About how Chicago Sky fans have our own stories, and our own heroes.
But I have to tell you one more thing about Caitlin Clark. During her junior and senior seasons at Iowa, ESPN reeked of Iowa’s yellow and black uniforms. Broadcasters talked about her with relish, even when other teams were playing, like hearing Christmas music in early December when you’re Jewish. But also during those seasons, I secretly adored Caitlin. How she launched three point shots from nearly half court like the plunge of an Olympic diver. Her x-ray court vision. Her sometimes visible frustration, understandable to me with the way the entire Hawkeye state bore down on her. The way breath thudded calmly through her as the ran the ball up the court, again and again and again. Her teammates she so clearly relied on. How once in a while she’d lift one of them off the ground in happy tears. In February, just before Caitlin’s final NCAA tournament, I drove from Chicago to California, my home. The moment I crossed the border into Iowa, I looked for a Salvation Army. I stopped in Davenport for only five minutes because I had only one thing to buy: a black Iowa windbreaker, something I’d been scouring for in Chicago thrift stores to no avail. I’d spent so much time with Caitlin that winter, and now I was driving hundreds of miles through her state, my first cross country trip alone. I wanted her to keep me company.
Most of my friends aren’t actually at this game; they’ve sold their tickets at prices high enough to cover two months of rent. When I stop by my friend in her season ticket section, there’s a white dude sitting next to her in a muddy Fever baseball cap and khaki shorts. We joke that there’s a protective orb around her, like the one my mother places over me when I fly on airplanes, certain to land you safely. I can’t believe that inside of all this, there will still be a forty minute fucking basketball game.
It’s clear that like a quarter of the crowd is rooting loudly for Indiana, many of them clustered in the 100 level near the court. I have the urge to corner Fever fans and demand they name three other players on the team besides Caitlin Clark. Maybe just as annoying is the way some W commentators have dismissed this game as being “just two mids,” meaning a battle between two mid-tier teams at the feet of our coastal super teams.
The first whistle blows. Indiana misses a quick shot, we charge back at them, and our first basket is a gorgeous floater from the hands of Chennedy Carter herself. We all scream and it’s very clear: this is literally going to be so much fun and you’d be stupid not to change the channel to the capital of the Midwest!
Caitlin hits a three from the top of the arc and honestly I’m giddy. Caitlin’s true power, I’m convinced, is not her shooting, but her ability to assist. And sometimes she puts the ball in exactly the right place for all of us. By that I mean: All these Caitlin fans are also now Aliyah Boston fans which means they’re South Carolina fans which means they're A’ja Wilson fans which means they're all gonna buy her new Nike line, right?
My notes from the game are chaotic because every kind of basketball we’ve been craving is suddenly happening at once. Kamilla is emphatic (which I first write as “empathetic”) about Aliyah Boston’s elbow. Diamond Deshields gets a block on Caitlin and then stares her down the way you know all vets long to do. Angel gets called for a double dribble and then smiles, which of course I wonder might be an inside joke with herself about the low-key quadruple dribble from last game. Chennedy hits a three and blows a literal kiss. Nalyssa Smith gets the ball inside and knocks hard against Angel but then Diamond is there like a super hero’s sidekick and gets the steal. Chennedy is wearing bright yellow shoes. Marina is mostly missing her shots, though she sinks a three in the second quarter. Who will she make her enemy on the Fever today? I pray for Marina’s breathwork. Caitlin Clark wanders around complaining like she’s on the phone walking the Lakefront. Someone cheering wildly is wearing a “Cardoso / Reese ‘24” t-shirt. Angel is already on the brink of a double double. We’re down by four and I don't know how anyone here is breathing, oh my god.
At halftime, I can’t find water but manage to get a few bites of cold Cane’s chicken from the press room, someone is crying to their mom on the phone about seeing Lil Durk and somehow I make friends with the flashy VIP Sky investor who sits courtside with his son wearing bedazzled pants who says he’ll offer me a seat courtside if he ever has it, which I pray is because he is genuinely supportive in my intellect and shared passion of this sport. I’m late to the third quarter but when I get to my seat we’re up by six.
Nalyssa sends Chennedy to the floor on her back after we all tense up for a moment, the players surrounding her and then gesturing to the bench, finally waving them off. Chennedy gets back on her feet.
The score is tied again. My notes become basically unreadable. There’s this thrilling basketball game before us, but I’m also thinking in a million pieces. I’m imagining a future where the rivalry doesn’t just grow, it changes and morphs. Like what if, one day, Caitlin and Angel and Chennedy are all on the Sky? What if they practice in a new facility together in downtown Chicago? And their biggest rivalry is against another team whose stars are Kamilla and Cameron Brink? And then what if Juju Watkins shows up? I know this isn’t what I’m supposed to be thinking about but then again, you would have been called silly to imagine this day, too.
The Fever have jumped out to a lead. Kelsey Mitchell hits a corner three and draws a foul, splayed out in glory. Goddamnit, we might lose this. Do we need a timeout? Stop this bleed please, its 72-57, I want to puke, men around me are talking too loudly.
The fourth quarter, with all its finality, has arrived. I manage to slide into the baseline seat of a photographer who obviously will not be in their seat right now. Sheryl Swoopes is on the jumbotron, her fuzzy bucket hat low over her eyes. The crowd is freaking out; we know Sheryl has amazing taste because she’s sitting here with us in Chicago.
Angel and Nalyssa are going at it. Sometimes it’s hard to write what exactly Angel Reese is doing because she is an otherworldly goddess to me, transcending words and my fingers heavy with mortality. But Angel is in the middle of everything. She scores off a drop pass from Chennedy and snatches a quick rebound like she’s rescuing a baby from a pool. Then with 3:13 left in the game, she bodies up Nalyssa for a clean rebound and puts the ball back up a bounce, drawing a foul and the and-one, pulling the game within a single point. Wintrust is loud, alive. From the free throw line, Angel chirps to Nalyssa who chirps back, a singular conversation, the backbone of this battle. Angel has led us to an actual verifiable comeback. Today is her day, not Caitlin’s.
The nerve of us sports fans, peaking with adrenaline, expecting these players to keep their bodies within the rules of the game. I could bite my finger off. It’s 2:24pm on a Sunday afternoon and life is still awful and exciting and tragic, but inside Wintrust, we are pouring together. I’ve seen hundreds of women’s basketball games but I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen something like this. It is a new era, and we are shimmering.
I swear to god Chennedy turns her body 180 degrees while she’s in the air and finishes a layup. Tied game. Another Fever turnover. Angel scores over Nalyssa one more time and the crowd goes berserk, Angel smiling as she back pedals away. With less than a minute to go, we are winning.
Kamilla clutches a key rebound and draws a foul but misses her first free throw, looking shocked. Then it’s Caitlin storming down the court, but the ball goes loose, and Chennedy picks it up, running with the ball after the whistle like she’s the first car on a new expressway because she is and we all know what it’s called. Then Aliyah Boston hits a terrifying three point shot. But it’s not enough. The final seconds are a skid of fouls and loose balls and missed free throws. (The only thing I like less than the idea of Chicago losing this game with missed free throws at the very end is the thought of Brittney Griner’s first child being born while she is out of the country, like does anyone know when that damn due date is and can the Olympics wait?)
Anyway, the game has not come down to free throws, and we have already stunned everyone: the Indiana fans, the crowd, perhaps ourselves. This is a game Chicago has already won. All that is left to do is hug, and maybe cry.
When I was a kid, my dad took me to watch the New York Liberty play. My dream of playing in the WNBA lasted for no more than a year, but I’d like to think we went to Madison Square Garden during that time, when I saw Teresa Weatherspoon play, her hair in tight braids the way they were in her book we owned: “Teresa’s Weatherspoon’s Basketball For Girls.” Sitting in that presser after the game I just can’t believe she’s at the epicenter of this moment, right here, making history again. From the moment she sits down with Kamilla and Angel, she’s nodding toward them, smiling, sharing something between them again that’s not quite for us. But when I manage to ask a question, she looks at me. What I’m really asking about is her ability to time travel, our unbelievable luck of her existence in this moment. Her answer, like the game itself, is more surprising than anyone could have known. I can’t repeat it, so you can watch the magic of T-Spoon here.
I love Teresa Weatherspoon because she knew before I did that basketball is not just one thing. It is a prism, a refractor, a reflector of light. Once in a while, we stand before it and re-learn how to live. Today was one of those days.
Final score — CHI: 88 / IND: 87.
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