How Caitlin Clark’s Family Shaped Her Athletic Career
By Movieguide® Contributor
WNBA No. 1 overall draft pick Caitlin Clark is thanking her parents for their encouragement and help throughout her basketball career.
Her parents, Brent and Anne Nizzi-Clark, cultivated a positive and competitive atmosphere for the athlete growing up.
“I give a lot of credit to my dad. He was my first-ever basketball coach, but he was the guy that would never let me shoot threes when I was a young kid because he knew my form would be awful,” Caitlin revealed in an interview with ESPN.
She explained that she wasn’t a fan of the “form shooting” her dad made her practice, “but looking back, like shooting form fundamentals are the best thing.”
“She was five years old. She could dribble a basketball,” Clark’s grandfather Bob Nizzi told HawkFanatic. “She had great anticipation and seeing the floor, which is one of her greatest attributes today.”
Her grandfather noted that her skills are a gift from God.
“It’s just a marvelous thing to remember that she’s wired special. Sometimes, there are special athletes that God has created, and God coaches and Caitlin Clark is one of those,” he added.
In an interview with WHO 13, Brent also revealed that he saw his daughter’s talents from a young age.
“She literally, I would say, would score quite a few goals in soccer and the same way with basketball,” he recalled. “She would pull up on the free throw line on a 6 or 7-foot hoop and would make it pretty consistently.”
Another moment Brent knew Caitlin was different was when she scored 25 points in the fourth quarter in a loss to Michigan in 2022.
“I think that just really elevated her status maybe in the game, and people who hadn’t probably followed her did just because of the impact of social media and what that can do,” he explained.
As for Caitlin’s personality, Anne said, “She just has that fun, spunky attitude.”
Her parents told her to “‘Be confident,’ but also the biggest thing over the course of the last couple of months, ‘Soak in every single second. It goes fast. This is once in a lifetime, so enjoy every single part of it.’”
Following her record-breaking season, Caitlin will play for the Indiana Fever.
Movieguide® previously reported:
The UConn-Iowa Final Four game shattered college women’s basketball ratings for ESPN.
Per Variety, “ESPN’s nighttime telecast of UConn-Iowa faceoff delivered an audience of 14.2 million viewers, a new high mark for a women’s college basketball game, per ESPN citing Nielsen data. The game that ended 71-69 was a nail-biter with a one-point margin until the final seconds. The audience turnout topped the short-lived ratings record for a women’s college basketball game of 12.3 million viewers set on April 1 with Iowa’s victory over LSU in the Elite 8 game.”
At one point, over 17 million viewers were tuned into the game.
The Athletic writer Richard Deitsch wrote, “To put this in perspective. This game tops… Every World Series game last year. Every NBA Finals game last year. Every Daytona 500 since 2013. Every Masters final round viewership since 2013. All but five CFB games in 2023.”
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