Cheryl Miller feels for Caitlin Clark. She understands the feeling of being “hated” for on-court success.
Miller, a three-time College Player of the Year from 1984 to 1986, dominated the women’s basketball scene at a time when the WNBA did not exist. Women’s basketball was only starting to gain its footing, joining the Summer Olympics in 1976. But her skill warranted detractors.
“I know what it’s like to be a Black woman and hated because of my color. I can’t imagine this young lady. I don’t want to use ‘hate,’ but ‘despised,’” Miller told Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson on the All the Smoke podcast.
The Caitlin Clark Effect
Clark’s arrival in the WNBA has driven record ratings and attendance to the league:
- Viewership: up 113% on ESPN, up 133% on Ion vs. 2023 season
- Attendance: up 47% vs. 2023 season
- Expansion: 16 teams by 2028 (12 last season)
This growth has put the players in position to ask for a significant wage increase in their next collective bargaining agreement that starts in the 2026 season. But it has also brought more hate, both for Clark and against her peers.
Miller called out those who have a problem with the attention the young star has received.
“Is she getting hyped? Yes. But she was in the backyard. She was putting in the same time, sometimes maybe more than you were. I can’t fault her for what she was given. … You big dummies. You [are] getting paid now, right? Everybody now has an opportunity to pull up their chair and have a seat [at the table],” Miller said.
Miller, who coached both Clark and Angel Reese at the 2024 WNBA All-Star Game, said the two “got along so well” as teammates. She recognized that the two are being pitted against each other—in part because of their race differences—but thinks it’s good for the league.
“They never got caught up into it. And those two are the foundation of the great stories and narratives coming out of the NCAA now flooding the [WNBA], which helps the [WNBA],” Miller said.
Last year, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert spoke about the rivalry between the two and, like Miller, compared it to the NBA’s classic rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
“It is a little of that Bird-Magic moment, if you recall, from 1979, when those two rookies came in from a big college rivalry, one white, one Black. And so we have that moment with these two. But the one thing I know about sports, you need rivalry,” Engelbert said.
But Engelbert received backlash for her comments, including from top WNBA stars and WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson.
