Caitlin Clark recalls players, coaches she looked up to growing up

Growing up in the Des Moines area, Caitlin Clark wasn’t a big Iowa fan. Closer to the campus of Drake University, located in Des Moines, Clark recalls spending evenings watching men’s and women’s basketball games there with her dad and brothers.

And while she was mostly focused on whatever T-shirts and other free swag the arena might’ve been giving out, one figure did start to stand out to her: then-Drake head women’s basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk. Baranczyk is now the head coach for the women’s team at Oklahoma.

“But honestly growing up, I loved going to Drake men’s and women’s basketball games. That was just the hometown team, that’s where I grew up, 15 minutes from my house,” Clark said. “Coach Jennie was a tremendous coach there, obviously. She’s a Dowling person, played at Iowa. So I loved watching them. The Drake men had some good battles there.”

As Clark noted, she and Baranczyk share the same high school alma mater, Dowling Catholic in West Des Moines. And much like the coach, Clark ended up playing for the Iowa women’s team in college.

But Clark’s strongest memories, as she said, were more to do with whatever free swag she could get her hands on as a child.

“I went to The Knapp Center all the time with my dad and my brothers and obviously I vividly have so many memories,” Clark said. “I think I was more so interested in catching things in the crowd more than getting people’s autographs, whether it was like T-shirts or Drake used to have — I don’t know if they still have that blimp that flies around inside the stadium, but I would always try to catch things out of there. So I think those are some of my biggest memories.”

And there was one big interaction Clark had with a women’s basketball star that preceded her, Maya Moore. But there was no autograph, for a specific reason.

“Well Maya Moore, I was always trying to get. I did — no I didn’t get hers,” Clark said, “because I didn’t have a Sharpie, but I gave her a hug.”

Now, it’s Clark that countless young fans want to emulate in the drive way, flag down for an autograph, and grow up to be like one day — though some are surely just looking out for a free T-shirt, just like she was so many years ago at Drake.