WNBA's hottest star doesn't look like this anymore
Through her time as a starter for powerhouse Rock Bridge, where the Bruins won a state championship every year she attended the school, then a straight shot down Providence Road at Mizzou, she has garnered plenty of attention both on and off the court.
She was dubbed as 'The Mayor of Columbia' due to her popularity in her hometown, which doubled with opposing Southeastern Conference fan bases despising her. That synergy was only a preview for what she'd accomplish in the WNBA.
That dynamo is none other than Indiana Fever bombshell Sophie Cunningham, who has never been more popular in basketball than she is now.
Cunningham's team-up with Caitlin Clark put plenty more eyes on the 6-foot-1 guard, who turns 29 on Saturday.
Shades of her college days played out in June in a game against the Connecticut Sun, further endearing Cunningham to Fever fans, while raising her notoriety around the league.
In January 2018, Cunningham was involved in a fight as a member of the Missouri Tigers against rivals South Carolina.
The incident became a fever pitch in her college career, with now Las Vegas Aces leader A'ja Wilson in her senior year for the Gamecocks.
'It's so fun because our league has drawn so much more attention... (and) once you get people there, they fall in love with the game, but they also fall in love with who we are off the court,' Cunningham told the Daily Mail in April.
'I like to go out there, I like to be competitive. I like to be a little bit grimy, a little feisty. But off the court, I like to be girly. I like fashion. I think you can do both.'
And it was her feisty side that made headlines a few months ago, when her on-court grit thrust her into the spotlight again.
Clark was prodded in the eye by Connecticut's Jacy Sheldon, who had previously been caught in a heated exchange with the Fever guard, before being slammed to the floor by Marina Mabrey in a violent moment that sparked outrage.
Mabrey escaped with a mere technical, while Sheldon was handed a flagrant 1. But Cunningham wasn't letting it slide.
With 46.1 seconds remaining in the game, Cunningham wrapped her arms around Sun guard Sheldon's head and pulled her to the ground in an act of revenge after her foul on Clark.
Cunningham's first six seasons in the WNBA were arguably the first time since she started ninth grade that was not a focal point of her team. In year No 7, especially during Clark's lengthy injury absence, that is no longer the case.
And from the offset she made a vow to the rest of the league: She'll back Clark no matter what. Or, as she put it, her job is to be Sabrina Carpenter to Clark, the WNBA's Taylor Swift.
Carpenter opened for Swift on her Eras Tour, and Cunningham explained to the Daily Mail: 'Taylor Swift, Caitlin Clark, they're going to do their thing. They're going to have all the eyes, they're going to have anything you can ask for.
'But I just said I'm going to be the Sabrina Carpenter in the corner, being her biggest supporter, doing whatever the team needs... she does a great job of making everyone else around her better. (But) in order to win, it really does take everybody.'
Cunningham added: 'We're not taking away from anything that she's done. We want to help her. We want to all win. And I think, let her be the Taylor Swift and we'll all be right there supporting.'
She insisted that she would pass on all she mined over six seasons at the Mercury alongside WNBA legends such as Diana Taurasi.
'I've learned how to become a pro. I've learned what she does in order to be great,' Cunningham said. 'Caitlin is going to (get) there. But when you don't have that experience, sometimes you need someone to kind of lean on. So I'm just going to be there for whatever she needs.'
Cunningham has come a long way since her start in Columbia, which included playing for Rock Bridge's football team, filling in during the Bruins' playoff run after the starting kicker went down with an ACL injury.
Now, she's can't-miss television and a must-follow on social media, drawing plenty of eyes on and off the hardwood.
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Unluckily for them, the brand-building between Kelce and Swift looks set to make their association unavoidable. New Heights is part of their lore: after Kelce tried and failed to land a meeting with Swift after an Eras show, he told listeners he wanted to meet her. Intrigued, she took him up on it. The synchronicity began. It can be no mistake that Kelce's cover of GQ magazine landed the same week as Swift's podcast. Meanwhile, Swift rarely gives interviews: New Heights offers a mutually beneficial space where the couple wield full control, albeit with a soft touch: giving cute disclosures, such as his love of wild otters or her running to tell him about getting her masters back when he was gaming with the boys. The moment capitalised on the prevailing trend for A-listers to reserve their media engagements for fairly fannish video podcasts, making traditional journalists fear for their jobs as they dutifully write up any news lines. Premiering Wednesday night in the US, the episode livestream crashed; within 24 hours it had 13m YouTube views, not including other podcast platform stats. The value to advertisers is huge, especially in anticipation of future Swift revelations. And Kelce, a comparatively old player at 35, is rumoured to be retiring after the coming season – his 13th year, Swift's lucky number – so will be power-brokering his post-game career. He admitted to GQ he had literally taken his eye off the ball, with underwhelming stats in his past two seasons, because he was chasing other opportunities. 'It's his Steven Bartlett, Diary of a CEO move,' said the publicist. 'It's future-proofing their lives. He can't be a football player for ever; she can't be a pop star for ever. It makes them a unit – look at how it worked for the Beckhams.' After a backlash around 2015-16 resulting from her beef with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, Swift managed to convincingly reboot her brand: a dedicated, literary songwriter who fights for artists' rights. To onlookers outside the NFL, Kelce's is ripe for shaping from two years of dating Swift. The couple are clearly conscious of this: Kelce told GQ he had 'become way more strategic in understanding what I am portraying to people', something you may imagine constitutes pillow talk in a business-minded household. 'No man has ever said those words,' said the publicist. Kelce's image is openhearted romantic. Notably, he is Swift's first significant boyfriend to seem undaunted by her celebrity – her previous six-year relationship with the British actor Joe Alwyn took place almost entirely in private. A sweet aspect of the New Heights episode was two beefy jocks being so excited by and supportive of a girly pop star. Swift joked of his public entreaty to date her that 'this is sort of what I've been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager'. The couple riffed on memes questioning Kelce's intelligence – 'it's so hot when she says big words,' he said when Swift called Folklore 'esoteric' – which is in itself very smart: positioning Kelce as lovable and non-threatening. Swift said she immediately warmed to him for not being 'judgmental', describing him as 'a vibe booster in everyone's life … like a human exclamation point'. The implication is that he could pep up your sentences if you let him into your heart. Kelce's post-football business is being everyone's boyfriend, not just Swift's. His pesky family ties to Maga Trumpists won't hurt him in the US; if Swift, who endorsed Kamala Harris in the last election, were to be questioned about this, 'her argument can be that she's the leftwing voice in these rooms', the publicist said. Win-win. Although Swift seemed keen to establish some distance from the voluble TTPD era, a song from The Anthology about her and Kelce's relationship seems to outline her present mindset. 'I'm making a comeback to where I belong,' she sings on The Alchemy. 'Ditch the clowns, get the crown / Baby, I'm the one to beat … These blokes warm the benches / We've been on a winning streak.' That streak is assured: next year marks the 20th anniversary of Swift's self-titled debut, and she will inevitably release the re-recording to mark the occasion. Showgirl's successor will be her 13th album, a significant moment in her lore. There are rumours of a behind-the-scenes Eras documentary to complement the record-breaking concert movie, extending the moment's IP. Any new tour will once again recalibrate the live industry. Before Swift drops a note of music, or Kelce touches grass, they're the coming season's reigning champions.
