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New York Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Lisa Bluder believes culture is bigger than one person. Coaching Caitlin Clark didn't change that
Editor's note: This story is a part of Peak, The Athletic's desk covering leadership, personal development and success through the lens of sports. Follow Peak here. To Lisa Bluder, even the best performers have room for improvement. It's why, when she recruited Caitlin Clark, she didn't highlight Clark's strengths but instead pointed out her weaknesses. Advertisement Bluder, the longtime basketball coach at the University of Iowa, helped mold Clark from an intense, young recruit into one of the most impactful athletes of her generation. Bluder retired in May 2024 as the winningest coach in Big Ten history, following four years in the spotlight as Clark's head coach. Together, they grew. And so did Iowa's team. Bluder believes all of it was special, but she doesn't deny how much work it took to navigate the unique situation. I wanted to talk to Bluder to understand more about that. How does a leader handle a truly elite performer and maintain a program-wide culture? In sports, or in the workforce, sometimes leaders are given a very rare, talented person to work with. They are tasked with not only guiding them but with making them even better. You have experience with this, obviously, with Caitlin Clark. How do you approach that situation? When you recruit a star into your organization or into your team, you have to communicate with them beforehand that they're not at their peak. You want them to want to get better. And Caitlin always wanted to get better. So what we did, first of all, was identify her weaknesses, not her strengths. She knew what her strengths were. We all knew what her strengths were. But you identify and find what the weaknesses are. And so we could kind of chip away at those and make those better. That's how you make a person or an athlete better. Not just incorporating their strengths into your system, but also helping them develop their weaknesses. What did that process actually look like? During the recruiting process we talked about our player development. Because we had proved that we could develop players like Megan Gustafson. She came in and was ranked around 100th in the country and left as the Naismith National Player of the Year. So we had that. You know, proof is in the pudding, as they say. Advertisement But what we did then when she came here was, we would show her film. We would meet with her and kind of show how her improvements in those areas could really help not only her success, but the team's success. I remember you've said before that Caitlin was the right person for you and you were the right person for her. And that's why it worked. Can you explain that? If a person doesn't want to get better, if they think they know it all already, those are the people that I didn't want to coach. I want people who are confident but also who are willing to learn and willing to hear constructive criticism. We talked a lot with our team about how holding people accountable is the same thing as accepting criticism. I'm talking more about peer to peer now, athlete to athlete. So we talked a lot to our athletes about that. You have to learn how to accept somebody holding you accountable because that's the only way you're going to get better and our team is going to get better. If you don't accept it, you're going to quit getting that feedback and you're not going to reach your full potential. Caitlin wanted to be her best. She wanted to be coached, as well as any of the really good players that I've been around. Every one of them, they weren't know-it-alls. They knew they could get better and continued to get better. Are they willing to put in the work required to be great? Because there are a lot of people who want to be great without really working hard at it, especially in today's society. Caitlin Clark didn't start out by shooting logo threes. She started out by shooting layups. And people have to remember that. It's a process. And so I want that work ethic, but I also want a positive attitude in my players. I think having that person in your huddle who's always negative, it just wears on people. And so having a positive attitude was really important to me. Advertisement I can see where it could become tricky, when there is someone in the spotlight as much as Caitlin was, but at the end of the day, you are a team. How would you advise someone on navigating that kind of situation? When there is someone who receives a ton of attention but you have a full team of great people and great players? You can't ignore it. If you ignore it, you're in trouble. We would tell our team a lot: 'Hey, when Caitlin's light shines, it shines on all of us. We all reap the benefits from that. So instead of being jealous about it, let's enjoy it.' It was getting the rest of the team to buy into that. On any good team, you give up your own personal agenda for the betterment of the team, and they were able to do that because they understood that Caitlin was bringing us to new levels. And instead of hampering that, they encouraged it because they wanted to go to those new levels with her. Did they always encourage it from the start? Or were there challenges to get there? Oh, it was a challenge at first. Like her freshman year, Caitlin didn't really understand how to work with other people as much because she was always the show. She could do it by herself. But when you get to a Power Four conference and you're competing at the highest level, you realize, 'Oh, I can't do this all by myself.' So it was a realization that she needed her team as well as they needed her. Building that trust was really important early on. But there were a couple of players who transferred after her freshman year because she was hard at first. She learned how to develop her leadership skills. She learned how to become more inclusive. And some people, she rubbed wrong and they left, and that's OK. She got better, but I also wanted people who wanted to be challenged and wanted to be their best. Again, giving up your own personal stuff sometimes is really, really hard. How did you help her develop those leadership skills after her freshman year? Well, we started meeting weekly and having leadership meetings. I would have her read some leadership books and we would kind of go through the chapters and talk about them afterwards: 'What did you learn from this?' And then we would bring in sports psychologists to work with our team so that she understood. I would have them meet with her individually and then meet with the team. Some of those things helped with her leadership. We would show her a video of herself. I mean, Caitlin is very passionate. She's not the only person I've done this with. I've had other players whose bench decorum or their reaction affects the team in a negative way. You have to show it to them because they don't understand. They don't know it. They're living it. They're so into the moment that they don't understand how they're affecting other people. And showing real-life examples away from the court, and after the emotion is over, is a good thing. Advertisement Can you explain how that progress she made then impacted everything else? She then understood that she had to trust her teammates and build relationships with her teammates, and so that completely changed. Then I think her on-court body language got a lot better. It was give and take, too. She is expressive, and you can't take it personally when she is expressive. She is very passionate. So I feel like that just evolved and it became something our team almost got protective of with her. If the opposing team was trying to impose their will upon her, so to speak, or fans were yelling things, our team got really protective of her. I think that really is a culture builder, right? When you have people who are looking out for each other. But I also think sometimes people think culture is … I don't know, people think, 'Oh, we got Caitlin, so we got a good culture.' No, we had a good culture, and that's one of the reasons we got Caitlin. So it's a work in progress all the time. Because you have to reestablish that culture every single year. You can't just assume it's going to happen again. Some people say, 'How did you get such a good culture on your team?' Well, it's not a slogan you slap on the wall. It's a continual effort every single time you're together. That's how culture is built. I remember you said that you read Phil Jackson's book 'Sacred Hoops.' Because you thought his experience with Michael Jordan had some similarities to your own. Did you end up applying anything to your own life from that? Yeah, I read that book a long time ago and quite honestly my husband said when Caitlin was a freshman or sophomore, he said, 'You need to reread that book. Because of Michael Jordan.' And I said, 'You're right.' So I read it and I highlighted parts and shared those with Caitlin. On road trips and stuff when you have a little more downtime, I would meet with her and maybe have her read a portion of that book and see what Michael Jordan was doing. All those little things that you do add up, I think. Looking back at this whole experience and your career, what do you think is most important for someone to know when they're leading a group of people? As a leader, you have to decide what you want your product to look like. You have to decide what you want your team to look like or your company to look like. You have to have that vision of what it is you want it to be first. And then you've got to find the right people to fulfill that vision. But you also have to be able to be an effective communicator. You can explain what that vision looks like to them and, through communicating, get them to buy in. To me, that's what a really good leader needs to be able to do. (Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
The Guardian
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Our fantasy of love has to do with need and dependency': Melissa Febos on her year of celibacy
When Melissa Febos decided to be celibate for a year – after what she describes as a 'ravaging vortex of a relationship' and 'five other brief entanglements' – she felt 'pretty self-conscious and kind of weird'. But other people's reactions surprised her. 'I thought people were going to laugh at me or be like, that sounds boring, but so many people would lean in and either get this eager look on their face or this sort of dreadful look on their face, and they would say, 'Oh, I think I should probably do that too,'' she says. 'I had no idea how many people had been in relationships for their whole adult life.' Febos, a professor at the University of Iowa and author of books about working as a dominatrix, young womanhood and writing, chronicles this celibate era in her new memoir, The Dry Season. 'I had scrutinized my experience and self in many different areas, but in this area, I was fairly unexamined,' she says. 'I didn't have as much insight about that part of myself.' The experience ended up affecting more than her reliance on love and sex. 'All the other areas of my life began to flourish and feel really fulfilling and complete,' she says. 'I had kind of a honeymoon experience with myself, especially at the beginning, because I realized almost immediately that I enjoyed my own company profoundly, perhaps even more than I enjoyed the company of any other person.' What were those first weeks of celibacy like? What was the hardest part? At first, I wasn't quite sure what my goal was, or what the conditions of my celibacy would be. I began with sex, because that seemed like the most obvious common denominator in my relationships. So I thought, I'll take three months off. Within the first few weeks, I had the experience of flirting with someone, and I got a text from someone I'd been on a date with, and I identified very quickly the feeling of excitement and distraction that had been propelling me. I almost immediately began questioning the parameters of my celibacy: I thought, oh, perhaps it's not sex. Perhaps it's this feeling of being taken out of myself and chasing a psychological high that I get out of not just sex, but all of the activity around romance, flirtation and seduction. What made sex and relationships so appealing for you? One factor is a collective derangement that we have around love and sex. We idealize this very temporary, superficial definition of love, which has to do mostly with the early stages of infatuation and is predicated upon not yet knowing the lover, and not yet being secure or safe. That's a traditional sense of eros, of longing and uncertainty; it's a very immature definition of love, and it's not sustainable. But it is the part of love that pop songs and movies and romance novels are obsessed with. I think we have a collectively problematic relationship to love and sex, and also a narrative about it – that it's going to complete us, and it's just about finding the right person and then everything's going to fall into place. In addition, I developed early, physically, and underwent a radical difference in the way I experienced being perceived by other people, particularly by boys or men. And I got this messaging, as lots of young girls do, that my primary power in life was to attract and appear lovable and desirable. That's a very fraught place to be sourcing one's self esteem, and I identified it early, at a time in life when I felt really disempowered. I've learned, partly as a result of being celibate and talking about it, that this is really common. In the book, you talk about distilling these internal beliefs to an idea of 'if I'm not wanted, I will die'. You describe this concept as dramatic, but women constantly receive messages – from companies trying to sell us stuff, pop culture – that partnership is what women should aspire to the most. Those ideas have roots that go back literal centuries, right? Women's individual personal safety and survival did depend on our being appealing to potential partners, both physically and financially. And that was true for a lot longer than it hasn't been literally true. I don't know how we would eschew that idea within just the last few generations. Why did you include historical examples of women who were also celibate, like the Belgian beguines, the 12th-century abbess Hildegard von Bingen and Shulamith Firestone, who called herself a political celibate? A few weeks into celibacy, I started to realize I had a set of role models for love and romance that were quite outdated, whom I had adopted as a younger person who was interested in semiconsciously justifying my own choices in love. These were primarily women who were artistically prolific and fulfilled, but also very passionate and messy in their love lives, like Edna St Vincent Millay and Colette and Sappho. I realized, I've chosen these role models because I'm already like them. And now that I'm trying to change my ideals, I need new role models. So I went about reading about women who were voluntarily celibate across global history, and ended up becoming obsessed with these women who seemed incredibly complete and fulfilled, and lived profoundly creative and spiritually centered lives that were also very political, very community oriented, that were interested in mutual aid and art making and collectivity. About a month into celibacy, you found you had a lot of time for other things. You included a short list in the book that I thought was really funny: you cut your hair, donated a bunch of clothes and ran 45 miles. All the adults I know are always complaining about not having enough time, and I, too, have been like that for most of my adult life. This amazing space opened up as soon as I stopped engaging in activities related to love and sex. Some were kind of superficial, like, I revamped my whole apartment. But also, I had this luxury of time to bring a new focus to my creative practice, to all of my other relationships, my friendships, my family relationships, my job. I had so vastly underestimated the amount of time and energy that I spent devoted to love and sex and flirting or being on apps or spending time with a partner or thinking about a partner or a potential partner. There's no way that I could have measured that while I was engaged with those things. I just hadn't realized that I had been preoccupied by partners and dating and love and sex, almost all of the time. Ultimately you were celibate for a year, but originally had set a goal of three months. Why did you decide to extend that period? I started with three months because that is a familiar unit of measurement. I'm a sober addict, and three months is a typical amount of time to detox, psychologically. I also knew it would be unrealistic for me to try to commit to anything longer. And honestly, even though it might sound ridiculous to other people, three months was kind of a long time for me to abstain. But when I got to the end, there was no question that I had barely begun. I was just starting to get a sense of the deeply entrenched patterns that I had been stuck in for years, and I knew that it would take much longer to undo them. I had gotten a break, but I had not fundamentally or constitutionally changed. In the book, a friend makes fun of you – like, three months is actually not that long. Yeah, there were a number of people who said that. It's relative, right? To someone who has trouble getting into relationships, it's absurd, but I had been incapable of doing that. This book – as with you previous books about addiction and sex work – is honest and revealing. What is it like to write vulnerably about your life, and what do you get out of the process? Well, fortunately, I am alone when I write. So I get to write in total privacy. I think when people read a memoir, it feels as though the writer is speaking directly to them in real time. But actually the writer gets to sit alone for years with those words until I find exactly the way I want to communicate them. I also get to sit with those reflections long enough to make friends with them and to become comfortable with them. I would never publish the first words I wrote about those subjects. For me, writing is a sort of integrating experience, of undoing shame, of becoming friends with experiences that at one time made me very uncomfortable or felt incredibly vulnerable. By the time a book is published, it doesn't feel so vulnerable anymore. I actually feel quite comfortable with that material and excited to share it. Writing about it and publishing it also connects me to a vast community of people, both living and dead, who have had similar experiences and have survived them. And being a part of that larger network and lineage is incredibly meaningful to me. It makes me feel strong and connected in experiences that once felt alienating. There's a great scene where you describe trying to teach a friend to flirt, and you realize you've honed that skill in response to various external pressures. Before I was in graduate school, I worked in food service, and I located this as a training camp in seduction, because it is through social skills and a form of magnetism that I earned my living. The better I was at it, the bigger tips I earned. But I had never thought of that as connected to seduction. Also because I had gotten so much of my self esteem from feeling lovable or appealing or attractive, it was just something that I was constantly practicing from quite a young age. In my early 20s, I worked as a professional dominatrix, and that was probably the realm in which it was most explicit, where my ability to conform to someone else's romantic or sexual ideal was the extent that I earned my living. People told me what they wanted and I became it. My current profession, in addition to writing, is teaching creative writing. I use those same skills in the classroom, but it feels much less manipulative or transactional, because what I'm doing is using my ability to hold someone else's attention so that I can share with them my genuine love for a text or an art form or an artistic practice so that I can imbue them with that same passion for the subject. You mentioned your sobriety earlier. Were there commonalities between sobriety and celibacy for you? When I started the celibacy, one of the questions I brought was whether I could apply the rubric of addiction and recovery to my pattern in love and sex, because there were certainly compulsive elements. I was sort of hoping that I could classify it as a form of addiction, because I had had such success when recovering from other addictions, and I wanted a clear solution. Unfortunately, it wasn't that clear cut. I don't identify as a love and sex addict, at least not exclusively. But there was a lot of overlap. I brought a lot of the wisdom and tools I had learned in recovery to this process, from abstinence to the practice of writing an inventory to gain insight into personal behavior, which I learned to do in recovery from drug addiction. My experience of recovery is that it is not passive. My recovery and abstinence from addiction are contingent on my active participation, and it affects everything about the way that I live. And it is also contingent upon my honesty with myself, about my complicity, my past behaviors, and that also became incredibly relevant to my process of celibacy. Accountability cannot be skipped over at any process of personal change, and I learned that in sobriety. Voluntary celibacy is a hot topic now, as with the 4B movement. What do you think has shifted culturally for that to happen? I think certain groups of people are bringing more scrutiny to conventions that they have taken for granted or passively complied with. And one of the reasons is that the political landscape in the US has taken such a hard shift to the right. We're living under an incredibly oppressive government. Part of this swing to the right is backlash against feminism and civil rights movements. People are responding to that with an equal force, both individually and collectively, and a part of that is scrutinizing how relationship dynamics are reinforcing institutional oppression. You're now married to your wife, whom you describe meeting in this book. Have you brought principles from that celibate year to the present era of your life? I have redefined my ideal for romantic love as one that is not based on dependency. I think our fantasy of love has to do with need and dependency. My definition of love is contingent upon a very conscious choice to support the flourishing of another person. It's based on choosing them, every moment that I maintain that connection. That is the only way I became qualified to have a long-term relationship. I would never have gotten married if I hadn't redefined love in this way, because I think any other definition is not sustainable. The Dry Season is out now through Knopf
Medscape
02-06-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Novel Algorithm Boosts Stroke Triage, Outcomes Across the US
HELSINKI — Use of a novel algorithm significantly improved prehospital triage for stroke, more accurately directing appropriate patients to centers equipped for endovascular therapy (EVT) and boosting the likelihood of good functional outcomes, based on computer modeling across the continental United States. 'In the MAP-STROKE study, we showed that a novel Bayesian predictive triage algorithm could improve stroke-related neurologic recovery. These improvements were primarily driven by quicker time to endovascular therapy for patients with large vessel occlusion [LVO] strokes, and the magnitude of improvement was most pronounced in rural areas,' lead investigator Santiago Ortega-Gutierrez, MD, clinical professor in the Departments of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Radiology at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, told Medscape Medical News . 'We believe that this new algorithm will get patients to the right hospital faster, matching their specific clinical needs and geography, and if implemented widely, it could lead to around 10,000 additional stroke patients each year achieving a good neurological recovery in the US,' he added. Santiago Ortega-Gutierrez, MD, presented the findings on May 23 at the European Stroke Organization Conference (ESOC) 2025. Time-Sensitive Treatment Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States, and LVO accounts for over 60% of stroke-related disability, he noted. Outcomes can be significantly improved with EVT, but the treatment is highly time-sensitive — and only about 30% of the US population lives within 30 miles of a center that offers it. 'One of the most important decisions for the half a million Americans transported by ambulance for stroke each year is which hospital they are taken to,' Ortega-Gutierrez said. Currently, the decision on which hospital a patient with a stroke should be taken to often follows American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines. If an LVO is suspected, the patient should be transported to a center capable of EVT — provided it is within 30 minutes (or 45 minutes in rural areas). Otherwise, the patient is taken to the nearest hospital and may require transfer to an endovascular center if needed, said Ortega-Gutierrez. 'Frequently that complex decision isn't made by a neurologist or a doctor of any kind; it's made by a paramedic — many of whom do not have much training — in an ambulance with a lot of diagnostic uncertainty. But that decision, in many cases, sets a patient on a treatment course with far-reaching consequences,' he said. With funding from the US National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Ortega-Gutierrez and colleagues have spent the past 4 years developing a new algorithm that draws on a range of patient variables available to paramedics — such as age, gender, presenting blood pressure, stroke severity, current medications, and geographic location. The algorithm estimates the likely stroke type, recommends the most appropriate therapy, and identifies the optimal hospital using GPS data and web-based mapping tools. Ortega-Gutierrez said the team developed an algorithm that uses readily available patient information to help paramedics identify the likely stroke subtype and determine the most appropriate hospital for treatment. The current modeling study tested the clinical impact of this new algorithm in a simulated US population and compared outcomes with strategies using the current AHA guidelines for routing decisions or just going to the nearest hospital. 115 Million Stroke Case Scenarios Drawing on data from previous acute stroke studies, including the Virtual International Stroke Trials Archive and the RACECAT and FAST-MAG prehospital stroke trials, the researchers ran simulations of over 115 million stroke scenarios. The investigators found that across all stroke events, 63% of cases were triage-mode concordant between the new algorithm and the current guideline-recommended routing. In many cases, however, the new algorithm recommended a different hospital destination — often involving a slightly longer trip to an alternative facility that was geographically closer to an EVT-capable center. The study's primary endpoint was the percentage of patients achieving a good functional outcome as defined by a modified Rankin scale score of 0-2 at 90 days. Results showed that good functional outcomes were achieved in 56.5% of patients taken to the nearest hospital, 57.1% of those directed by AHA triage guidelines, and 58.6% of those routed using the new algorithm. When extrapolated to the entire US stroke population, the researchers estimated that the algorithm could lead to 12,000 additional good outcomes per year compared with the nearest hospital strategy and 8500 more than the AHA guidelines. Patients experiencing an LVO would derive the largest benefit from the new algorithm, with a 4.4% difference in the numbers achieving a good functional outcome compared with the AHA guidelines, Ortega-Gutierrez reported. The differences in triage outcomes were primarily attributable to shorter time to EVT in patients with LVO stroke, which was reduced by an average of 90 minutes relative to guideline-adherent routing and by 136 minutes relative to nearest hospital transport. Strong Benefit for LVO Stroke Results also showed that the new algorithm provided especially strong benefits for patients with LVO stroke in rural areas, reducing time to EVT by an average of 166 minutes compared with guideline-based transport and by 181 minutes compared with going to the nearest facility. This led to a 7.8% increase in the number of rural patients achieving a good neurologic outcome. The neurologic benefit observed in patients with LVO stroke was offset slightly by a small negative effect for patients without an LVO stroke. Specifically, patients with ischemic stroke who did not have an LVO had a delay of 14 minutes reaching the hospital and a 4.6% lower rate of getting thrombolysis, translating into a 0.12% reduced chance of achieving a good functional outcome. For patients with hemorrhagic stroke, there was a delay of 13 minutes in reaching the hospital and a 0.28% decrease in the chance of achieving a good functional outcome. 'So, there's a very small negative effect on the patients without a large vessel occlusion stroke. But because most of the disability burden in stroke occurs in patients with a large vessel occlusion, there is still an overall benefit on the entire population,' Ortega-Gutierrez said. 'The large benefit for large vessel occlusion patients vastly outweighs the slight disadvantage to the non–large vessel occlusion patients. By using this algorithm, we believe we will be improving the outcomes of the sickest with minimal repercussions on the less sick,' he added. An obvious limitation of the study is that it is based on computer modeling and efficacy is simulated, which could potentially overestimate real-world performance. However, the researchers are now planning a real-world clinical trial to try and confirm these results. Experts Weigh in Jesse Dawson, MD, professor of stroke medicine at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, England, emphasized the importance of the MAP-STROKE study findings, noting their relevance as stroke care grows increasingly complex and patients are frequently transferred between institutions. 'This was a modeling study, but it suggested that a relatively small effect can really have quite a transformative impact on patient outcomes at the population level. It will be interesting to see how that can be used in other countries and other healthcare systems,' said Dawson, who was not involved in the study. Also commenting, Guillaume Turc, MD, professor of neurology at Université de Paris and Sainte-Anne Hospital, Paris, France, described the trial as innovative and a promising step toward improving stroke care but cautioned that the findings rely on certain assumptions — particularly the relatively high estimated proportion of LVO cases — and emphasized the need for confirmation.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Would Caitlin Clark play in Unrivaled? What she told us
Caitlin Clark is in her second season in the WNBA after a successful rookie campaign. (Zach Barron / NBAE via Getty Images) Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark just began her second season in the WNBA, which is the major focal point in her life right now. Speaking with in partnership with State Farm for a new series of ads, the former University of Iowa basketball star shared her anticipation in finally kicking off the regular season, saying that 'more than anything, I'm just really excited to get out there.' Advertisement 'It's been weird. I've had a long offseason, so it's gone fast,' Clark says. 'I'm itching to play, so just really excited to get out there with my teammates and get the season underway.' During the WNBA offseason this past year, Unrivaled, a new 3-on-3 professional basketball league, featured some of the W's strongest players. Clark notably did not join a team. When asked if she anticipates joining Unrivaled for its second season, Clark says she's 'not really focused on that right now.' 'I thought they had a tremendous first season,' she says of the league. 'It was fun to watch, and obviously, a lot of my teammates now were down there playing and had great experiences. Advertisement 'But, yeah, not really focused on that — focusing on hopefully helping this team win a championship,' she continues. So what did Clark do during her offseason, if she didn't play in Unrivaled? 'I was in the gym a lot — don't think people would be surprised about that,' Clark says. Laughing, she adds her life was 'kind of boring' and included chilling out with her family and watching 'a lot of basketball.' 'I love watching sports, so (I) watched a lot of basketball: college, men's, women's, professional men's basketball, you know, just about anything,' Clark says. 'So just living a normal life like everybody else.' Clark and the Fever opened their 2025 WNBA regular season with a win over the Chicago Sky on May 17. (Gregory Shamus / Getty Images) Clark predicts a 'great' season from the Fever this year based on 'the amount of talent' on the roster and how the franchise strategically compiled it. Advertisement "We have a lot of good floor spacers with a lot of really good shooters," she explains. "But also, I think the most important thing we added was just experience. You look at our roster and we have multiple two-time, three-time WNBA champions on our team. And I think that's kind of what we were lacking last season, especially when we hit the playoffs." Specifically referencing teammates Damiris Dantas, Natasha Howard and Sydney Colson, Clark says "their voices in the locker room" could help carry the Fever into a competitive playoff season. During the preseason, Clark sat out the May 3 game against the Washington Mystics with a quad injury. But Clark tells it was 'just a minor injury,' adding that she feels "really good." Clark says her sitting out of the game was 'precautionary more than anything.' Advertisement Clark had a homecoming at Iowa's Carver-Hawkeye Arena the next day, when the Fever played Brazil's national team. Despite the injury, Clark says she was "glad I could still get out there and run around for, like, 19 minutes at Iowa. I wouldn't have missed it." "I was going to do everything I can to have been on the court for all those fans, because they've given a lot to me," she adds. Not only did the Fever beat Brazil, Clark had a historic moment in front of a sold-out Iowa City crowd of 14,998. In her final 3-pointer of the game, Clark made a shot from behind the court's logo reading "22," honoring her NCAA women's scoring record. "It was really fun for myself getting to go back there," Clark says of the game. "I really haven't been back much since I left last May, after I was drafted." Advertisement 'A lot of those fans wouldn't be able to see a WNBA game, so it was really cool to bring that to them,' she continues, adding that Iowa fans have 'always loved' women's basketball, 'even before I showed up on campus.' Aside from helping to lead the Fever into the new WNBA season, Clark is teaming up with State Farm because of the company's 'investment in women's sports,' she tells She's being featured in new ads showcasing 'real-life assists' as part of State Farm's 'With the Assist' platform. In a new 30-second spot, Clark watches herself make a shot from the logo on the court and dreams up scenarios of accomplishing everyday tasks 'from the logo.' In each situation — from opening a pickle jar to finding a matching pair of socks — she finds success from the State Farm logo. That's when one person who had Clark 'starstruck' enters: Jake from State Farm. Advertisement 'Working with Jake has been incredible. I mean, he's the same guy you see on TV. Like, he's funny, he's charming, he's just a really good dude. I feel like we've been able to build some good chemistry over the courses of our few commercials together.' Clark continues, 'You're kind of starstruck when you meet Jake from State Farm. Like, that's a really big deal.' This article was originally published on
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jewish stakeholders decry actions against Iowa colleges aimed at ‘antisemitism'
Jewish members of Iowa's higher education community have signed a letter speaking out against negative actions toward universities in the name of protecting Jewish students. (Photo by Brooklyn Draisey/Iowa Capital Dispatch) A group of Jewish faculty, staff, students and alumni from colleges and universities across Iowa have penned a letter condemning actions taken against public higher education in the name of fighting antisemitism and protecting the Jewish community. University of Iowa professor Lisa Heineman said her institution has not faced direct attacks on academic freedom, for which she is happy, but hits to other universities are felt on the UI campus. Heineman said she drafted the letter because of universities seeing funding cuts and other threats and international student visas falling under danger with claims of protecting Jewish communities on college campuses. 'Even threats to other universities are threats to us, right, because, if members of a campus community, including students, get the message that they might get into trouble with political speech, that's effectively clamping down on speech,' Heineman said. 'Even if there hasn't been specific action on our campuses, the overall environment of 'you might be penalized for political speech' has a huge impact on our campuses.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Nearly 90 people signed the statement, including some associated with the UI, Iowa State University, University of Northern Iowa, Drake University, Coe College, Grinnell College and Cornell College. Heineman said it has spread mainly through word of mouth in the week since its release. According to the statement, those who signed it did so to 'dispel misconceptions that are being wielded by people with little knowledge of academia to weaken university life and harm our students.' While they acknowledged that antisemitism, like many biases, is present in universities, the letter stated 'we can report that broad-stroke portrayals of universities as hotbeds of antisemitism do not reflect our lived experience.' Limiting free and academic speech, including that relating to Israel and Palestine, as well as revoking international students' visas and threatening universities with funding cuts in the name of Jewish students is 'dangerous and wrong,' the letter stated. International students across Iowa have seen their Student and Exchange Visitor Program status and visa status change multiple times over past weeks, as confirmed by state universities, community colleges and private institutions. 'It's really clear that it's kind of hitting a nerve with people in a lot of different spaces, and they range from retired professors down to undergraduates,' Heineman said. 'So the reception has been very, very good.' Those who signed onto the statement hold views across the political spectrum, it stated, and have varied perspectives as Jewish people or those with Jewish ancestry, but they are joined under the belief that 'a distorted view of antisemitism must not be used as a cudgel to silence the vigorous exchange of ideas that lies at the heart of university life.' Heineman said there were two main goals behind releasing the statement and urging others to sign on: to show Iowans that these problems aren't just doing damage at large, elite universities, and tell Iowa lawmakers serving at the federal level the same thing. It can be easy for Iowans to believe that actions taking place at the national level won't trickle down to the state and its residents, Heineman said, but the threats to constitutional liberties she's seeing aren't skipping the Midwest. For the Congress members representing Iowa on the national stage, Heineman said she wants to see them take this information and be more proactive about protecting the state and the rights of those in it. 'I want to motivate Iowans to defend the work of their amazing universities and colleges, even if that work is sometimes controversial,' Heineman said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
