Iowa's Caitlin Clark highlights transcendent athletes in team sports
Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz talks about the numerous superstar athletes across all major sports today, shedding light on why this period is particularly remarkable.
Video Transcript
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JASON FITZ: Caitlin Clark is a trendsetter in women's college basketball. She's the rare remote stopper in sports, meaning, as you're flipping through the channels trying to see what's on, when you see that she's playing, you stop flipping those channels. You start watching because you never know, every single night, what she could do. It's not just about the numbers. It's about the way she plays the game and how beautiful it is to watch.
So while she's a trendsetter for her sport, let's also acknowledge that she is part of a greater trend across all sports right now. Now, I want to be clear. I'm not talking about the GOAT here. To me, the GOAT conversation is the grown-up equivalent of my dad can beat up your dad. It's all conjecture and opinion. Nobody can prove anybody right or wrong, and all it does is lead to arguments. Since that can't bear itself out, I want to focus instead on what we actually see, which is trendsetting, amazing individual performances in team sports.
Think about what we just saw in the Super Bowl. Patrick Mahomes isn't just great because of the numbers he puts up. It's the eye test. When you watch him play, you can't wait to see what happens next. Whether you love or hate the Chiefs, you have no choice but to respect the way Patrick Mahomes plays the game, and most fans find themselves wishing he was their quarterback. He transcends. He's larger than the NFL.
That's not just the only example. Shohei is a one name example for Major League Baseball, doing things we haven't seen since Babe Ruth. It leads to more conversation around baseball than we've seen in generations because everybody's curious what the future of Shohei could look like.
In the NBA, while he may not be the flashiest player in the world, Nikola Jokic is a two-time MVP and looks like he could be headed to a third. Part of it is because of the way he plays the game and simply how easy he makes everything look. We've gotten so used to Jokic's greatness that, when we sit there watching him do things, we shrug. Oh, yeah. That's just Jokic being Jokic.
Let's look at hockey, where Connor McDavid has taken the entire league by storm, not just for the numbers, but for the way he plays the game.
As we look across all of this, all we can be reminded of is that every single sport seems to be finding that individual that they'll bank on for a generation. Now, seeing unprecedented performances isn't something new. Having one name, Cher-like icons in every sport-- Mahomes, Caitlin, Shohei, Jokic, McDavid-- that's not rare to see in sports. The rarity here isn't the greatness we're seeing. The truly unique moment is that we're seeing so many great players, at one time, across all sports.
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