Caitlin Clark is very impressive. She’s not the greatest of all time.

Caitlin Clark, the No. 1 pick in this year’s WNBA Draft, said,best ever“from”Pioneer” But is she really like that?

What if she’s just a very good, even great, maybe even greatest women’s college basketball player and nothing more?

Being the best women’s basketball player of all time isn’t for nothing, but it’s also not guaranteed. Mainly because it is impossible to measure. Before the NCAA, a woman named Pearl Moore was the highest-scoring female college athlete of all time. in fact, she is still there. However, she played before the NCAA became the governing body for women’s basketball, so for some reason her record doesn’t count.

Until Clark passed “Pistol” Pete Maravich as the NCAA’s all-time scoring record, the media hyped the record as if their lives depended on it. There were a few facts that weren’t often mentioned that made his record-breaking experience a little less impressive.

One is Moore’s career. Another was the fact that Maravich was forbidden from playing any games during his freshman year, thanks to arcane rules at the time. That’s right, the N.C.A.A. Not allowing freshmen to play college basketball That means his career total was artificially one year lower. Finally, 3-point shooting was non-existent during Maravich’s career, but he definitely lost a lot of points. Clark, on the other hand, made the most of the three-point line, and he did just that.

I don’t mean to diminish Caitlin Clark’s accomplishments. Despite being 6 feet 5 inches tall, I’m terrible at every aspect of the game. But the idea that she is the best of all time, or very close to it, is just hype and a creation of the media. .

Our media today is very interested in stories and firsts. The story is always from the left, and the first person to appear is someone of any human makeup doing something noteworthy – well, unless they’re a conservative. (Was Kellyanne Conway celebrated as the first woman to run a successful presidential campaign?) Strangely enough, news stories about crimes often intentionally confuse suspects, even when they are still at large. The suspect’s race is omitted. For humans. ” But when it comes to being the “first” to do something, books are written on the subject.

As a woman, Clark fit into a particular media narrative. All she needed to do was pass the man and set a new NCAA scoring record. (In this case, as a bonus, this is a very important milestone, so everyone is happy to stop pretending to be ignorant about biology At least 15 minutes. )

Unfortunately, this is nothing new to the media. They are so eager to make fun of people who have done things for the first time that they turn even con artists like Elizabeth Holmes into heroes.

Of course, in contrast to Holmes, Clark clearly achieved something both impressive and real. She is an exceptional college basketball player and deserves attention. But no, she’s not the greatest college basketball player of all time. If she were one of today’s top 100 greatest players, she would have declared that she deserves to play in the NBA instead of the WNBA.

Much has been said about the pay disparity between the two leagues, but the WNBA wouldn’t exist if the NBA didn’t subsidize it. The NBA won’t notice if the WNBA disappears.

Maybe Clark will change that. But she won’t change the reality that there are differences between men and women in sports, and those differences become more pronounced at higher levels of competition.

That doesn’t mean “different” is necessarily good or bad. Sometimes it’s just different. It’s not just okay, it’s really, really good and important. The differences between men and women are real, and without them we wouldn’t exist.

So let’s celebrate Clark’s accomplishments. However, please do so honestly. Don’t let the media hype her up into something she is not, because she is impressive enough without embellishment.

derek hunter is Derek Hunter Podcast Host He was also a former staffer for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).