No matter what Caitlin Clark does in the WNBA, Iowa will always be the place that turned her from a local star into a national phenomenon.
Before the Indiana Fever, before the sold-out arenas and before she became the face of women’s basketball, Clark built her legend in the black and gold. She stayed home, took over the Hawkeyes’ offense and rewrote the college record books in a way no player ever had.
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By the time she left Iowa, Clark was the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer across men’s and women’s basketball. She had taken the Hawkeyes to back-to-back national championship games, shattered scoring and 3-point records and turned every Iowa game into appointment television.
That is why her recruitment still feels so important. Because before Clark became inseparable from Iowa, there was a real chance she would never play there at all.
But the story almost never happened.
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Before she ever wore the black and gold, Clark had verbally committed to Notre Dame, telling then-head coach Muffet McGraw that she planned to play for the Fighting Irish.
As a Catholic kid from Iowa who had grown up idolizing the program and watching stars like Skylar Diggins and Notre Dame’s memorable NCAA Tournament runs, I saw them as the ideal destination.
And it appeared that the sentiment around the entire women’s basketball circuit indicated that Clark was perhaps on her way to Notre Dame.
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“I thought I’d lose her to Notre Dame,” Northwestern coach Joe McKeown said, as quoted in the book On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women’s Sports. “I tried to recruit her hard. Then, I realized she ain’t leaving Iowa.
Caitlin Clark took the tough decision
The expectation to join Notre Dame extended beyond McGraw.
Clark’s family, particularly her mother and many people in her community assumed South Bend was where she would end up, especially given her upbringing and the program’s rich basketball tradition.
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But something did not feel right.
At 17 years old, Clark was second-guessing her decision and ultimately made the gutsy phone call to McGraw, informing her that she would stay in Iowa.
Interestingly, McGraw later came to understand and even admitted that staying in Iowa was in Caitlin’s best interest.
“It would have been great to have her at Notre Dame and our fanbase would have loved her,” Muffet McGraw said. “But Iowa made so much sense… Iowa? She could probably run for governor.”
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In the aftermath of that development, even Maryland coach Brenda Frese and former Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer knew Caitlin wasn’t going to leave Iowa.
Iowa made Clark a star
With passionate local support filling arenas every game and head coach Lisa Bluder designing the Hawkeyes’ offense entirely around CC’s unique skill set, which gave her complete freedom to shoot well beyond the three-point line and allowed the offense to constantly flow through her, Iowa became the perfect environment for her to flourish.
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It’s safe to say that the combination of trust, freedom and hometown support transformed Caitlin into a generational superstar.
And it all started because she made the courageous decision to turn down one of the biggest names in women’s college basketball and stay home.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Aug 15, 2026, where it first appeared in the College section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
