Players and Coaches Said Caitlin Clark Needed a Championship to Be a GOAT. Her Response Is a Brilliant Lesson in Emotional Intelligence

When I ran into an erstwhile coworker the other day, he asked what I thought my “legacy” was at our old employer. It was an odd question, something I’ve never thought about. I was an employee. I worked hard. I tried to do a good job.

My legacy? I wasn’t sure that applied, and it took me a minute to come up with an answer.

Hold that thought.

When asked if Caitlin Clark deserved to be in the GOAT (greatest of all time) conversation, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said she felt Clark needs to have won at least one championship.

“I was really good in college, never won a championship. You’ve got to win a championship,” Staley said. “That’s me personally. I had a great career. But it’s always, ‘Did you win a championship?'”

Her comments echoed those of Breanna Stewart, the UConn star Stewart who led the Huskies to four national titles and widely considered the best women’s college basketball player of all time. 

“You are going to look 10 years back and you are going to see all the records that she has broken, points and stuff like that, but anybody knows your goal when you play college basketball is to win a national championship,” Stewart said. “So you need one.”

In response, Staley said, “I agree with Stewie when it comes to winning the championship. We’re going to talk about GOATs. I think she’s the GOAT, to be able to win four national championships and to be MVP. I think she was MVP (of the tournament) all four times.”

Granted, Clark has an impressive resume without a championship. She leads the NCAA in career points. She’s won multiple Player of the Year awards. She’s surely the most popular women’s basketball player, college or pro. But Iowa didn’t win the national championship.

So what is Clark’s take on her GOAT status? It has more to do with legacy than statistics or championships.

As Clark said:

I’ve played basketball at this university for four years, and for it to come down to two games and that be whether or not I’m proud of myself and proud of the way I’ve carried myself and proud of the way I’ve impacted people in their lives, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment.

I don’t want my legacy to be, ‘Oh, Caitlin won X amount of games,’ or ‘Caitlin scored X amount of points.’ I hope it’s what I was able to do for the game of women’s basketball. I hope it is the young boys and young girls that are inspired to play this sport or dream to do whatever they want to do in their lives. For it to come down to 40 minutes and for me to validate myself within 40 minutes, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment.

To be fair, both positions make sense. In sports, championships matter. Would there be a Michael Jordan versus LeBron debate if either had not won multiple championships? Nope. 

Clearly Staley thinks so, too. After the game, Staley said, “I want to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport. She carried a heavy load for our sport… She’s gonna lift that league (WNBA) up… You are one of the GOATs of our game and we appreciate you.”

Yet Clark clearly cares more about her legacy than a subjective ranking. No matter how hard she tries — no matter how great a player she may be — she can’t totally control whether her team wins or loses. But she can control what she does. What she says. How she treats the people she cares about.

And how she manages her emotions, whether in the face of praise or criticism.

As Clark said:

What I’ve been able to do over the course of my career is just focus on the opinions of the people inside our locker room.

That’s what I really care about: the people that I love to death, the people that have had my back every single second of my career, have been the ones that have believed in me more than anybody.

Clark wants win, but more importantly she wants to be proud of herself, the way she carries herself, and the impact she has on other people. 

Because that’s her legacy.

Which brings us back — even though I’m in no way comparing myself to her, because there is no comparison — to me. My legacy, after working for a company for 17 years? It wasn’t numbers hit. Costs saved. Productivity improvements. Targets met, or goals achieved.

My “legacy,” if you want to call it that, is the handful of people I promoted, against the advice of other people, who once given a chance turned out to be superstars. The handful of people I hired that one else wanted to hire who, once given the chance, turned out to be superstars. The handful of people I felt had greater potential than other people assumed, and just needed the opportunity to prove it.

Did I miss some others along the way? Absolutely; that’s on me. 

But I can think of at least a few times when I made a difference, however small, in someone’s career, and therefore life. That’s my “legacy.”

And will be your legacy as well — because what we leave behind, in terms of the impact we made on other people, is really all that matters.