After a weekend of having the most overanalyzed flagrant foul in WNBA history force-fed down my social media timeline, I woke Monday to learn the feeding was far from over. Good Morning America and other Disney-owned shows devoted entire segments to Chennedy Carter’s hip check of Caitlin Clark, as if there had never been a flagrant foul in the league’s history.
Later Monday, the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board used its institutional voice to declare that the foul “would have been seen as an assault” had it happened outside of a sporting event.
Can we calm down and take a breath? It was a hip check; repeat … a hip check! Did Carter bump her from the side when Clark was looking away and waiting on an inbound pass? Yes. Did Clark embellish her fall to the ground? Appeared that way. Did it deserve a flagrant designation? Absolutely. But the pearl-clutching that has followed is as exhausting as it is nauseating.
Did The Tribune editorial board do a think piece when the Sky rookie Angel Reese was slammed to the court and Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun was ejected? Why not? But a hip check deserves commentary and is likened to a crime in a city that has had more than enough problems with street violence? Make it make sense.
Had I not watched in real time, I would…
