Photo Credit: John Mac, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
I didn’t watch the NCAA Women’s National Championship, but I did see all those highlights of Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. And guess what? I don’t give a shit.
I don’t give a shit that Reese chose to spend her first few post-championship moments taunting a defeated opponent. Was it classy? No. But again, who cares? It’s basketball. It’s the heat of the moment. It’s competition. That’s what we’re all here for, right?
It’s not a surprise, really, that this seemingly innocuous moment became a national talking point. It was a Rorschach Test. Conservatives immediately came to Clark’s defense, calling Reese trashy and a sore winner. Liberals rushed to Reese’s defense, pointing out how Clark taunted an opponent in a previous game. Both are right. Both were equally trashy.
But again, who cares? This is the kind of moment that no one, not a single person, would even remotely find interesting in a men’s competition. In fact, it’s the kind of masculine, confrontational, testosterone-filled scene we crave. Mano e mano, right? But when it’s (wo)mano e (wo)mano, now it’s a problem?
It’s silly. It’s less than silly. It’s boring. Bland. Blasé. Wake me up when they start throwing hands or when someone rushes into the bleachers to take on a fan à la Ron Artest in 2004.