Iowa Men's Coach Has 5 Words for Initial Caitlin Clark Opinion Amid Jersey Retirement

Iowa men's basketball coach Fran McCaffery could tell from Caitlin Clark's freshman year that she was extraordinary.

Caitlin Clark addresses the crowd during her jersey retirement ceremony Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. | Julia Hansen/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

It wasn't just the Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball team that was celebrating Caitlin Clark having her No. 22 jersey retired on February 2. The entire school was impacted by the four seasons of extraordinary basketball that Clark produced and has benefitted from the heightened profile No. 22 provided.

One person who got a front-row seat to Clark's record-breaking Hawkeyes run is Fran McCaffery. McCaffery has been the head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball team since 2010. He recorded his 500th career win as a collegiate head coach on December 8, 2022, and became the winningest head coach in Iowa basketball history on January 15, 2024.

McCaffery is also the father of Connor McCaffery, who is Caitlin Clark's boyfriend. Therefore, he has also gotten to know Clark at a more personal level.

And he spoke at length about her accomplishment on February 3.

"Well it really meant a lot of her, and understandably so," McCaffery said of Clark, per an X post from Eliot Clough.

He later added, "Just to be with her teammates, not only the ones that are on her team now but the ones that came back to support her, that meant so much to her, it meant a lot to her family and to the program.

"What she did, not only for our program but for women's basketball, has been nothing that we've ever seen before, nothing we could have envisioned," McCaffery continued.

“You could kind of see it coming when she was a freshman, with how great she was... I said it to you guys then, I said, ‘This is a generational talent.’ I said that after 10-15 games. If you know anything about that game, you could see that," he added.

"I’m happy for her, happy for her family, and happy for the program,” McCaffery concluded.

Fran McCaffery on Caitlin Clark’s jersey retirement yesterday:

“You could kind of see it coming when she was a freshman. … I said ‘This is a generational talent’ after 10-15 games. You could see that. … I’m happy for her, her family and the program.” pic.twitter.com/dFrCHJ7RDc

— Eliot Clough (@EliotClough) February 3, 2025

McCaffery being able to see Clark's generational talent back then shows that he knows what he's talking about.