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Lisa Bluder Reveals How Caitlin Clark Overcame 'Negative' Impact on Iowa Hawkeyes

Former Iowa Hawkeyes head coach shared an interesting anecdote about teaching Caitlin Clark to harness her potentially detrimental emotions.
Grant Young|
Apr 4, 2024; Cleveland, OH, USA; Iowa Hawkeyes coach Lisa Bluder (left) and guard Caitlin Clark during press conference at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Apr 4, 2024; Cleveland, OH, USA; Iowa Hawkeyes coach Lisa Bluder (left) and guard Caitlin Clark during press conference at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Caitlin Clark produced arguably the best women's college basketball career in the sport's history, certainly among players who never managed to secure a national championship.

Despite never getting that NCAA title, what Clark accomplished not only as an individual but as part of the Hawkeyes deserves a ton of credit. In a women's college basketball landscape where dynasties like South Carolina, UConn, and LSU get a lot of the top recruits and almost always make it to the Elite Eight and Final Four, Clark carried an Iowa team with only one other WNBA-caliber player (Kate Martin) to two consecutive championship games.

There have been several stories about what Clark was like as a teammate at Iowa, some more positive than others. And anybody who has seen Clark on the court knows that her emotions often run high. Clark's former Hawkeyes head coach Lisa Bluder, who retired after No. 22's final college season, spoke about how she taught Clark how to harness these emotions during a June 6 interview with The Athletic.

When asked about how Bluder helped Clark develop her leadership skills, she noted that they would sit down with Clark and have her watch film of her emotional reactions on the bench. The value of doing this, according to Bluder, is that players often need to see their behavior in order to understand how it "affects the team in a negative way".

And showing real-life examples of this is what Bluder has seen to be most effective.

While Clark is still known to show her emotions on the court, clearly Bluder's lesson made a lasting impact because No. 22 now appears to be a fantastic teammate.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

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