Caitlin Clark Is Checking Off a Childhood Goal With 2024 WNBA Draft

This moment has been a long time coming for the athlete.

Caitlin Clark / Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

The 2024 WNBA Draft is just hours away. The highly-anticipated event will cap off a historic season in NCAA women’s basketball and decide the fate of the impressive players who made it just that. Among them, of course, is Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark.

The record-breaking Hawkeye is hours away from becoming a professional basketball player, and in doing so, she will be fulfilling a longtime dream. Back in elementary school, she told AP News, she wrote a list of her dreams and goals for the future. Playing in the WNBA was among them. Tonight, she will get one step closer to putting on a pro jersey and stepping out on the court for her WNBA debut.

Though she didn’t make mention of the other accomplishments that made the list, Clark made it clear that she had fulfilled many of them. “It’s pretty special, looking back at that sheet I was able to check off a lot of goals,” she stated.

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Several of Clark’s impressive accomplishments in the game of basketball weren’t on the list at all—she never even dreamed of them. “If you would have told me that we would [be] here playing in front of 24 million people on national television, I’d say that was insane. I still can’t wrap my head around it,” Clark said.

But she doesn’t accept the accomplishment as completely her own. It’s a product of “everybody that came before us,” too, she remarked. “The young stars in our game are really good. The WNBA is really good. The talent level across the board has helped this.”

There’s no doubt, though, that Clark has played a part in bringing women’s basketball the attention it deserves. Now it’s time for her to take that next step—and check off the box on her elementary school bucket list.