Caitlin Clark: Is she the best Hawkeye ever?

The Dowling Catholic grad has scored 2,000 points in 75 games

It was a typical Sunday afternoon at the downtown offices of the Des Moines Register in late February about eight years ago when a young woman with a big basketball future stepped out of the elevator.

Caitlin Clark was a middle school student who came along with an older cousin, Dowling Catholic’s Audrey Faber, for Faber’s photo shoot and an interview session with me for the Register’s All-CIML Elite girls’ basketball team.

I had no idea who Caitlin was, other than a younger cousin — tall for her age and carrying a basketball — but Clark would be returning for her own All-CIML honors a few years later.

“Maybe I’ll write about you someday,” I told her, a line I often used when I met a coach’s kid or younger sibling of a star player.

Iowa’s Caitlin Clark has already become one of the state’s best. (Photo courtesy UI Athletics.)

That came to pass, and Clark proven to be one of the most talented players I covered. For that matter, one of the all-time greats.