“Honestly, it’s just been a fabulous journey thus far, and [we’re] super proud of her,” Caitlin Clark’s mother said about her superstar daughter last year. And what has CC done since then? The 22-year-old broke numerous NCAA records during her senior year at Iowa before giving a monumental push to the WNBA. The league has reached historic figures in terms of viewership and ticket sales within a few months of Clark’s arrival in Indiana. While she has been nothing but a professional, she was always meant for greatness.

It all began when the Clarks welcomed a baby girl to their athletic family. Thanks to the genes inherited by little Clark, she was a sporting phenom since she was five. But the vital responsibility was to nurture this sapling to bloom in basketball. Delve deeper to know more about Caitlin Clark’s sporting journey and her ethnicity.

Caitlin Clark’s parents have been a true support

Anne and Brent Clark saw Caitlin for the first time on January 22, 2002. She was their second-born child, whom they raised alongside her siblings in West Des Moines, Iowa. Just like her brothers, Clark, too, has dominant athletic genes. However, her taking up sports wasn’t just limited to her DNA.

It’s also part of the environment the Clarks provided their children with. According to Blake, “We were always involved in sports, and at home, we were always around sports.” But what else would you expect from athlete parents? Her father, Brent Clark, was an All-Conference player in both baseball and basketball. While pursuing a degree in International Management and Business, he played both sports.

During that time, he also inked a four-year letter-winner contract for both sports. Though he added a full spot to his athletic career when he graduated, since then, he has been working in the sales and operations industry. Well, her family’s athletic legacy isn’t just limited to her father’s side. It’s something in her mother’s genes, too.

Anne Nizzi Clark is the daughter of Bob Nizzi, a former football coach at Dowling Catholic High School in Iowa. Despite never making it to professional sports, Anne has a keen interest in sports. “We watched sports at night, whether we would go to Drake and watch basketball games or watch cousins play their basketball games or tournaments. When you’re just around something that much, it’s what you do, too,” she told The Gazette.

However, sports aren’t the only thing common between Anne and her husband. Just like Brent, Anne has a background in marketing, enabling her to help Caitlin with her career partnerships. However, it isn’t only Anne who helps her daughter.

Caitlin was a phenom since childhood

For little Caitlin, her parents urged her to try her hand at multiple sports. She played softball, tennis, golf, soccer, and even volleyball. But later, she found her ultimate love: basketball. By the time she was five, she started playing in a co-ed game, thanks to her father, who coached her at such an early age with sensitivity.

“I see a lot of myself at times in Caitlin in terms of her passion for the game.” However, competing with boys was highly challenging. “They were playing, and there was a particularly large young man, rather aggressive, who was about to position and out-strength Caitlin, sometimes to the point where he was really taking advantage of the little girl,” her grandfather, Bob, told the sports outlet.

At this time, Brent played his role and benched her. “Her father sat her down and then said, ‘When you’re ready, I’ll put you back in,’ and she stopped crying,” Bob remembered how his son composed Caitlin Clark. And the five-year-old stunned everyone by the time she re-entered. She “went right to this guy and put on the best downfield block that I have ever seen and rolled this kid out of bounds and stood over him.”

This left Bob with the realization that “She’s going to be really something.” Since then, Brent never missed any game of her daughter’s. “I try to do the best I can,” he said. And look what she has turned out to be: a game-changer for women’s professional basketball.

Who’s Caitlin Clark’s role model?

CC is a vital reason for filling up WNBA arenas to 94%, the highest in the last two decades for May. In fact, the WNBA’s significant growth is often credited to the “Caitlin Clark effect“. Well, Brent is no longer Clark’s coach, but he still performs the duties of a father. The last game he attended for Clark was her NCAA championship.

Though she lost her final collegiate game, her parents kept cheering for her. As she says, “live our faith every day,” Caitlin ended up in the WNBA as the 2024 Draft No. 1 pick by the Indiana Fever. But do you know her father isn’t her role model? It’s her brother Blake, a former college football player for the Iowa State Cyclones.

“There was a loose ball, and she ended up shoving me in the corner of the basement into the wall,… Split my head open. Got four staples,” Blake once recalled. According to Caitlin, he’s a super athlete. Well, Caitlin’s younger brother, Colin, is also a basketball player. As of now, Clark is spending her WNBA Olympic break with her boyfriend. Soon, she’ll be back in form with the Indiana Fever.