After a year full of basketball heroics, Caitlin Clark is finally resting in the offseason and getting ready for an even better comeback in 2025. But much to fans’ delight, the honors keep rolling in one after the other. After claiming the TIME Athlete of the Year title and appearing on Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women, the Indiana Fever guard is also the AP Athlete of the Year. But much like her Rookie of the Year win, this was not a unanimous decision from Associated Press reporters and one analyst finds it unbelievable.

OutKick’s Charly Arnolt says in a recent video on YouTube, “Even places that are suspected to be a little bit more non-biased, like the AP, which generally speaking just puts out straight facts, like they usually don’t insert much opinion into their reporting, it’s more of just like – here are the facts, and then other news organizations can run with those facts.”

When one anonymous reporter gave one first-place vote to Angel Reese in the ROTY voting, all hell broke loose. While her impact was a notable factor, her rookie season records, 27 as put out by Indiana Fever (a few possibly left out), were to make the case. This time, CC received 35 votes, whereas Simone Biles received 25, and Imane Khelif 4 votes.

“But clearly here we have some lunatics in the mix. So AP is one more organization that you should add to your radar of maybe places not to get your sports information from if that’s what you’re looking for,” Arnolt continues. She does agree with the 25 voters who chose Biles, because anyone who watches sports knows the gymnast deserves it, given her 11 Olympic medals (4 won just this year) and 30 world championship medals. But the votes going towards Imane Khelif wasn’t it for Arnolt, who, she believes, hasn’t built a legacy like that of Biles or Clark yet.

“Anyway, Caitlin Clark, fully deserving of this award. Simone Biles even fully deserving of this award. I mean, very different types of athletes,” Arnolt says. “Probably just depends on what type of legacy you’re looking for this athlete to leave. Simone Biles has much more of a storied legacy, and Caitlin Clark has more of a newer one. But I would say the impact that Caitlin Clark immediately had on the game is something that everybody could tell and could feel.”

With this, the Iowa sensation joined an elite list of basketball players, only the fourth women’s basketball player to be honored as the female athlete of the year since it was first presented in 1931. She joins Sheryl Swoopes (1993), Rebecca Lobo (1995), and Candace Parker (2008, 2021). Incidentally, Biles did win the honor last year.

The amount of attention Clark brings to women’s sports in general and specifically basketball is a new experience for most, CC more than anyone. But she doesn’t take anything for granted.

Caitlin Clark doesn’t take her “5 seconds” of fame for granted

Just a year ago, Caitlin Clark was playing her senior year of college, hoping for another go at the Final Four after brutally losing to LSU the previous season. The Iowa Hawkeyes did get there, even if they lost to the South Carolina Gamecocks this time. But No. 22 was already popular, on her way to become a sensation, one that even coach Dawn Staley thanked in her speech after her team won.

And Clark, for her part, knows the impact she’s making. “For me it’s still really fun,” she top AP. “Whether it’s 15 seconds or 10 seconds or 5 seconds can be very impactful in a young girl and young boys life. Seeing the fans going crazy an hour before tipoff, I never take that for granted. That’s super cool and I never want that to go away.”

All the rookie records broken this year were fun to watch. Caitlin Clark established that she will not be going anywhere and her three-pointers will change the flow of any game. What will her sophomore year in the pro leagues look like? We can’t wait to find out!