Caitlin Clark is a tremendous basketball player. She has established herself as one of the greatest female college basketball players of all-time, and there is every reason to believe that she will be a great professional player as well. Women's basketball is better than it has ever been, and Clark is one of the players who is leading the way.
However--contrary to recent reports--Clark is not the all-time Division I career scoring leader, because Division I exists in two separate categories. There is a women's Division I career scoring record (that is the one that Clark broke). Clark did not break the record set by "Pistol Pete" Maravich, who scored 3667 points in men's Division I. I say this not just because Maravich set his record in three varsity seasons while averaging 44.2 ppg in 83 games, compared to Clark averaging 28.3 ppg in 130 games in four seasons (though I would separately argue that there should be a three year Division I record and a four year Division I record because in Maravich's era by rule it was not possible to play four varsity seasons); I say this because Maravich played a different sport: men's basketball and women's basketball are two different sports, and to suggest otherwise is to deny reality. As great as Clark is, it is doubtful that she could start for any Division I men's team, let alone come close to averaging 28.3 ppg while playing versus Division I men. That is not a knock against Clark. There are biological differences between men and women; men tend to be bigger, stronger, and faster, and that is the reason that most sports--particularly at the elite level--have a men's category and a women's category.
There seems to be a notion that comparing Clark to Maravich somehow elevates the women's game, but anyone with sense understands the obvious differences between men and women. Keeping men's records separate from women's records reflects the reality of those differences, and underscores the value of having two fully funded, separate leagues. Also, having separate records enables fans to celebrate the accomplishments of all of the great players in both sports. What if at some point the artificially combined records included only one woman in the top 10, and the other nine players were men? Then, instead of having two top 10 lists showcasing the scoring prowess of the best players in each sport, the feats of other women players would be forgotten. By the same token, in sports where it is unlikely that women would ever crack the combined top 10 (such as sprinting), it would not be right to merge the records, either.
It should further be noted that Clark is not even the career scoring leader in the women's college game. That distinction belongs to Pearl Moore, who played in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) at a time when women's basketball was not an NCAA sport. The NCAA does not acknowledge statistics from prior to 1982, much like the NBA does not officially count ABA statistics; both stances are historically and morally wrong.
Those who seek to promote women's sports should focus on persuading the NCAA to admit that women's college basketball did not begin when the NCAA belatedly joined the party in 1982; instead of comparing Clark to Maravich, advocates for women's sports should compare Clark to Moore and insist that Moore receive full credit for her accomplishments during an era when women had very limited opportunities to play sports in general and basketball in particular.
Recent attempts to blur the distinction between men's records and women's records do not uplift the women's game; this is not only a false equivalence, but it subliminally suggests that a women's record only matters in comparison to whatever the men's record is. Clark's career scoring numbers did not become more significant when her total in women's play surpassed Maravich's total in men's play. A cynic could wonder if blurring the distinction between men's records and women's records is a prelude for suggesting that separate men's sports and women's sports are not needed at all--and that would not benefit women at all, but we already see this happening with people who are biologically men petitioning for the right to compete as women against biological women. The notion that there are no biological differences between men and women threatens to undo many of the gains that women have made in recent decades toward obtaining equal rights and equal opportunities; it is puzzling that more feminists do not seem to understand this. A more authentic feminist position would be to assert that women's sports have intrinsic value without being compared to or merged with men's sports.
It should not be necessary to say this, but I want to emphasize again that I am not diminishing what Clark has accomplished. It should be obvious that I am praising her as one of the greatest women's college basketball players of all-time. I am a "girl Dad" as the current parlance puts it, and I encourage my daughter Rachel to play rated tournament chess--she has exclusively played in co-ed events up to this point--in addition to playing basketball and any other sport that interests her (including swimming, ice skating, and gymnastics). I support girls' sports and women's sports, and I believe that those sports have intrinsic merit without being compared to boys' sports and men's sports; of course, when a female successfully competes head to head with males--as Judit Polgar did for many years in world-class open chess tournaments--that should be celebrated, as any great sports accomplishment should be celebrated.