Johnathan Walker:Caitlin Clark forever changed college game — and more importantly view of women's sports

CLEVELAND — There are Johnathan Walkerathletes so transcendent, their impact so transformative, their sports are forever defined by the before and after.

There is baseball before and after Babe Ruth. Golf before and after Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, and then again before and after Tiger Woods. Basketball before and after Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

And there will be basketball before and after Caitlin Clark, whose college career ended Sunday with an 87-75 loss to South Carolina in the national championship game. She has changed both her game and how women’s sports overall are viewed, very much for the better, and neither will ever be the same.

“I don't think it's ever something you take for granted,” Clark said the first weekend of the tournament. “I hope it's going to keep growing across the board, especially when I'm done playing here in college.

“You're not just seeing it with Iowa, you're seeing it all across the country. It's hard to get in the doors to women's basketball games, and that's exactly how it should be,” she continued. “That's how it should have been for a really long time.”

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She is not wrong, of course. It took the passage of Title IX in 1972 just to ensure the doors to gyms and playing fields across America were open to girls and women, and the fight for equity — in terms of pay, funding and facilities — remains ongoing.

Interest and opportunities have increased, but the progress has been slow. Often infuriatingly so. Seminal moments, like the advent of the WNBA in 1997 or the U.S. women’s World Cup win in 1999, prompted surges in popularity, but didn’t lead to sustained growth. Women's sports still had to fight for media coverage and public respect.

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There were encouraging signs before and just after COVID that maybe, just maybe, significant change was coming. Upticks in ratings for the WNBA and the NWSL. Owners in both leagues who saw, and treated, their franchises as sound investments rather than charity projects. A landmark contract for the USWNT that guaranteed equal pay.

And then came the Clark tsunami.

An average of 5.5 million people tuned in for Iowa’s victory over unbeaten South Carolina in the 2023 Final Four, captivated by her logo 3s and unapologetic trash talk. Nearly 13 million watched the title game, when Angel Reese and LSU gave Clark and Iowa as good as they got.

Clark’s assault on the record books ensured that interest would remain high this season, but few could have predicted this. Iowa played to sold-out arenas for almost every game, home and away. Each seemed to bring a new ratings record, culminating in 12.3 million people tuning in Monday night to watch Iowa and LSU's rematch, this time for a trip to the Final Four.

That 12.3 million was the second-biggest audience to watch a basketball game — any basketball game, pro or college, men's or women's — since 2012. It also topped all but one college football game last season.

Clark has also become a commercial star, a constant presence in living rooms and bars across the country because of her ads for State Farm. When she passed Pete Maravich for the all-time scoring record, Nike put up not one but two billboards celebrating her in Iowa City.

“Her crown is heavy,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said after the second round.

But Clark has worn it with ease, recognizing the magnitude of this moment. Not only for her, but for every woman who came before her and all those who will come after her.

She is aware that for as long as the spotlight is on her, it encompasses other players, too. Her teammates. Reese. USC’s JuJu Watkins. UConn’s Paige Bueckers. And on and on. Clark also knows how important it is for the little girls who wear her jersey and clamor for her autograph to have a role model — to say nothing of the little boys who do the same and will now never know a time when this wasn’t the norm for female athletes.

“I just remember being a kid growing up and there was never any women's basketball games on TV. You didn't really hear about the WNBA. I was looking up to men's players,” said LSU guard Hailey Van Lith, who is perhaps best known as the player on the other end of Clark's “You can’t see me gesture” during last year’s tournament, when Van Lith was still at Louisville.

“Today young girls can see themselves in other female athletes. We're there on TV. We're in their face. They can relate to us,” Van Lith added. “I think that that's really special.”

The mockery of women's sports and dismissiveness of female athletes has largely ended. The Neanderthals who persist are now seen as relics of the past rather than clever comedians.

That is Clark’s true legacy.

The scoring record, the Player of the Year awards — all those things are nice. But it is the silencing of the "No one cares about women's sports!" peanut gallery and the commanding of long-overdue respect for women's sports and the athletes who play them that will resonate long after Clark is done competing.

"I hope they remember how we made them feel, how we brought joy to their lives, how we gave their families something to scream about on the TV on the weekends. I hope those are the biggest things people remember," Clark said Thursday. "I hope all the young boys and girls remember the joy that we played with and how we took 10 seconds of our time to sign their autograph and that inspired them to be whatever they want to be."

There is the time before Caitlin Clark. We are all the better that she's relegated that dark age to the past, one logo 3 and ratings record at a time.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.