WHY CAITLIN CLARK IS THE WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL GOAT DESPITE NO CHAMPIONSHIPS

Some sports fans, especially Caitlin Clark haters (affectionately called “Hatelins” or “Haitlins”) claim that she has no business being considered one of the GOATs of Women’s College Basketball, let alone “The GOAT” because she never won a championship in college.  They claim this is the standard for all sports at both the college and professional level and feign outrage and sometimes shout “white privilege.”

None of this is true and I have facts, evidence, and logic (the three things the Hatelins hate the most) that prove otherwise.  Perhaps if they would stop looking at her skin color, sexuality, or that she did not attend UConn, South Carolina, Tennessee, or LSU they would see the proper standard and criteria.  

Before I go on I will say that while I think she is my choice for the Greatest Women’s College Basketball Players of All Time, I can see the arguments for Breanna Stewart and especially Cheryl Miller.  I am old enough to have watched Miller play in the 1984 Olympics and thought she was the GOAT for 40 years.

The top 3 seems clear to me: Clark, Miller, & Stewart.  I put Caitlin first because she was the best at making her teammates better by a large margin.  I don't believe any women's college basketball player in history could have dragged those two relatively mediocre teams to the national championship game two years in a row, while I believe Clark could have won two titles with Miller's USC teams and four with Stewart's UConn teams.  One could argue that what Caitlin did at Iowa is more impressive than winning titles at stacked blue-blood programs with rosters made up almost entirely of five-star recruits. 

However, Miller & especially Stewart were clearly better defenders than CC & they were better all-around players (however, this doesn't necessarily make them better players -- see above). 

Three major national sports outlets—AP, FOX Sports and The Sporting News—have published all-time women’s college basketball teams or rankings since Clark finished college.  AP used a 13-member panel; The Sporting News produced an all-time All-America team; FOX published a ranked Top 10.  AP put Clark on its five-player first team; The Sporting News also put her on its five-player first team; FOX ranked her No. 2 behind Breanna Stewart.  Only the above three players plus Diana Taurasi were top 5 in all three of the lists.  

Sue Bird, a UConn alumna, who shares with the UConn mafia a reputation for not giving players from other colleges their due, said there was “no way” she wouldn't take Clark in an all-time Top 5 and, in Bird's view, no way she wouldn't take her Top 3 in an all-time draft.  So if your claim is that Caitlin fans are delusional to think that she is in the top 3 or 5 or The GOAT, that will fall on deaf ears.  Maybe it’s you.  OK, it’s you.  

For the sake of brevity I will move to the heart of the discussion:  championships and how much this criterion should, does, and has traditionally affected the all-time rankings in GOAT discussions in team-sport athletes in both college and the pros.  Hint: it’s not at all what the Hatelins claim.

Except for the Greatest NBA Players of All Time, and to a lesser degree, the Greatest NFL Quarterbacks of All Time (perhaps NHL hockey goalies too), championships should be given little consideration in determining how great a team-sport athlete ranks in GOAT discussions.  The reason is quite simple and obvious – one player in all the other scenarios has little chance of having enough of an impact to drag a team to a championship.   

Almost everyone understands why championships carry more weight when ranking the Greatest NBA Players of All Time. A superstar basketball player can be on the court for most of the game, directly affect both offense and defense, and in a seven-game playoff series has repeated opportunities to influence the outcome. 

An NFL quarterback has an enormous impact because of the unique importance of the position, but he still doesn't play defense or special teams, and the NFL's single-elimination playoff format adds much more opportunity for one bad game, one great opposing performance, or simply bad luck to end a season. 

In addition to all this, pro players, especially NBA players and NFL quarterbacks have long careers (13-23+ years) so their chances of winning a championship are much greater than college athletes for example.  College athletes generally have four years with men’s basketball athletes often having only one year for an elite player nowadays (and some football players only stay three years).  And college basketball has a single-elimination tournament, which obviously increases the luck factor.

Some athletes' chances are much greater because they went to elite blue-blood programs but many did not.  Hence, using championships as a MAJOR criterion for college athletes is silly and unfair given their short careers, single-elimination tournaments, and the quality of the programs they choose.  

Titles should have little influence on GOAT rankings in professional soccer, baseball, and hockey compared with the two situations discussed above. In men’s college basketball, Oscar Robertson and Pete Maravich are both consistently ranked in the top 5 all-time and each has been ranked as high as second  (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor at the time) is always ranked No. 1.)

In college football there is no consensus No. 1 or top 5, but that actually helps prove the point. Jim Brown never won a national championship at Syracuse, yet ESPN assembled a 150-member panel that ranked him the greatest college football player of all time.  Sports Illustrated did the same thing in its 2026 ranking.  SI also ranked Barry Sanders third, Bo Jackson sixth, and Dick Butkus seventh—all without national championships. Perhaps you have heard of them. 

In MLB, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, and Barry Bonds are often considered top 5 players and none of them have titles.  Some die-hard Dan Marino fans consider him the GOAT and he is always ranked in the top 10 among NFL quarterbacks and, you guessed it – no Super Bowl rings. 

So for detractors and Hatelins to say that Clark doesn't belong in the top 5 or the top 10 (this is delusional) is silly, wrong, and obviously biased.  And more importantly, it’s not consistent with how athletes have been traditionally ranked as they wrongly claimed.  Gee, I wonder why. 

No athlete in the history of American sports has ever had the lack of a college ring be held against them as much as Caitlin Clark.  And the reasons why are not admirable.   

You don't have to rank Caitlin Clark No. 1. Cheryl Miller and Breanna Stewart have outstanding GOAT cases. But claiming Clark cannot be Top 3 or Top 5 because she never won a championship is not the traditional standard for ranking great college athletes—it is a standard invented by the Hatelins to try to minimize Caitlin Clark.