"People have a schizophrenic relationship with winners"; Emmanuel Acho holds up mirror to fans using $3.1M NIL-valued Caitlin Clark's example

Looking at her college basketball career, it's evident that Caitlin Clark is a winner. The point guard has proven her talent in her four years at Iowa, and she is undoubtedly the next big thing in the game. Her off-field brand is on the rise as well, to the point that she is now single-handedly responsible for the increase in viewership of Iowa games.

While Clark has been widely admired across the United States and beyond, she has been receiving a lot of hate in the same vein. In a recent installment of the “Speak” podcast, former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho made an interesting point about public perception of serial winners using Clark's example:

“People have a schizophrenic relationship with winners. When you're an underdog, they feel impelled to root for you but if you're up too long, you better grab a helmet. Caitlin Clark is now staying up for too long."

Caitlin Clark: The dark side of sporting fame in the social media era

Caitlin Clark’s being the center of attention has not gone down too well among a certain section of fans. Acho made sure to address this aspect:

“Haters are jumping out of the woodwork, everybody is like ‘Wait a second, why are you offering her $5 million for playing in a league? Why is she getting a 96-page story in magazine issues? Why is she getting all this attention?

He continued:

...'There’s been Candace Parkers, There’s been Skylar Diggins, There’s been Maya Moores, There’s been Lisa Leslie. Why just now all the attention for Caitlin Clark?’ The reason I hate it is people are starting to paint a bull’s eye on her back. And she got nothing to do with the paint of the brush.”

With the amount of success Clark has garnered at Iowa and the massive attention she continues to receive, the widespread hate she has been getting from some quarters is not something new to star athletes. It is common for top athletes to have a set of detractors despite not putting a foot wrong on and off the court.

Caitlin Clark, who has an NIL value of $3.1 million according to On3, will most likely be making her way to the WNBA next season after yet another brilliant season at Iowa. She's widely expected to be the first overall pick for the Indiana Fever in the draft later this year, marking a new beginning in what has been a fairytale career so far.

Many analysts see her taking the WNBA, which hasn't recorded much progress in recent years, to the next level. Her presence is expected to boost revenue and exposure for the league at large. For Clark, this would mean more love from the fans as well as a rise in the number of hoop fans wanting her to shoot for the stars only to come up short at the pro level.

To quote DC Comic's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." This iconic quote lends itself to the situation most star athletes find themselves in after years at the top. 22-year-old Clark has already reached that point even before making her pro-debut.