Caitlin Clark of the Iowa Hawkeyes during the 2024 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament National Championship game against the South Carolina Gamecocks on April 7, 2024, in Cleveland.

Caitlin Clark of the Iowa Hawkeyes during the 2024 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament National Championship game against the South Carolina Gamecocks on April 7, 2024, in Cleveland. Photo: Getty Images

And so, Caitlin Clark’s NCAA women’s basketball career has come to an end, with almost every honor and record possible except a national championship.

After South Carolina beat her Iowa Hawkeyes, Clark, who will be the first overall pick in the WNBA draft and go on to play this season for the Indiana Fever, really did sound like someone who felt she’d left everything on the court and was content.

“Whether it’s the way the fans have supported me, the way I’ve been able to represent my state where I grew up, my family being at every single game — there’s not a regret in my mind of how things went,” Clark said. “I’ll be able to sleep every night even though I never won a national championship.

But honestly, it was Clark’s post on X/Twitter that really did it for me, shortly after 9 p.m. Eastern.

If she wrote this in real time after the game, my hat is off. But, even if it was something she’d prepared ahead of time no matter which way it went, it covered all the bases.

It runs 39 words, but five of them are truly key — and frankly, they’re a good blueprint for anyone who has to figure out their last words when they’re saying goodbye to a team. Let’s break it down.

1. “Love.”

“Words cannot express my love for my teammates, coaches, fans and our university.”

Love is the most powerful word in the English language. Love is the ultimate human emotion. We spend our lives looking for it, we’re afraid of it, we crave it, we try to spread it around, we joke about it because we don’t know what else to do.

Some people use the word love all the time; others use it sparingly. But when you express love to people you’ve worked with toward a goal, especially at the very end, it carries quite a punch.

2. “Dreams.”

“Thanks for making my dreams come true.” 

I don’t know if all of Clark’s dreams came true; I mean she did want to win an NCAA championship. But as she pointed out, she got to play near home, for the team she grew up supporting, in front of friends and family. There’s a lot to be said for that.

You can’t achieve if you don’t dream. And while I don’t want to over-parse what she had to say, I find it smart that she didn’t include the word all, as in “all my dreams.” Clark is young, she’s talented, and she’s about to embark on another career. She’s got a lot more dreaming and achieving to do.

3. “Honor.”

“Wearing Iowa across my chest the last four years has been an honor.”

Merriam-Webster defines honor, in part, as a showing of respect, or else a person or thing “whose worth brings respect or fame.” Here, there’s a tinge of sadness, but it’s all about showing maximum respect for the effort and performance of those around her.

Sometimes you move on from an organizations, and you realize afterward that you take more pride in having been part of them than you realized. Sometimes, you recognize it in time. Either way, it makes other people feel good to tell them that you know you’ll always be proud of what you accomplished with them.

4. & 5. “Always” and “home.”

“This place will always be home.”

Always is another of those words that carries so much meaning, simply because we all realize how temporary most things in life can be. Knowing that someone thinks you’ve forged a bond with that will endure almost automatically makes you feel an even greater affinity for that person.

And home? The very word conjures up longing and melancholy.

Just about everyone in basketball seems to agree Clark will go on to have a very successful career in the WNBA, but it’s clear that she has a strong sense of where she’s from, and how being from there shaped the person she’s become.

Look, I don’t mean to oversell this. We all know that sports can be rife with cliches. But, at the same time, the reason we resort to cliches sometimes is that they express common, universal feelings in the best way we know how.

Clark owns almost every big record in women’s college basketball. She has the record for most points scored in both the men’s and women’s games; she’s a two-time national player of the year; heck, during Sunday’s game she also broke the record for most points scored in the NCAA tournament.

(She’s also making an estimated $3.1 million a year in name, image, and likeness deals — the highest-paid woman basketball player and fourth-highest-paid athlete overall, according to On3.)

And on an intangible level, she’s credited with being one of the key leaders who elevated the profile of women’s college basketball; I’ll be looking to see what the ratings were for this championship game, but Friday’s game averaged 14.2 million viewers — more than the NBA Finals or World Series.

People are saying she’s not the GOAT without a championship, but she’s pretty darn close.

Still, nothing lasts forever. And we’re always looking for the last word when leaders move on before they begin the next chapter.

I don’t know when you’ll next be moving on from a team or have to give a statement like this. But if you can remember those five words — love, dreams, honor, always, and home — you’re almost guaranteed to leave your audience remembering you.