CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Caitlin Clark was in awe after meeting former President Barack Obama after he surprised the WNBA All-Stars on Friday at his Presidential Center.<\/p>\n
Clark called her conversation with Obama \u201ca moment I\u2019ll probably remember for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was obviously super cool. He just complimented me for the way that I handle everything, obviously with everything that\u2019s been going on,\u201d the Indiana Fever star said Friday after meeting Obama. \u201cHe\u2019s somebody that has been in front of the media quite a bit and he reminded me, \u2018When I got famous in my 40s, I didn\u2019t have to do it in my 20s.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Obama spoke to the players for a few minutes on the basketball court at the center which opened last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of you I\u2019m meeting for the first time. All of you are extraordinary and I could not be bigger fans,\u201d Obama said. \u201cThe way the game has been growing lately, the way it\u2019s been picking up and people paying attention to your excellence, I think it\u2019s been something for basketball fans, generally, a sight to see. It\u2019s been making me happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He spoke to the players for a few minutes before taking a group photo. Obama then spent about 10 minutes shaking hands with the players and taking photos with them, including Clark.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know many of you are involved in some wonderful ventures off the court, looking out for other young people and inspiring them. I just wanted to say thanks,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n
The former president gave a shout out to A\u2019ja Wilson in his talk to the players and then went over and chatted with her as well.<\/p>\n
After the photo-ops were done, Obama stepped on the court and talked with New York Liberty star Jonquel Jones, getting down in a defensive stance for a few seconds on her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like as a hooper, you know when someone\u2019s challenging you. So I was just like, let me go over there with the basketball, you know, do a little cross, bump him a little bit,\u201d Jones said. \u201cAnd I knew that I would get him activated a little because he\u2019s a hooper, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones said she had met Obama once before.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a role model for me and it was nice to be able to have that moment,\u201d Jones said. \u201cSomeone that I look up to, someone that has paved the way for a lot of people to be here and see him continuing, his family continuing to give back to the community when they\u2019ve already done so much is just so inspirational.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was the extent of his time on the court. He told the players that he didn\u2019t play 5-on-5 anymore to protect his Achilles. He did say that he broke in the court with a game of \u201chorse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obama was the first sitting U.S. President to attend a WNBA game when he and his daughter, Sasha, sat courtside in 2010 for a Washington Mystics game. He also has hosted many of them at the White House after they either won WNBA championships or NCAA titles.<\/p>\n
Obama was gifted with a No. 44 WNBA All-Star jersey that the players were going to autograph later.<\/p>\n
This was the first professional sport to use the basketball court at the center, which opened in June. Obama went to the NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles in February. Obama said he unfortunately wasn\u2019t going to be able to make the All-Star Game on Saturday because of a previous engagement with his wife, Michelle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fitting for our 30th anniversary that we\u2019re here as the first sports league to play in the Obama Presidential Center,\u201d WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said. \u201cSomeone who has inspired hundreds of millions of people to dream big and accomplish things like President Obama has and his tie to basketball is amazing, too. I think there\u2019s no more fitting person to be meeting with the players.\u201d<\/p>\n
After talking to the players, Obama went across the center to talk to a group of investors in the league and nearly 100 high school girls to talk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Caitlin Clark was in awe after meeting former President Barack Obama after he surprised the WNBA All-Stars on Friday at his Presidential Center. Clark called her conversation with Obama \u201ca moment I\u2019ll probably remember for the rest of my life.\u201d \u201cIt was obviously super cool. He just complimented me for the way … Continue reading Former President Barack Obama surprises WNBA All-Stars at their practice at his Presidential Center<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1527835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-07-26 13:35:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1527835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1527836,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527835\/revisions\/1527836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1527835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1527835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1527835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}