BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Thursday’s sold-out Assembly Hall crowd for when No. 4 Iowa visited No. 16 Indiana had fans in attendance for many reasons. Most packed the gym to root for Indiana’s biggest win of the season and 86-69 win over the Hawkeyes. Others were there to root for Iowa, and more specifically, the Caitlin Clark Show.

But another portion of fans showed up for a team that didn’t play on Thursday. They were Indiana Fever fans.

With the Fever holding the No. 1 pick for the second consecutive WNBA draft, fans are excited by the possibility of Clark becoming the new point guard of the franchise. So when Clark came to Bloomington for what could be the final time in her college career, Fever fans made themselves seen.

“We’re really hoping Caitlin — showing her talent — will come,” Sharon Indrutz said. “Indiana’s a good place to be. It’s a little like Iowa.”

Indrutz came to Thursday’s game with her neighbor, Mary Waters. Indrutz and Waters traveled from Wabash to see the game. Waters became a Fever fan three years ago when the team went a WNBA-worst 6-26. Although Waters came aboard at the lowest moment in franchise history, she’s eager to see the rebuild completed.

“The whole attitude of wanting to win and maybe not being able to,” Waters said when asked what made her a Fever fan. “And now they’re putting a team together that’s really gonna be awesome. I think they’ll be unbeatable.”

Waters just recently became a fan of the game of basketball. The main reason for her and Indrutz’s fandom? Caitlin Clark.

Waters has watched Clark play six times in person now, including multiple times with Indrutz. The pair went to see Clark play at Purdue on Jan. 10. They also traveled to Iowa City in October when the Hawkeyes hosted Crossover at Kinnick as an exhibition affair against DePaul. These fairly new basketball fans are obsessed with Clark. 

“She’s steady, and I like the unselfishness,” Waters said. “She knows that her assists are just as important as her shots, and that’s seeing the whole court and knowing her intelligence of basketball. 

“That’s what’s brought me in, is watching the phenomenal ‘wows,’ and those get you the highs. Then it’s the continuation of her and how she treats her teammates and how her teammates treat her.”

Adam Weaver has been a women’s basketball fan for much longer. Weaver has rooted for the Fever since Tamika Catchings’ rookie season in 2002 when he was in elementary school. Weaver — who grew up between Columbus and Shelbyville — frequently begged his parents to take him to games, making it to a few each season.

Now as an adult, Weaver and his husband, Jeff Wagerman, are season ticket holders who sit courtside at every game. Wagerman became a fan about four years ago because of Weaver. Like Waters, Wagerman is immersed in the team despite the lows of the post-Catchings era.

“We really like being able to connect with the players,” Wagerman said. “It’s cool in the WNBA that the players are accessible. We just really enjoy the environment. It’s very inclusive.”

Wagerman and Weaver have watched Clark play in person since her freshman season. As Indianapolis residents, the couple attended Iowa games when the Hawkeyes made consecutive appearances in the Big Ten championship at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in 2021 and 2022. 

At the Fever’s draft lottery party in December, Wagerman and Weaver were in attendance. As it was announced the franchise was getting the No. 1 pick again, Weaver envisioned a dynasty.

“It’s so exciting because when you look at the WNBA teams that have historically had the most success, they’ve built through the draft,” Weaver said. “The Las Vegas Aces, three No. 1 picks in a row, the Seattle Storm picked Breanna Stweart and Jewell Loyd consecutively, and now we’re going to have Aliyah Boston and the No. 1 pick — hopefully Caitlin Clark. That’s huge for the future.”

Boston and Clark could become the next great guard and post player combination in the league’s history. The WNBA’s great dynasties — like many in the NBA — typically have at least one great perimeter player to pair with a force inside. 

The back-to-back champion Aces have Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum to complement A’ja Wilson down low. The Lynx paired Sylvia Fowles in the paint with Maya Moore for the last two of their four championships from 2011 to 2017. Sue Bird won her first two rings in Seattle with future Hall-of-Famer Lauren Jackson before winning another two with Stewart in the latter half of her career.

That said, the idea of Clark joining the All-Star pairing of Boston and Kelsey Mitchell is enticing. With GM Lin Dunn and coach Christie Sides — who attended Thursday’s game — at the helm, the Fever’s quest to make the playoffs for the first time since 2016 would be aided by Clark’s arrival.

Of course, Clark still has to decide if she’s entering the draft. The senior could exercise her fifth year of eligibility due to COVID-19, so there’s a chance the WNBA has to wait another year for her to turn pro. Clark remains uncommitted to publicly making a decision.

“We’ve got our fingers crossed that hopefully she’s coming,” Wagerman said. “I think it’s going to be a huge game-changer for the franchise. I’m envisioning Gainbridge Fieldhouse sold out and just as loud as (Assembly Hall) is right now.”

For the time being, Fever fans will continue to anticipate the day Clark makes her announcement. Clark has until April 5 or 24 hours after Iowa’s last game — whichever comes last — to make her decision for the draft on April 15. 

Whether or not she’s made up her mind yet, it couldn’t have hurt for Clark to see many Fever fans in the stands on Thursday night.

The swing and follow-through happened around 8 a.m. ET Thursday morning at a pre-qualifying event in Florida. The PGA Tour quickly captured it.

It was a nice swing, one we have seen before. How could we miss it?

It was Charlie Woods’ first attempt at qualifying for a tour event. Users on social media sensed the moment, too, but they weren’t nearly as nostalgic.

“You know you guys have an actual event starting today,” came the first comment on X, formerly Twitter.

“Leave the kid alone,” said another post.

Some wondered why Woods wasn’t in school. Others wanted to know where they could watch him on television. Some even used profanity, stated or implied, in an effort to tamp down the expectations, or even to take a cheap shot at Woods.

Back the efff off

Garbage ass swing and score …

Kid is trash!!

Would anyone say that about your child if he or she had won the high school golf state championship?

Tiger Woods’ son is 15. He wound up shooting a 16-over-86, finishing 64th in the field. He won’t advance to Monday’s open qualifier and, mercifully for now, his first event on the PGA Tour will have to wait.

If you are a parent, and you have attached expectations to your kid’s sporting achievements, you can exhale. Your son or daughter, perhaps no one’s son or daughter, is facing the pressure to succeed — or to fail — the way Charlie Woods is.

He has shown us he is a strong player, winning that state championship in Florida and putting up highlight-reel shots playing alongside his father in the PNC Championship.

And yet, it may not ever be good enough for us.

Forget unrealistic expectations. These expectations are impossible.

They can serve as a reminder for all sports parents of how lucky we are. We have the opportunity to see our kids play every week, sometimes every day, without the world watching his or her every move.

If Charlie Woods was your kid, and you knew the pressure he was facing, would you be critical of him? Would you tell him the things he might do differently in all those games you watch? Or would you cherish every moment you had to watch him proudly following in your enormous shadow?

The best example we can set for our kids isn’t necessarily in doing what we’re best at. It’s how we act and behave and carry ourselves on a daily basis. It’s in letting our kids be kids as long as they can, no matter how far their careers take them. And it’s laying off of them when they don’t play up to our expectations.

Yes, this is Tiger Woods, winner of 15 major championships and 82 PGA Tour events. But as far as being a dad, he seems a lot like any of us in looking out for his son.

“I just don’t like the fact that he stares at his phone all the time,’’ Tiger Woods said in December, according to Sports Illustrated. “Put your phone away and just look around. That’s one of the things that I think all parents struggle with is most kids don’t look up anymore. Everyone is looking down.

“Look around you, the world is so beautiful around you, just look up. But everyone is staring into a screen, and that’s how people view life. It drives me nuts at times because he’s always looking down and there’s so many things around you that are so beautiful at the same time.’

When you observe the relationship, even in the snippets of it we get to see in public, you see that they are two exceptional golfers but a father and a son first.

Woods kept his son away from interviews at the PNC Championship, but Charlie stopped at the turn to answer questions from Will McGee, the 12-year-old son of two other golfers, Mike McGee and Annika Sorenstam.

“My mom was wondering, because she gives me advice on my swing but I don’t listen often. … Do you listen to your dad on swing tips?” Will asked.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” Charlie responded. “I mean, when I get desperate, yeah.”

Woods hasn’t put any external pressure on Charlie or his older sister, Sam, who plays soccer. Sam also caddied for her dad and brother at the PNC Championship.

“It couldn’t have been any more special for all of us,” Tiger said. “For me to have both my kids inside the ropes like this and participating and playing, and being part of the game of golf like this, it couldn’t have been more special for me.”

“I drove the ball really good today. I didn’t miss a fairway,” Charlie said at the same event. “I didn’t miss a fairway and we still managed to shoot eight under. We just suck at putting.”

His father, listening thoughtfully, cracked a smile.

“That summed it up right there,” he said.

There could be a moment in Charlie Woods’ future when he plays and even succeeds on the PGA Tour. There will be a day when his career playing the sport ends. Your child will have that moment some day, too.

The end came in 1972 for Yogi Berra’s oldest son, Larry, who had a dream of playing major league baseball. It was a dream that was independent of his father’s decorated career until he approached Whitey Herzog, the director of minor league development for the New YorkMets.

Larry Berra told Herzog if he wasn’t meeting the team’s standards, he needed to let him go. His request was granted. Everyone thought he got released anyway.

He was dealing with injuries in the minor leagues but, like with Charlie Woods, he has always dealt with that shadow.

“When I was playing in the Appalachian League, we went to one town, and I was in the on-deck circle,” Larry Berra told author Mark Braff for the book “Sons of Baseball.” “Some guy kept yelling at me, saying, ‘You’re not as good as your old man.’ And I turned around and I said, ‘Listen, if I was as good as my father, I wouldn’t have to listen to you and I wouldn’t be in this little town of yours.’ And I got yelled at by my coach.’

Yogi Berra, like many former major league baseball players, didn’t put pressure on his son to follow in his footsteps. Those expectations came by themselves.

We have to resist, no matter how alike the swings of Tiger and his son are, to put them on Charlie Woods.

We wouldn’t do it to our own kid, would we?

Ask yourself that question the next time you drop your son or daughter off at a tryout for a travel team, and no one is watching.

Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now loving life as sports parents for a high schooler and middle schooler. For his past columns, click here.

A federal judge on Friday suspended NCAA rules on name, image and likeness benefits for athletes, dealing a serious blow to the college sports governing body’s enforcement powers and easing the stress of the University of Tennessee amid an NCAA investigation.

It’s a victory for the attorneys general in Tennessee and Virginia in their lawsuit against the NCAA and, potentially, for Tennessee in its fierce fight with the NCAA over NIL rules. The preliminary injunction granted in the Eastern Tennessee District by Judge Clifton Corker found that NIL rules caused irreparable damage to athletes.

The decision applies while until the court case plays out. And the ruling covers the entire country, preventing the NCAA from enforcing its NIL rules against any school and giving student-athletes latitude on signing deals.

‘(W)ithout the give and take of a free market, student-athletes simply have no knowledge of their true NIL value,’ Corker wrote. ‘It is this suppression of negotiating leverage and the consequential lack of knowledge that harms student-athletes.’

Corker took issue with the NCAA’s strategy to prevent recruiting inducements, including the association’s attempt to classify NIL collectives, which raise and distribute money, as boosters.

‘The NCAA’s prohibition likely violates federal antitrust law and harms student-athletes,’ Corker wrote in his ruling.

The decision could have a seismic impact on college sports, as the NCAA’s rules banning NIL recruiting inducements are frozen for more than 523,000 athletes at 1,088 institutions.

College recruits and transfers can now negotiate and sign NIL contracts before enrolling at a university with no fear of breaking NCAA rules. Or, at least, they can until the case concludes, likely months from now.

But considering the NCAA already was under scrutiny involving antitrust laws, some NIL rules could be off the books permanently.

Tennessee attorney general: ‘NCAA is not above the law’

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti celebrated the initial win while promising a prolonged fight in the lawsuit.

‘The court’s grant of a preliminary injunction against the NCAA’s illegal NIL-recruitment ban ensures the rights of student-athletes will be protected for the duration of this case, but the bigger fight continues,’ Skrmetti said in a statement. ‘We will litigate this case to the fullest extent necessary to ensure the NCAA’s monopoly cannot continue to harm Tennessee student-athletes.

‘The NCAA is not above the law, and the law is on our side.’

The states argued that NIL rules had to be suspended immediately because recruits are losing leverage without the ability to negotiate their fair market value in the NIL space and that UT’s reputation is stained by the NCAA’s unfair investigation focused on NIL rules enforcement.

“If UT is punished with bowl bans or players sitting out games, that is irreparable harm. But the threat of irreparable harm is also harm,’ Cam Norris, a lawyer arguing on the states, told the judge during the preliminary injunction hearing on Feb. 13.

Corker, especially, agreed that’s unfair for prospects to go through the recruiting process blindly without knowing their NIL earnings potential.

What it means for NCAA investigation into Tennessee football

This federal case and the NCAA’s investigation into Tennessee aren’t directly connected, but the prior impacts the latter.

With the injunction, the NCAA will have a difficult time enforcing the most serious charges regarding NIL. After all, it would be attempting to punish a school for breaking rules in the past that are unenforceable and potentially illegal in the present.

“Considering the evidence currently before the court, plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim under the Sherman Act (antitrust),” Corker wrote in his opinion in a denied temporary restraining order on Feb. 6.

The NCAA is investigating allegations that Tennessee broke NIL rules in multiple sports, including football, Knox News has learned. But the university has not received a notice of allegations, so there’s an opportunity for the NCAA to back off after this ruling.

But charging Tennessee with breaking NIL rules may not be the NCAA’s only option. It could try to reinterpret alleged violations as breaking rules regarding only boosters, even if those boosters were acting on behalf of an NIL collective.

If so, the NCAA would be trying to thread a needle in its investigation into Tennessee. After all, Corker instructed the NCAA to stop restricting collectives, including boosters, from engaging in NIL negotiations.

In his order, Corker prohibited all NCAA employees from enforcing its NIL policy and bylaws ‘to the extent such authority prohibits student-athletes from negotiating compensation for NIL with any third-party entity, including but not limited to boosters or a collective of boosters, until a full and final decision.’

The ball is now in the NCAA’s court about whether it wants to pursue its investigation into Tennessee and to attempt to preserve its NIL rules in the federal suit. Those decisions are separate but related because they deal with NIL rules.

‘Turning upside down rules overwhelmingly supported by member schools will aggravate an already chaotic collegiate environment, further diminishing protections for student-athletes from exploitation,” the NCAA said in a statement. “The NCAA fully supports student-athletes making money from their name, image and likeness and is making changes to deliver more benefits to student-athletes, but an endless patchwork of state laws and court opinions make clear partnering with Congress is necessary to provide stability for the future of all college athletes.’

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