A woman writer for New York Times sports vertical The Athletic has declared that the Indiana Fever should drop Sophie Cunningham for political reasons. Candace Buckner claims that Cunningham, in supporting women's rights, has created a "circus."
That's right, a woman who is undoubtedly a lefty, perhaps even veering toward feminism, believes that it is so improper for Cunningham to stick up for the rights of women and girls to compete on a fair playing field that she thinks the WNBA star should be removed from the game.
In her column "Fever should part with Sophie Cunningham. She's too turbulent to be paired with Caitlin Clark," Buckner claims that the support Cunningham has gotten for defending the rights of women and girls to play sports should disqualify her from playing her sport in the WNBA. Her belief, apparently, is that a woman should either play basketball or speak her mind, but that she can't do both.
Cunningham has gained a lot of fans in speaking up, and those fans have attended her games only to face protests outside the arena or to be taunted by other players once inside. Of Enes Kanter, Royce White, Indiana AG Todd Rokita, Riley Gaines, and the others arriving to see Cunningham play, Buckner wrote, "They attended solely to antagonize and amplify a nonexistent issue in this basketball league." That issue? Men playing women's sports.
It may not be an issue in the WNBA, but it is an issue for women's basketball, volleyball, and track teams all across the country from middle school up through college. Cunningham was asked her view on men playing women's sports only twice and both times she stuck up for women's rights.
"I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans," she told ESPN in July. "And I'm like, 'I never once said that.' I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men."
That led New York Times female columnist Buckner to say, "This was the season when the Fever and even the whole Caitlin Clark experience took a backseat to a bench player with big opinions." Cunningham was asked what she thought in an interview. She answered. Her opinion wasn't even "big," it was common sense.
"Go to Chicago, or Portland. Or maybe Toronto could use a 30-year-old unrestricted free agent who averages fewer than 8 points a game..." She claims that "Cunningham is too combustible, her takes too turbulent to be paired with Caitlin Clark. On the same team, it's just too much."
What's too much? Two players who media can't get enough of. Over the summer, before Cunningham's views on protecting women's sports came to light, Buckner slammed Clark, too.
"This isn't fun," she wrote. "The Caitlin Clark experience," going on to say that what was meant to be "a whole bunch of logo 3s and a staggering amount of no-look passes" has become a "league-wide PR nightmare." That "nightmare" was basically being pushed around and bad-mouthed by other players.
Now Buckner says Cunningham shouldn't be on the same team as Clark. "Cunningham is now as recognizable as Clark," she says, "and in some right-leaning circles, because of her outspokenness, she's more respected. So, Cunningham shouldn't be muted... she just needs to do it on another team." Buckner doesn't like Cunningham and she doesn't like her fans, but most of all she doesn't like to see a woman standing up and supporting women's rights. No wonder she writes for the Times.
