On Her Game - by Christine Brennan (Hardcover)

About the Book

"America has never seen an athlete quite like Caitlin Clark. Attracting record-shattering attendance and TV ratings, she has riveted the nation with her famous logo threes and thrilling passes and changed how fans across the country view women's sports. Drawing on dozens of extensive interviews and exclusive behind-the-scenes reporting, veteran journalist Christine Brennan narrates Clark's rise--including the formative experiences that led to her scoring more points than any woman or man in major college basketball history. ... Clark arrived as a sports and cultural icon a little more than fifty years after the passage of Title IX, the 1972 law that opened the floodgates for girls and women to play sports in America. On Her Game is a sports story, certainly, but it's also the story of a nation falling in love with what it has created because of that law--millions of new athletes, led by the magical Caitlin Clark"--

Book Synopsis

Instant New York Times Bestseller!

A news-making and electrifying portrait of sports phenomenon Caitlin Clark, whose dramatic ascendance in college basketball and now in the WNBA has captured the attention of media and fans unlike any other female team-sport athlete in history--by award-winning USA TODAY columnist and television commentator Christine Brennan.

America has never seen an athlete quite like Caitlin Clark. Attracting record-shattering attendance and TV ratings, she has riveted the nation with her famous logo threes and thrilling passes and changed how fans across the country view women's sports. Drawing on dozens of extensive interviews and exclusive, behind-the-scenes reporting, veteran journalist Christine Brennan narrates Clark's rise--including the formative experiences that led to her scoring more points than any woman or man in major college basketball history--and delivers fascinating new details about Clark's Olympic snub by USA Basketball, the safety concerns around her that led to charter flights for all players, the WNBA's lack of preparation for heightened national scrutiny, and troubling outbreaks of jealousy and resentment as a white player became the top story in a predominantly Black league.

The 2024 season was a watershed. Always taking the high road in the face of criticism, Clark proceeded to write herself into WNBA record books as one of the league's most talented rookies ever. And her winning persona--on full display whether surrounded by children begging for autographs or reporters hanging on her every word--made Clark such a fan favorite that increasingly larger arenas needed to be found to accommodate the hordes who traveled hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles to watch her play.

Clark arrived as a sports and cultural icon a little more than fifty years after the passage of Title IX, the 1972 law that opened the floodgates for girls and women to play sports in America. On Her Game is a sports story, certainly, but it's also the story of a nation falling in love with what it has created because of that law--millions of new athletes, led by the magical Caitlin Clark.

Review Quotes

"Brennan's longtime coverage of Clark's career makes this book a slam dunk."
--Los Angeles Times

"Top-notch... a triumphant account of a game-changer."
--Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"Interesting...speaks to the divisive 'us vs. them' moment the world finds itself in."
--Associated Press

"Riveting...Brennan takes us behind the scenes with captivating in-depth reporting, revealing not only who Caitlin Clark is and why she is so good, but also why she is beloved by so many. This biography is a wonderful portrait of an athlete and a time in America, capturing in rich detail Clark's unprecedented rise to superstardom. It's a story about an athlete who appreciates every moment while breaking records, signing autographs, and living her dreams. In other words, it's about the magic of sports."
--Jackie MacMullan, formerly, Senior Writer at Sports Illustrated and columnist for The Boston Globe and ESPN

"Long one of America's most accomplished and respected sportswriters, Christine Brennan has covered just about every sport. As part of that impressive body of work, she has consistently brought insightful attention to women's sports. So she brings to the Caitlin Clark Moment deep knowledge and perspective about the history that led to it. Caitlin Clark's story is already one of the biggest and most compelling in sports. On these pages, it's a story well told."
--Bob Costas, 29-time Emmy Award-winning broadcaster

"In On Her Game, Christine Brennan exhibits her typically extraordinary insight into the often controversial and complicated issues arising in modern sports. All the while, she maintains a standard of journalistic professionalism and clarity that renders her analysis and reporting not only exceedingly thought-provoking and informative, but also engrossing."
--Harry Edwards, Ph.D., professor emeritus at UC Berkeley

"Christine Brennan is the right journalist, Caitlin Clark is the right topic, and this is the right time. For decades, Brennan has been at the forefront of what's happening in women's sports, and here's another example of her immersive research and clear writing. No one has a more valuable sense of time and place."
--Hall of Fame Journalist Lesley Visser

"There's no better person than Christine Brennan, who has spent her life chronicling the great stories in American sports, to take us inside the uniquely complex and compelling story of Caitlin Clark."
--Michael Wilbon, cohost of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption

About the Author

Christine Brennan is an award-winning national sports columnist for USA TODAY; a commentator for ABC, CNN, and PBS NewsHour; and the bestselling author of Inside Edge, named one of the top 100 sports books of all time by Sports Illustrated. She has been selected as one of the country's top ten sports columnists multiple times by the Associated Press Sports Editors and has covered the last twenty-one Olympic Games, summer and winter. A trailblazer, she was the first woman sportswriter at The Miami Herald, the first woman to cover Washington's NFL team for The Washington Post, and the first president of the Association for Women in Sports Media.