By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – She arrived during a global pandemic when the arenas were mostly empty and quiet, and she will leave as arguably the greatest Hawkeye sports legend of all time not named Nile Kinnick.

That’s where Caitlin Clark is right now as a sports and cultural phenomenon.

If you were to construct your own Mount Rushmore featuring the four greatest Hawkeye student-athletes of all time, both men and women, it would have to start with Nile Kinnick and Caitlin Clark.

It used to start just with Nile Kinnick and then everybody else, but Clark has ascended to almost a mythical status by doing things on the basketball court that didn’t seem possible until she started doing them as a freshman in 2020.

The logo threes, the no-look passes, the consistency, durability and productivity, the 6-foot- Clark has performed at a level only so few can even come close to approaching.

Carver-Hawkeye Arena, the same arena that was empty and mostly silent when Clark arrived in 2020 because of the global pandemic was the center of the sports universe Thursday night with Clark just eight points from breaking the NCAA all-time scoring record.

And break it she did in true Caitlin Clark fashion by making a logo three in the first quarter. She would go on to score a program record 49 points in Iowa’s 106-89 victory over Michigan.

“Just to do it in this fashion, I’m very grateful and very thankful to be surrounded by so many people that have kind of been my foundation with everything that I’ve done since I was a young, little girl,” Clark said in her post-game press conference.

Clark has since been congratulated on social media from a Who’s Who list of celebrities, including former President Barack Obama, NBA legend Magic Johnson and tennis icon Billie Jean King.

She will forever be a Hawkeye, and an Iowa native, but her appeal now stretches from coast to coast and has people from all ages following her every move.

She has sort of become the Taylor Swift of sports, a talent and personality whose immense  popularity seems to have no limits and few boundaries.

As a former five-star recruit from West Des Moines Dowling, Clark had her pick of schools.

She also gave serious consideration to Notre Dame and Iowa State before picking Lisa Bluder and the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Clark had seen what Iowa had accomplished with All-America center Megan Gustafson leading the way to the NCAA Elite Eight in 2019 and she wanted to be a part of it.

“She’s such a special player, and the University of Iowa is the right place for this to happen,” Bluder said after Thursday’s game. “It absolutely is. This is a place that has supported basketball, women’s basketball, for such a long time, and anything can happen here.

Clark felt that she could accomplish her individual and team goals as a Hawkeye, and she also wanted to play for her home-state school and be close to her family and friends.

Clark often mentions the people around her when addressing her success.

Her teammates and coaches are dear to her heart and have played a key role in helping to build her legend.

The way in which Bluder and her assistant coaches have handled having a highly emotional and generational talent in a team sport has been so impressive.

Some, unfortunately, find it easy to resent and be jealous of Clark for how she owns the spotlight, and some will say for how she sometimes expresses herself in the heat of the moment.

Because with every superstar, there are detractors who would prefer to minimize what she or he has accomplished because it apparently makes them feel better about themselves.

And that’s sad.

The Iowa coaches deserve praise for having created an atmosphere in which there is no jealousy or resentment.

Clark has also helped to create that atmosphere by being an unselfish player and a great teammate.

As talented as she is as a perimeter shooter, and as a scorer, Clark is arguably a better passer.

Her vision, her court awareness and her anticipation are perhaps her three greatest skills.

She has over 1,000 career assists, and she had 13 against Michigan on Thursday.

But she could easily have more career assists if you consider all the extraordinary passes that her teammates couldn’t handle due to their difficulty.

That isn’t meant as disrespect to her teammates, but rather as praise for Clark’s rare passing skills.

The fact that Clark hasn’t scored 50 points in a game as a Hawkeye is a testimony to her unselfishness and to her willingness to pass because she could easily hit a half century on any given night.

There are many times when Clark is close to being unstoppable as a scorer.

Her offensive game has no weakness.

Clark is fortunate to be 6-foot, and to have long arms because her reach is another one of her many strengths.

She’d still be a great player at 5-7, but she wouldn’t be the Caitlin Clark that now packs arenas wherever she goes.

No other Hawkeye, man or woman, has come close to matching Clark’s popularity, or her drawing power.

Fans now wait for hours in line and pay enormous amounts of money to watch her play at visiting arenas.

It also has reached the point where Clark and her cohorts set a record for television viewership whenever Iowa plays.

Her popularity climbed to a new level when Clark led Iowa to the NCAA championship game last season.

Iowa lost to Louisiana State 102-85 in the title game, but the stage belonged to Clark as she dazzled fans with her skills and her moxie.

To put Clark at the same level as Nile Kinnick is probably the greatest compliment she could receive as a Hawkeye.

Kinnick is Iowa’s only Heisman Trophy winner, but his popularity goes far beyond sports as he died on a training flight in 1943 while serving as a United States naval aviator.

It was hard to even consider putting somebody in his class as a Hawkeye legend until Caitlin Clark arrived and changed the way women’s basketball is perceived.

Clark would be the first to say that her success starts with her family, and with the foundation that they have built around her.

I am fortunate to know some of her relatives, namely her grandfather, Bob Nizzi, who was the head football coach and athletic director during my four years as a student at Dowling from 1978-82.

I was also in the same graduating class with her aunt Kathy Nizzi, who would go on to marry my fellow Dowling classmate and basketball teammate, Tom Faber.

These are good people with good intentions.

They have helped Caitlin Clark soar to unprecedented heights, while also keeping her humble and grounded.

Clark could use her free Covid year and return next season, and fans were chanting one more year near the end of Thursday’s game.

My guess is that Clark will choose to play in the WNBA next season because her game is ready for a bigger challenge, and because the money and fame will follow wherever she goes.

Selfishly, I’d love for her to return for a fifth season, because for one, she’s good for business, and because we’re witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime player whose national appeal is like nothing we’ve seen before.

But whatever she chooses to do, Caitlin Clark will make the right decision for her, and that is what matters the most.

Her legend already is firmly established, and now it’s just a matter of adding to it like only she can.