USA Today sports columnist Nancy Armour is notorious for using her space on the sports page to drop liberal bombs. On Thursday, she took on the WNBA star who's revitalized that league, under the headline "Caitlin Clark’s flopping isn’t just annoying — it’s becoming dangerous."
Armour began by claiming Clark "and her enablers must take the rest of us for idiots" when Clark is "flopping. And her histrionics while doing so are putting other people in danger." Some people get nasty on social media against players who flagrantly foul Clark.
It's not unheard of to accuse a superstar of working the refs. People said this about Michael Jordan during his playing days. But Armour wants this to be about racism, and anyone who advocates for Clark might be a white nationalist. Under the heading "Rants and histrionics put opponents at risk," Armour argued:
It seems there is a white nationalist faction to Clark’s fandom that is deeply, deeply problematic, made even more so because the WNBA is made up predominantly of Black women, many of them queer. When Clark claims fouls that don’t exist, when she goes on profanity-laced tirades at referees, those racists see her as a white woman in need of saving and take matters into their own hands.
Then it really went off the rails, to a Mississippi lynching in 1955:
It shouldn’t need reminding this country has an awful history of Black people being harmed, even killed, in the name of “defending” white women. The irony of the WNBA's All-Star Game is that it's happening this weekend in Chicago, the hometown of Emmett Till, who became an icon of the civil rights movement after his tragic murder. The local art gallery is currently hosting an exhibit imagining his life if he hadn't been lynched. While it’s incumbent on the WNBA to do more to protect its players, there also should be an expectation on Clark to recognize the broader implications of her actions being weaponized.
After the uproar began, Armour put out a statement on Instagram that this Emmitt Till comparison was "inartful...However, this point stands: There is a history in this country of perceived threats to white women being weaponized against African-Americans, and the danger that poses to Black players in the league."
Which editor read this garbage, and approved it for national publication? Now this Till paragraph has been removed, and an Editor's Note was appended: "This column has been updated to provide further context and clarity." Oh, there was clarity in this nastiness. Or stupidity, as Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports tweeted:
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 Congrats to USA Today’s Nancy Armour! She has written the dumbest paragraph not only of my lifetime but in the history of sports. This is an article that says @CaitlinClark22 arguing calls has become dangerous for the @wnba and civil rights. Nancy Armour… pic.twitter.com/4nWGZf0gin
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) July 23, 2026
Armour hammers on the far-left anvil often. Last month, as the World Cup was ongoing, Armour declared the United States "lost" due to its "greed and hostility" on the global stage, declaring "we chose to be ugly Americans" as the host nation.
Here are some golden oldies from the NewsBusters archive:
-- USA Today Beats Up On 'Hateful,' Ignorant Red States For Opposing Trans Athletes
-- USA Today: Discontinue 'Lazy Excuse for Patriotism' National Anthem
