USA Today Writer ‘Apologizes’ for ‘Inartful Comparison’ of Caitlin Clark and Emmett Till Murder, Claims You Didn’t Get Her Point

When is an apology not really an apology? I can think of any number of ways, but I can easily identify the most infuriating: when someone “apologizes” to anyone not for what they said, but because you didn’t get what they were actually saying.

The current champion in this category is Nancy Armour, a sportswriter for USA Today.

Armour has already received her rainbow jacket for induction to the Woke Nonsense Hall of Fame, having famously declared in 2020 that the decidedly average activist and even more average quarterback Colin Kaepernick should be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame since he “sacrificed his career because he wanted to make his country better.”

However, that merely proved she was a sportswriter who couldn’t read a stats sheet, or at least wouldn’t read one if it disabused her of some cockamamie premise for a thinkpiece.

Now, she’s also proved she can’t read the room or watch short internet clips of the WNBA’s biggest star getting fouled constantly, sometimes to the point of being choked on the ground.

In that vein, she published a piece Wednesday entitled, “Caitlin Clark’s flopping isn’t just annoying — it’s becoming dangerous.” How is it becoming dangerous, per se? Is she putting other players at risk on the court?

Oh, no, hardly: It’s because apparently the Klan is behind Caitlin Clark’s fanbase and something something something, Emmett Till got murdered by white supremacists and was born in the same city as the WNBA All-Star Game is being played this weekend, something something something, and therefore it’s Clark’s fault she’s getting fouled like this:

NEW: WNBA player Alyssa Thomas has been suspended after she cheap-shotted Caitlin Clark in the throat.

No foul was called during the game as Thomas was caught on camera jamming her fist into Clark’s throat.

The league has now suspended Thomas for one game and will fine her… pic.twitter.com/dsFXNroz2L

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 25, 2026

Here’s Armour’s piece from Wednesday:

It seems there is a white nationalist element 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.

Gray posted just one of the messages she got following the Fever game, in which a man called her a racial slur. After fans identified the man, he was fired by his employer, Hilton Grand Vacations.

“Enough is kind of enough,” Gray said on July 15. “These messages are not the first of its kind. There was other stuff too … It was just time. I got fed up with it and I just decided to it.”

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 WNBA’s All-Star Game this weekend is in Chicago, Emmett Till’s hometown, and a local art gallery is currently hosting an exhibitimagining 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 wider consequences of her actions.

Till was the victim of a 1955 lynching in Mississippi at the age of 14. To put this into perspective, this happened 42 years before the WNBA’s first season, and the NBA champions were the Syracuse Nationals, who defeated the Fort Wayne Pistons 4-3. (You probably know those teams better these days as the Philadelphia 76ers and the Detroit Pistons.)

In short: What? I’m sorry that there are still drunk and racist people in the world, but this has nothing to do with a lynching and the preternatural focus on loathing Caitlin Clark is far more adjacent to any sort of problematic political philosophy (i.e., the kind that connects Clark almost directly to the lynching of Emmett Till and says she should take her beatings like a good non-woke person should or else she’s putting black lives in danger) than Clark herself is.

Anyhow, Armour was forced to reckon with “the wider consequences of her actions” when they were brought to the attention of the wider internet, especially by Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy:

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 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

So, of course, thus came the coward’s half-apology: Sorry you were too stupid to understand what I was really saying.

She admitted that this was an “inartful comparison” between the Till lynching and Caitlin Clark, but this was because she “did not provide enough context for that.”

Oh? Do tell:

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.

Players have been abused online and have reported receiving death threats. That has to be taken more seriously.

I sincerely regret that my lack of appropriate context is overshadowing that important conversation and the action that needs to be taken by the WNBA to address it directly — for the benefit of ALL players.

Statement from USA Today sports columnist Nancy Armour pic.twitter.com/wif3P9Yg82

— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) July 23, 2026

Nancy Armour, you literally said that Caitlin Clark is directly responsible for racial antagonism that could lead to consequences akin to the lynching of Emmett Till. You can’t just walk that back to “my lack of appropriate context” and dealing with isolated incidents of abuse “for the benefit of ALL players.”

Right. This got the responses it deserved:

Caitlin Clark is punched in the throat without a foul called.

Nancy Armour: It’s as if that evil white devil just lit a cross on fire in front of the arena.

— Shooting News Weekly (@SN_Weekly_) July 23, 2026

There are “perceived” threats and there are actual assaults.

Which does this look like ? pic.twitter.com/5vht6YZg6q

— Leave Legacy Media (@LeaveTheMedia) July 23, 2026

Also, it’s worth noting that the article, according to an editor’s note, “has been updated to provide further context and clarity,” the lynching section remains untouched as of Friday morning.

But the thing is, Nancy Armour is not concerned about stuff like this until it comes back to bite her in the posterior.

She’s turned her X profile on protected and will no doubt be back once the news cycle moves on, lamenting how she’s really the victim because people online were mean to her.

She’ll portray herself as a regular white adult female Emmett Till, I can safely guess, if perhaps wise enough now not to invoke that name. (White adult female Colin Kaepernick, perhaps?)

Armour isn’t the only one who’s annoyed that the WNBA is no longer a corner of the sports world where the woke attention economy reigns supreme, but she does deserve credit for being the stupidest thinkpiece-peddler to use the league as vehicle to histrionically present cultural struggles in the most obnoxious context possible.

She is the worst so far, however. Considering what’s already been penned over the years, that’s really saying something — which is about all I’ll say for her.

Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.