Caitlin Clark's story at Iowa may have come to an end, but her Hallmark movie is just beginning.
The No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft is a newly-minted Hoosier after being selected by the Fever. Luckily for her, a familiar face greeted her when she landed in her new dig.
She'll was reunited with her boyfriend, Connor McCaffery, who also played basketball at Iowa. Maybe it's a sign that long-distance relationships do work out — or maybe it's a sign that there is such a thing as fate.
No matter your outlook, it's clear that those cheesy scriptwriters aren't too far off from reality after all.
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What is Caitlin Clark's boyfriend's job?
McCaffery is a team assistant for the NBA's Indiana Pacers. He joined the organization in 2023 after his playing career at Iowa concluded.
“I’ll play dummy defense, run the scout team, help coaches on film stuff, help on video projects if they need, scouting reports if they need,” McCaffery told the Des Moines Register. “It’s kind of all-hands on deck, whatever you’re asked to do, be ready to do it.
“It’s a way in. It’s an entry-level job. You’ve got to work hard and work your way up. That’s obviously what I want to do.”
In pursuing a coaching career, the former Hawkeye is following in his father's footsteps. McCaffery's father, Fran, is the current head coach of Iowa men's basketball.
MORE: Why Caitlin Clark is Sporting News Women's College Basketball Player of the Year
Who is Caitlin Clark's boyfriend?
Clark is dating McCaffery, who spent six seasons as a member of the Iowa men's basketball team.
McCaffery didn't experience as much success as Clark on the hardwood, averaging just 4.5 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 3.2 assists across 166 career games with 88 starts. He was recognized for academic achievements, earning the Academic Excellence Award for five seasons.
The finance and political science major also managed to pull off being a dual-sport athlete during the 2018-19 season, playing 32 games for Iowa's baseball team. The injury bug ultimately took a bite out of him, which forced McCaffery to hang up the cleats and focus solely on basketball.
With a professional career no longer an option, he decided to put his energy into coaching, which is how he ended up with the Pacers after graduating in May 2023.
“There has always been a little voice in the back of my head kind of telling me, like, that’s the direction I’ll go,” Connor McCaffery said prior to his final Iowa home game via The Daily Iowan. “But this year, just being completely locked in on basketball and finally knowing that it’s coming to a full end, I don’t have another year to fall back on. I can’t put off a professional career anymore. And I just kind of had to think about it.”
Now it seems that Clark and McCaffery can have the best of both worlds — each other's company, and their careers.
