MINNEAPOLIS — Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark remembers the time she first met her idol.

As a young kid, Clark and her dad, Brent, drove the four hours from their hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, to Minneapolis to see a Lynx game. Out of sheer geography, Minnesota was Clark’s favorite WNBA team growing up. It helped the Lynx were dominating when Clark was watching. Minnesota won four WNBA titles (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017) and were in two more finals before Clark graduated high school.

As of Saturday night, all five starters from that four-time WNBA champion team have their jersey in the rafters — Seimone Augustus, Sylvia Fowles, Lindsay Whalen, Rebekkah Brunson and now, Maya Moore, whose jersey was retired Saturday night as the Fever lost at Minnesota.

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For a young Caitlin Clark, Moore was the one who stood out.

“She was the person for me, honestly,” Clark said. “I remember that Lynx team better than anybody. As a young girl, obviously they were the closest WNBA team to me growing up, so it’s kind of who you root for, but they were also really good, so they were easy to root for.”

When Brent Clark called to get tickets — last minute, Clark said — the person at the box office offered to both let them in the arena before doors opened to watch early warmups and stay after for a Q-&-A from the Lynx lineup.

So, sitting courtside while watching warmups, Clark was just feet away from Moore. Clark got some pictures with other Lynx players pregame, she said, but she couldn’t get one with her idol.

Her first meeting with Moore came after that.

Following the postgame Q-&-A Moore was a part of, Clark got her chance.

“I didn’t have a Sharpie, and I was at the age where I didn’t have a phone, so I kind of just ran away from my dad because I wanted to meet the players,” Clark said. “And I just ran up to her and I gave her a hug. There’s no documentation of that moment, but obviously, in my brain, that was one of the most pivotal moments probably in my entire basketball career. Obviously as a young girl, loving sports, that meant the world to me.”

But Moore doesn’t recall that specific moment. Really, why would she? She had likely hundreds of young girls run up to her throughout her career, asking for a picture, an autograph or a hug. She had no way of knowing one of those girls would end up being a two-time National Player of the Year and eventual No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft.

With Clark having the spotlight now, it’s something cool to think about.

“I love kids, I’ve always loved kids since I was a kid,” Moore said. “Most times, if a young person caught my eye, I was going to interact with them if I could. I probably have more memories of me being Caitlin’s age, as a 10 year old, and hugging Cynthia Cooper or Sheryl Swoopes. But it’s really, really cool to think about how one of those little girls became Caitlin Clark.”

Clark and Moore met again, years later, during Clark's senior season at Iowa. Moore surprised Clark ahead of a March game where the Iowa standout became the NCAA Division I basketball all-time leading scorer. It was completely unexpected —  Clark let out a small scream as Moore came into the hallway and immediately went in for a hug.

Moore is just 35, but she stepped away from basketball in 2018 to focus on criminal justice advocacy, specifically in the wrongful conviction of her now-husband Jonathan Irons. He was released from prison in 2020 after his 50-year sentence was overturned, and the two married and now have a child. She considered returning to the WNBA on a year-by-year basis, but officially announced her retirement from the league in 2023. Now, she is immortalized in the Target Center rafters as a WNBA MVP, Finals MVP, four-time champion, and one of the best to play the game.

“Everything she does for the world is way cooler than what she did on the basketball court,” Clark said. “She’s just such a great individual, a great person, and I know she finds even more joy and satisfaction in all the other things that she’s done off the court.”

Really, for Moore to have an impact like she did on Clark is a sign of the times for the league. Before the WNBA started, young girls aspiring to be basketball players didn’t have players of their own gender to look up to.

That changed with this league. Moore had Swoopes and Cooper to look up to, trying to emulate their game and how they interacted with fans. Clark had Moore to look up to, sharing in her scoring prowess and love for the fans, too.

“I think really just the offensive side, that’s pretty simple,” Clark said of what she liked about Moore’s game. “She was a really good defender, she had a really complete game. I didn’t take the defensive mindset from Maya, I don’t really have that, but just the passion and joy you could always see her play with, just her smile, she was competitive, she was fiery.”

For Clark, her impact is transcending what any player has done before. She became someone people yearned to see at nearly any cost, at home or on the road. She packed opposing arenas in college and is doing the same in the WNBA, with almost every game feeling like it’s a home game.

“I thought it was really cool, her senior year of college, to see that take hold,” said Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve, who has coached the Lynx since 2009. “It wasn’t just the Iowa fans. It wasn’t just that they sold out Carver. She became a road show … I don’t remember seeing that in my times, and that’s held true. We’ve wanted a player that can sort of transcend some of these spaces and have a road show.”

With that transcendence comes a lot of fans wanting an autograph or a picture, and Clark makes time for them at every game. Following her on-court warmups and stretches, she goes over to the horde of fans waiting near the tunnel, posing for pictures and signing her name on every jersey or sign.

She knows what that means to those fans because of how much it meant to her when she was a kid.

“These kids or even adults or boys or girls are going to cherish (the memory) for forever,” Clark said of Moore’s impact of her meeting fans in June. “And for me to be a small part of that, and just getting to do what I love — that's all I have to do to, you know, maybe change their life or give them a memory that will inspire them for the rest of theirs. It's pretty easy for me, so I feel very fortunate.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Caitlin Clark remembers Maya Moore hug that spurred her love of hoops