Chris Smith

Father, Husband, Councilman, RE Developer, Owner of Val's Tavern. Pro Tailgater. Follow Giants, Mets,Duke,Yale, UGA and RBC Girl’s Hoops!

[Harvard Women's Basketball @HarvardWBB]

Cambridge can’t wait to have some of that Jersey toughness. Let’s get it Soph!

#Believelt x #GoCrimson

[Harvard Women's Basketball @HarvardWBB]

Crimson Nation we’ve got three first-years you guys are going to love! Stay tuned as we introduce our newest members to our forever family.

#Believelt x #GoCrimson

[Harvard Women's Basketball @HarvardWBB]

Congratulations to @sophiesmith2026 on her big day 🎓🎉

#Believelt x #GoCrimson

[Sports Patriot @SportsPatriotUS]

I’m going to say this as calmly as possible:

Watching Caitlin Clark in the WNBA has become genuinely hard to stomach.

Not because she struggles sometimes. Not because she makes mistakes. Not because she gets criticized. That comes with being great.

It’s hard to stomach because it has become obvious that the league, the officials, the media, the players, and even her own organization have all decided that the most important thing is not letting Caitlin Clark become too big.

And that is insane.

This league was handed the most marketable, electric, revenue-generating player women’s basketball has ever seen, and instead of building around the moment, too many people seem obsessed with humbling her.

She gets fouled. Held. Hit. Cheap-shotted. Mocked. Targeted. Then when she reacts like a normal competitor, suddenly everyone wants to analyze her attitude.

No.

Her attitude is not the story.

The story is that a generational player is being treated like a problem by the very league she helped drag into mainstream relevance.

This reminds me of the worst kind of youth coach... the one who sees a special player, feels threatened by her talent, and slowly drains the joy out of her in the name of “teaching humility.”

That is what this looks like.

The freedom she played with at Iowa is disappearing. The fire is still there, but the joy looks damaged. The confidence looks weighed down. She looks like someone constantly fighting the refs, opponents, narratives, coaching decisions, jealousy, and a league culture that should be protecting its golden opportunity instead of resenting it.

And let’s be honest: Stephanie White has not helped.

Benching Caitlin Clark randomly when she is controlling the game tempo, or having your best shooter off the floor in critical game ending minutes when a victory is within reach is basketball malpractice. Limiting her rhythm, downplaying her greatness, benching momentum, and treating her like just another piece instead of the engine is absurd.

You do not take a player who changed the economics of your sport and manage her like you’re afraid her greatness might offend the room.

Nike deserves criticism too. Other players get signature shoes rolled out with urgency, while the biggest draw in women’s basketball is somehow still waiting on that signature shoe. That is not confusing. That is revealing.

Fans are not stupid.

They see the fouls.
They see the double standards.
They see the jealousy.
They see the media resentment.
They see the league benefiting from her popularity while refusing to fully embrace her.
And here is the part the WNBA better understand quickly:
People are not tuning in to watch Caitlin Clark be humbled.
They are tuning in to watch Caitlin Clark be great.
If she walked away tomorrow, the fans would follow her. The sponsors would follow her. The energy would follow her. The high salaries and the charter jets would follow her. And the league would be forced to confront the uncomfortable truth it keeps trying to avoid:

Caitlin Clark did not need the WNBA nearly as much as the WNBA needed Caitlin Clark.

At some point, her family, her agent, and her team need to ask a hard question:

How much longer do you let a league profit from her while allowing the culture around her to beat the spirit out of her?

Because from the outside looking in, this does not look like normal adversity anymore. It looks like abuse.

It looks like a league trying to break the very player who made millions of people care.

https://t.co/AAxFrO46Z4

[RBC Girls Basketball @rbcgirlshoops]

Congratulations to our amazing RBC Seniors on their graduation. Wishing you tons of happiness and success on your new journey! ❤️🏀You will be missed!! 🍀

[Chris Smith @76ChrisSmith]

Let’s go Sophie!

[Harvard Women's Basketball @HarvardWBB]

Welcome to Harvard, Sophie Smith!

Sophie is a do it all player who is going to impact our program on the court and in the locker room. Her ability to make plays inside and out makes her a threat, but her ability to lock down on defense makes her a menace.


[College Football Report @CFBReport]

Colleges With Most Active NFL Players, per @spotrac 🏈

[Judge Stephen Dillard @JudgeDillard]

Every American should watch every second of this video.

Thank you, @BenSasse.

[Chris Smith @76ChrisSmith]

@metsbatflip1 whatever we had to pay, it's worth it!

[The Hill & Valley Forum @HillValleyForum]

"Our head count in Manhattan when I got to JPMorgan was 35,000 and now is 26,000. Our head count in Texas started at 11,000, now it's 33,000. That's what happens."

Jamie Dimon on why companies are leaving New York:

"Highest individual taxes, highest estate taxes, highest corporate taxes, anti-business sentiment."

"When I grew up as a kid in New York City, there were 120 of the Fortune 500 headquarters there. In the 1970s, 60 of the 120 left, including Exxon, GE, IBM, Union Carbide. They're all going to Texas."

The Hill & Valley Forum 2026

@HillValleyForum @jpmorgan @ChairmanG

[Assemblyman Gerry Scharfenberger @NJAsmGerry]

Great work by my colleagues here calling for a federal review of funding 👇

[Assemblyman Gerry Scharfenberger @NJAsmGerry]

.@AswVickyFlynn and I are co-sponsors of A1189, the “Fully Funding Schools and Cutting Property Taxes Act” which would address the unfair funding formula while allowing for cuts in local property taxes.

[Coach Tiny Green @TinyGreenNBS]

Young lady is getting her flowers and well deserved ❤️🤗⭐️🏆

[Chris Smith @76ChrisSmith]

@wakeupnj Val’s Tavern est. 1942, Rumson NJ

[CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 @CBSSportsCBB]

"That jersey's hard to wear. Because everybody thinks they want to play there, but they have no idea what the responsibility of playing there is."

@CWalkerSports talks about the pressures of playing at Duke.

[Red Bank Catholic @RBCCaseys]

Congrats Sophie! #gocaseys #RBC #caseys #redbank #caseynation #onceacaseyalwaysacasey

[RBC Girls Basketball @rbcgirlshoops]

Way to go Sophie!!! Well deserved!

[Jersey Sports Zone @JSZ_Sports]

🏀JSZ All Zone Profile: Sophie Smith, Red Bank Catholic🏀

The Harvard commit was one of the top players in the post and showed her outside shooting prowess in huge spots highlighted by 17 points against Paul VI and two huge three-pointers in the state championship win against Morris Catholic!

Meet the rest of JSZ's All-Zone Girls' Basketball team⬇️
https://t.co/XFhEyiEGTc

@CaseysSports | @rbcgirlshoops

[C3 @C_3C_3]

There are 42 states that hold bartenders accountable if the customers they over serve kill someone but 0 states that hold Judges accountable if the criminals they release kill someone.

Insane.

[Travon Miles @TrayABC11]

Cameron Boozer speaking his mind tonight:

“You can watch the media. Everyone wants us to lose. We go into Siena halftime they’re talking about I hope Duke gets upset. We played TCU they talking about, that’s a physical team we gonna get upset. Same thing with St. John’s. I think we just did a great job blocking out all the noise, focusing on what’s important.”