INDIANA FEVER SUPERSTAR CAITLIN CLARK EXPLAINS IOWA TRADITION OF BEGGARS' NIGHT
Add trick-or-treating to Caitlin Clark's long list of skills.
Clark, the former Iowa superstar, is a lock for WNBA rookie of the year. With one regular season game remaining, she averages 19.5 points and 5.7 rebounds and leads the league with 8.4 assists per game for Indiana.
Sign up for our NewslettersShe owns the league's single-season assist record, as well as the rookie scoring mark, and has helped guide the Fever back to the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
But her stellar play took a backseat to central Iowa's tradition of Beggars' Night during a recent news conference.
Clark said she keeps things light with her teammates by making them laugh. And she has plenty of jokes after years of Beggars' Night trick-or-treating, where you're supposed to tell a joke before you get your candy.
"When you trick-or-treat in Des Moines, Iowa, you have to tell a joke to earn your candy," she explained. "I guess no other place really does that in the country.
"So you have to tell a joke. You have to knock on the door and you have to tell a joke to get your candy. I know my mom's a stickler about it. If you don't tell a joke, you're not getting any candy. Those poor kids, they know better. So you better have a good joke at Halloween time."
The tradition was adopted by most central Iowa more than 80 years ago when as a way to reduce Halloween crime by sending children door to door a day early.
Towns like Bondurant, Marshalltown and Windsor Heights recently have broken from tradition and now hold trick-or-treating on the last Saturday of October. But kids will still need jokes because there are some, like Clark's mother Anne, who expect them.
"My mom to this day will still write all the jokes down ... and send them to me and my brother and we get a kick out of them," Clark said. "So that is where I get most of my jokes."
In true Clark fashion, Beggars' Night wasn't all fun and jokes — it was a competition to get the most candy.
"I was too worried about getting the full-size candy bars and being the first to knock on the door," Clark said. "I know that's super surprising, but I was in a full sweat at trick-or-treat. I came home, I had to go straight to the shower before I counted my candy because that's all that matters, that I got first.
"And I got first every year. The amount of candy I had, I was the first at the door, I had the best costume, I had the best joke. I dominated trick-or-treat."
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READ THE FULL STORY:Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark explains Iowa tradition of Beggars' Night
2024-09-18T21:07:15Z dg43tfdfdgfd