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Indiana Fever’s star, Sophie Cunningham, the popular teammate “Executor” of Caitlin Clark, gave an internal look at Clark’s treatment by other teams and the consequences of the tension he has created during the WNBA games.
Cunningam revealed how his former team, the Phoenix Mercury, planned to play Clarkf during the rookie season of the phenomenon in 2024. Cunningham played his first five seasons in Phoenix before leaving to join the fever last season.
“You’ve seen the players in our league try to harden Caitlin … Even when I was not in his team, I know the conversations that Phoenix had in the locker room, such as’ No, we are going to show him what really is the W, and I get it to some extent, and every rookie who entered the league, that is how you are going to treat EM, but it is only more for her,” he said in her cunningham in her cunningham in her cunningham in her cunning.
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The Indiana Sophie Cunningham fever guard (8) and the Connecticut Sun Jacy Sheldon (4) guard fight in the second half of a WNBA basketball game in Indianapolis, on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
“And now being in your team and seeing it, I am like ‘what people are doing’, actually, it’s too much, it’s too much. I am overcome, and if I think it’s too much, it’s probably too much.”
Cunningham was on the other side of the situation when a fight began to defend Clark during a game against Connecticut Sun earlier this season. Cunningham said after the game, Clark exclaimed “Finally!” In the locker room.
“In the locker room, she says, I think she says: ‘Finally!'”, Cunningham said. “But I think he had our team together as a whole. They all said: ‘We have to protect each other.”
The fight fell into Connecticut on June 17, when Cunningham committed a strong foul on the Guard of Sun Jacy Sheldon. Sheldon POKED CLARK IN THE EYE Previously in the game, and then Sun’s companion, Marina Mabrey, pushed Clark to the ground.
Then Cunningham persecuted Sheldon in the fourth quarter to commit a lack of recovery.
“Last intrusive second thought, I was like ‘F —‘,” Cunningham said about his decision to instigate the fight.
His heated exchange became a thrust game before the players of both teams came to break it.
Cunningham, Sheldon and Sun Lindsay Allen’s guard were expelled from the game with about 40 seconds before the fever took home La Victoria.
But Cunningham alleges that the interaction left his mark on his face.
“He didn’t want to do it, but he did my tooth,” said Cunningham. “It’s a bit discolored … we literally break our teeth in the middle of the game, as a face to face.
“There are a couple of players in their team that simply do some extra things.”
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June 17, 2025; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; The Indiana Sophie Cunningham fever guard (8) and the Connecticut Sun Jacy Sheldon (4) guard (4) fight in the second half in Gainbridge Fieldhouse. (Images of Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn)
Cunningham also said it was fined “as, $ 900”, for the WNBA for the fight. But he also states that it was “his moment”, since his followers on Instagram and Tiktok quickly exceeded a million in the days after the game. Cunningham said that he also received a fine of $ 500 for a Tiktok who joked the WNBA referees.
He previously called the referees only a few days after the June 17 fight while talking to journalists, for not protecting Clark, when he had to publicly address the fight.
“During that, it was only part of the game. I think the referees had a lot to do with that. It was an accumulation for a couple of years of them, simply not protecting the star player from the WNBA,” Cunningham said. “At the end of the day, I’m going to protect my teammates. That’s what I do.”
Cunningham has become a popular hero for many, and his popularity has shot himself in the days after the fight.
With Cunningham winning the nickname of “The Enforce” for fever, fans who have her to protect Caitlin Clark can rest calm knowing that it is a black belt in Taekwondo Korean martial art.
He obtained the black belt at the age of 6.
His father Jim played football at the University of Missouri, and ended up following the footsteps of his father in the football field.
TO 2014 article For Columbia Missourian, he reported that Cunningham was the first woman to score any point for the team in history, when he kicked two of four extra points instead of the regular kicker of the team, which had torn a LCA.
Cunningham even managed the starting tasks.
Sophie Cunningham #8 of Indiana Fover arrives at the Arena before the match against the sky of Chicago on July 27, 2025 at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago, IL. (Gary Dineen/NBAE through Getty Images)
“I was so nervous,” Cunningham told The Outlet. “I mean, I had never played football before my life. Correct when I got the ball (at the opening inauguration), I couldn’t hear anything. I just put the ball and kicked it.”
Cunningham comes from a family of farmers and credits that education for the person who is today, according to Series of five -part characteristics by the University of Missouri.
“Much of our success goes back to what we learned here,” Cunningham said about working on the farm. “We loved going to the farm to help. We discovered how to work hard and work together. He made us a strong farm.”
