Taylor Swift. Simone Biles. And now Caitlin Clark.
Clark will receive a special jacket designed by Kristin Juszczyk as a surprise after her final regular season game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday. The No. 6-ranked Hawkeyes will celebrate their seniors before facing No. 2 Ohio State (Fox, 1 p.m. ET), and Clark is 18 points away from passing Pete Maravich's all-time NCAA Division I record.
The jacket features holes with Clark's name and No. 22 from the white and black Iowa State jerseys. In the diagonal black squares are stitched “NCAA women's scoring leader” and “Iowa's all-time leader in: points, assists, 3 p.m., FGM.” Juszczyk said the school's records were chosen specifically because they were important to Clark, an Iowa native, and her fans.
“I wish I could add all her trophies in there, but you would need 700 jackets to fit all of that in. It's unbelievable,” Juszczyk told Yahoo Sports on Friday. “It's a special piece and I hope you love it.”
Juszczyk, whose husband, Kyle Juszczyk, plays for the San Francisco 49ers, teased the piece on her Instagram Stories on Wednesday with a sequence of emojis: basketball, black heart, yellow heart, woman's face. It caught the attention of a few fans on social media, and Juszczyk later added a photo showing her cutting off a Big Ten logo patch and tagging State Farm.
It completes a trio of headliners in the first two months of 2024 for Juszczyk. she I got attention overnight when I designed it Kansas City Chiefs puffer jacket for Swift to wear at the Sub-Zero game. It featured her boyfriend Travis Kelce's number, and an iconic photo circulated on social media of Swift behind frosted windows.
weeks ago, I designed a jacket For Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in Olympic history who will likely compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics, she could wear it in celebration of her husband, Green Bay Packers safety Jonathan Owens. Juszczyk also designed pieces for model Olivia Culpo, who is engaged to 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, and actor Taylor Lautner. extremist Detroit Lions fan. She said each jacket takes about 40 hours of work a full week.
Clark's jacket is her first piece for a college athlete or in the collegiate world.
“It's very special to me to be able to create, especially for a woman of her caliber,” Goscheck said. “She's a leader in her league and it's special to be able to see her sell out all these arenas and break all these records. … What a great way for her to be able to show how much her fans love her and to be able to represent herself through a piece of clothing.” “
State Farm recently came up with the idea to commemorate Clark's collegiate accomplishments, and Juszczyk jumped at the opportunity. The company signed Clark as its first collegiate sports spokesperson in October and sponsored the in-game tracking program “Covering Clark” as she pursued record after record.
Juszczyk also made one jacket for Jake from State Farm, the company spokesman played by Kevin Miles. Clark appeared in national commercials with Jake from State Farm, Jimmy Butler, and Reggie Miller that expanded her reach to household name status.
State Farm is a WNBA sponsor and has naming rights to the WNBA draft, which Clark announced earlier this week. She's the presumptive No. 1 pick for the Indiana Fever on April 15 at BAM in Brooklyn where Jake from State Farm could make a recurring appearance after attending last year. The connection is one of the clearest examples of why Clark won't lose all of her name, image and likeness deals joining the WNBA.
Miles and Christine Cook, State Farm's chief marketing officer, will be in attendance in Iowa City on Sunday, and Maya Moore was a surprise guest for Clark. Moore was Clark's favorite player while growing up and attending Minnesota Lynx games.
Juszczyk had prior commitments and was unable to attend the most exciting women's basketball game in history. She was in New York on Friday and shared photos on her Instagram of her meetings with the NFL and NBA. It secured a licensing deal with the NFL in late January after fans clamored for a piece like Swift's jacket.
“As much as I love creating these unique pieces for these special people, I know that all I really want to do is design clothes for these fans,” Goscheck said. “And I'm only one girl. I can't dress for the whole field or I'll bleed.”
Juszczyk's designs have been well received by women because it is still difficult to find sportswear that does not fall under the “Shrink it and make it pink. The WNBA has turned to more third-party apparel companies in recent years for better and more unique offerings, but it could still use help with promotions and apparel.
No one will ever have a jacket identical to the one Clark wears, but perhaps fans in the future can purchase a different type of piece to celebrate the woman who could lead all NCAA scorers, men and women, by the time she wears hers.
“We're not trying to pigeonhole ourselves into anything,” Goscheck said. “Whether it's the NFL, the NBA, the NBA, collegiate sports, the Olympics, you know…the ideas are endless.”
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