Marcellus Wiley questions Angel Reese’s motives for taunting Iowa’s Caitlin Clark amid race debate

Former NFL player and FS1 personality Marcellus Wiley suggested Angel Reese’s motives for taunting Caitlin Clark by Angela Reese were misguided.

Wiley, who now hosts his own sports show, Never Shut Up, questioned why Reese was following Clark around, taunting her during the final throes of LSU’s national title win Sunday.

‘The only thing I can take from what she said is obviously she felt that people were coming at her for her color – “that wasn’t fair, they weren’t coming at Caitlin Clark like that.”

‘In general, if you felt that way, I understand where you’re coming from, but why are you coming at Caitlin Clark like that, if she’s not the one who did that to you? 

‘Your fight is with someone else, your fight is with others, but you brought it to Caitlin Clark because you were mad at that. 

LSU’s Angel Reese taunted Caitlin Clark with her own diss during the NCAA national title game

‘Caitlin Clark wasn’t your problem. She was just able, in your eyes, to get away with something that you felt that you were going to get demonized for. I think you kind of confused those things [in taunting Clark].’

Wiley, often known for his thoughtful and nuanced perspective, questioned the overt narrative put forward by Reese in her postgame press conference – in which she said; ‘All year, I was critiqued about who I was. I don’t fit in a box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto.’

‘Ain’t nobody stupid,’ Wiley said. ‘We know where she going. She wanted to make it racial. She thought that the coverage of her was unfair, she thought the coverage of her was racial.’ 

‘I dare to challenge her or anybody to show me a reputable place that actually called her ghetto or hood,’ Wiley retorted on his show.

Reese was unspecific as to who had ‘critiqued’ her about her identity, not too dissimilar to Dawn Staley’s outburst last week in which she said her and South Carolina were ‘not thugs’ or ‘monkeys’ in response to supposed criticism she heard ‘second-hand’ from unnamed ‘people in the media’.

‘We’re going to have to separate the reputable sources and publications, from somebody just clowning you on Twitter,’ Wiley said. 

‘I know to her it doesn’t matter where it’s coming from, if it’s the Washington Post or if it’s some dude who lives in Washington D.C. “You clowning me”, so therefore she takes that as critique.’

Wiley also took issue with Reese suggesting ‘girls that look like me’ should exist and continue to be ‘unapologetically you.’

Reese went further, also pointing at her finger signifying her imminent championship ring

Clark used John Cena’s ‘You Can’t See Me’ gesture vs. South Carolina during the Final Four win

‘If you’re growing, you’re evolving, if you’re doing amazing things, you are also making mistakes on that path,’ he said. 

‘You need to apologize for those mistakes no matter who you are… everybody must. You can’t go through a world where you’re all “apologetically you”, because that’s not this world, that’s not reality.

‘For this mantra to to continue to have legs… what you should say is “I’m going to do everything with conviction.”‘ 

Sports commentator Marcellus Wiley spoke strongly on the taunting in the women’s title game

Wiley played for the Jacksonville Jaguars, among other franchises, during his 10-year career