Caitlin Clark Puts Character On Display After Insanely Long Line Gathers For Meet-And-Greet More Than 11 Hours Before Start

Caitlin Clark is a superstar. Especially in the state of Iowa.

Women's college basketball's unanimous player of the year, who led the Hawkeyes to the national championship in 2022/23, has become a must-watch player every time that she steps onto the court. However, it was her March Madness run that made her a household name.

Although Clark gained national recognition over the last few months, she is most famous in her home state. Iowa does not have any teams in the MLB, NBA, NFL, WNBA, or NHL, so the Hawkeyes (and Cyclones) are the "pro" team(s).

Clark's name in Iowa is equivalent to LeBron James in, well, pretty much anywhere else.

Caitlin Clark's meet and greet was insane.

The Iowa Cubs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago team with the same name, hosted Clark for its game on Saturday. She was set to throw out the first pitch, and hold a meet-and-greet.

The team also distributed Clark bobbleheads!

The meet-and-greet portion of the evening was supposed to last 90 minutes. Clark was then going to throw the pitch and watch the game from the stands.

That is not what ended up happening. The meet-and-greet too way longer than an hour and a half.

Fans started lining up at 6:00 a.m. for the event, which was to be held 11 hours later.

To call the line "long" would be severely understated. It wrapped around the entire ballpark.

As the clock hit 5:00, the meet-and-greet got underway and fans were pumped to get to see Caitlin Clark up close and personal.

And then, when 6:30 rolled around, it was time for the first pitch. Clark threw a laser from just inside the rubber!

After throwing a strike (maybe a little high), Clark went back over and continued her meet-and-greet for another 30 minutes. Cool move.

At that point, Clark could have gone into the stands and enjoyed some baseball. She met her agreement for the meet-and-greet, and could have called it a day.

But she didn't! Shoutout to Caitlin Clark, the most famous person in Iowa -- and she's doing it the right way.

Clark is taking an 'Iowa mentality to NIL.

According to On3 -- the leader in the NIL space -- Clark ranks No. 3 in women's basketball NIL valuations (worth $796K and that number has skyrocketed over the last 10 weeks and doesn't appear to be slowing down). The Hawkeyes star has launched deals already with Topps, Hy-Vee and H&R Block, plus a successful merchandise website. She's also one of five college (and high school) hoops players signed by Nike, joining Bronny James (committed to USC) and DJ Wagner (committed to Kentucky).

With a social media following of 963K not coming anywhere close to the No.1 one in leader in women's college hoops, LSU star Angel Reese, who has a massive 4.2 million followers, it's refreshing to see Clark take a different, outside-the-box approach to NIL.

Some may say that's the "Iowa mentality" and it's clearly working.