$1.5 million NIL-valued Flau’Jae Johnson shares snap with Caitlin Clark from 2024 WNBA All-Star Game for ex-Iowa star’s birthday
LSU women's basketball player Flau'Jae Johnson celebrated former Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark's birthday on Instagram. Clark turned 23 on Wednesday, and Johnson, whose NIL deals are valued at $1.5 million per On3, posted a photo she took with the WNBA star on her Instagram story.
"Happy Birthday @caitlinclark22," she captioned the photo.
Clark is regarded as one of the greatest college basketball players ever, being the NCAA Division I all-time leading scorer with 3,951 points. She was a two-time National Player of the Year with Iowa.
Clark was selected No. 1 overall in the 2024 WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever, won the WNBA Rookie of the Year award and made the All-WNBA First Team and WNBA All-Star Game.
Caitlin Clark donates 22,000 books to Iowa and Indiana kids to celebrate her 23rd birthday
Caitlin Clark took her birthday celebration to the classroom by donating 22,000 new children's books to kids in Iowa and Indiana through a partnership with Scholastic and her Caitlin Clark Foundation. The books ranged from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade.
The WNBA star's foundation expects to donate the books to elementary schools, middle schools, children's hospitals and other non-profit organizations.
"I remember picking out the books from the Scholastic flyer and how empowering that was for me as a child, and how motivated I was to read," Clark said in an official statement announcing the donation. "I want to help kids have the same experience, to develop their reading skills, and open their imaginations to dream big."
Clark's foundation is the first for a WNBA player to partner with Scholastic, an organization known for collaborating with NFL players to encourage reading among kids.
Last year, Clark gifted her Iowa teammates with new Nike shoes for her 22nd birthday. However, the Indiana star's donation this year comes at a time when there is a campaign to encourage more kids to read.
"We need to make radical moves and inspire meaningful improvement to change the trajectory of child literacy rates in America," chief impact officer Judy Newman said. "To do this, we need champion-level advocacy and support, which is what makes collaborating with Caitlin so exciting."
Scholastic’s latest Kids & Family Reading Report indicated how the number of kids aged 6 to 17 who read five to seven days a week dropped from 37% in 2010 to 28% in 2022.