Caitlin Clark’s Olympic rejection prompted a reminder text from her old coach (VIDEO)

PARIS — Shortly after finding out she wasn’t named to the U.S. Olympic women’s basketball roster last month, Caitlin Clark received a text message from her high school coach.

Kristin Meyer wanted to remind Clark how she reacted the last time someone told her she wasn’t good enough.

In May 2018, while Clark was finishing her sophomore year of high school, she flew to Colorado Springs to try out for the U.S. U-17 World Cup team. Clark expected to make the cut, as she was a rotation player on the team that helped the U.S. qualify for the U-17 World Cup the previous summer.

Back then, Clark wasn’t yet inundated with autograph requests, social media followers or endorsement deals, but there were glimpses of her now-famous sizzle. Here was this wisp of a girl blasting long-range 3s, whipping risky passes through traffic and shaking defenders in transition with behind-the-back dribbles.

Meyer recalls that he thought Clark “played well” during the tryouts, but the USA Basketball youth selection committee had a wealth of future college stars to choose from. Eight of the 12 players from the previous year’s U-16 team made the cut. Clark was the highest-ranked prospect of the four the committee decided not to bring back.

“She broke her pinky early on in the tryouts, but I don’t think that was necessarily the deciding factor,” Meyer told Yahoo Sports. “There were just a couple of players that I think the committee felt played better.”

While Haley Jones, Paige Bueckers and Aliyah Boston began preparing to lead the U.S. U-17 World Cup team to a gold medal in Belarus, Clark returned home to Des Moines, Iowa, to work on her craft. The shame of being cut and the knowledge that there were other players ahead of her inspired Clark to continue looking for ways to improve instead of dwelling on her talent.

“She always worked hard and loved being in the gym, but that summer she matured on another level,” Meyer said. “She just had this kind of determined attitude when she was in the gym. She was really driven to get better.”

Between the end of tryouts and the start of her junior season, Clark made a big leap. All the key elements of her game sharpened, Meyer said, from her grip, to her decisions with the ball in her hands, to her shooting percentages at all three levels.

Caitlin 1.0 could have opted for an unnecessarily risky no-look pass or stepped up and fired from 27 feet early in the shot clock. Caitlin 2.0 resisted that temptation more often and became more efficient when she attempted a bold play.

Caitlin 1.0 may have stomped away or thrown her hands in the air in frustration when a referee botched a call or a pinpoint pass deflected off the hands of an unsuspecting teammate. Caitlin 2.0 was still a straight-talking competitor — she was just beginning to understand how her body language and temperament affected those around her.

At the end of her junior year at Dowling Catholic, Clark was one of the youngest players invited to audition for the team that would represent the U.S. at the U-19 World Championships in Bangkok later that summer. At 17, Clark was part of an all-star team headlined by Rhyne Howard, Bueckers and Boston.

Although Clark averaged a modest 14.7 minutes in seven games in Bangkok, coach Jeff Walz showed confidence in her when the U.S. trailed by three in the final minute of the gold medal game against Australia. Walz called on Clark to shoot free throws after an Australian player elbowed Howard in the nose, forcing her out of the game.

Two years later, after Clark averaged 26.6 points per game as a freshman at Iowa, she was an obvious choice to make the 2021 version of the U.S. U-19 World Championship team. This time around, she led the U.S. to a 7-0 record, averaged a team-best 14.3 points and 5.6 assists, and earned tournament MVP honors.

Over the next three years, Clark went from basketball star to known-famous for leading Iowa to two title games and awakening the world to her blazing talent. The size of her stage grew with every logo-worthy 3-pointer, every YouTube-worthy assist, every shameless behind-the-back dribble and every Jordan shrug.

Fans who had previously ignored women’s sports crowded around their living room TVs and filled arenas to watch Clark play. Sports debate shows that had previously ignored women’s basketball devoted segment after segment to Clark’s trash talk and scoring exploits.

Clark is now one of the biggest draws in the sport, but USA Basketball officials insisted that her ability to bring new viewers to the game wouldn’t matter when they selected the Olympic team. As USA Basketball selection committee chair Jen Rizzotti told the Associated Press earlier this summer, “It wasn’t the purview of our committee to determine how many people would watch or how many people would cheer for the USA. It was our purview to put together the best team we could.”

Because Iowa was playing in the women’s Final Four the same weekend that USA Basketball held its Olympic training camp, Clark was unable to attend. As a result, the committee only had the first four weeks of Clark’s rookie season to study when evaluating her against WNBA competition.

USA Basketball officials informed Clark that she was not making the Olympic team while she was on the Indiana Fever bus en route to a game. Clark handled the snub with grace during interviews with reporters, but it’s what she apparently told Fever coach Christie Sides that’s telling.

“Hey coach, they woke up a monster,” Sides recalled Clark saying.

The text Clark received from her former high school coach encouraged her to embrace that mindset. Meyer reminded Clark that the biggest leaps in her game came between her sophomore and junior years of high school, after she failed to make the U.S. U-17 World Cup team, and between her sophomore and junior years of college, after Iowa’s stunning second-round NCAA tournament exit against Creighton.

“When adversity hits, you either fall apart and feel sorry for yourself or it makes you dig a little bit deeper,” Meyer said. “Those things that really hurt you and disappoint you to your core have helped her in the past to get to the next level in her game, in her attitude, in her preparation and in her work ethic.”

Meyer has seen history repeat itself from afar. In her 11 games before being cut from the U.S. roster, Clark averaged 15.6 points and 6.3 assists. In the 15 games since, she averaged 18.2 and 9.5 assists. In one game, she recorded the first triple-double by a WNBA rookie. In another, she broke the WNBA single-game record with 19 assists.

“There are very few people who have seen Caitlin play as much basketball as I have, and I’m still shocked at some of the things she can do against that level of competition,” Meyer said. “When I think she can’t surprise me anymore, she comes up with a pass or a shot or a read on the court that I have to go back and look at three or four times.”

When Clark helped the WNBA all-stars defeat the U.S. Olympic team on July 20, she insisted the victory was not “vindication” for her. Clark said she was looking forward to a few weeks of rest and watching the U.S. women “dominate” without her.

No grudge.

Only four years of motivation.