Caitlin Clark competitiveness shines on Halloween: jokes required in Des Moines & how she dominated

Caitlin Clark’s Halloween mentality epitomizes her competitiveness: ‘I just dominated trick-or-treat’

2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark revealed what’s unique about trick-or-treating back home in Des Moines and how she attacked the night. She was also proud of her costumes.

Caitlin Clark enjoyed Halloween and explains why. (Photo: Ryan May/800 Meter)

Do you have your joke ready? Because if you live in Des Moines, you better.

Sometimes, we never know where our conversation with Caitlin Clark will go. One time before a game, she was asked about being funny around teammates — and that took us in a direction nobody saw coming.

About Halloween.

“I feel like I just try to keep it light and fun,” she said. “I feel like my personality has definitely come out over the course of the season as I’ve gotten more comfortable with the people that I’m around. I don’t have a joke. I don’t really tell jokes off the tip of my tongue like that.”

That led Clark’s mind to wonder to Halloween.

“I feel like this is actually kind of crazy and actually super random, but when you trick-or-treat in Des Moines, Iowa, you have to tell a joke to earn your candy,” she said with a big grin. “I guess no other place really does that in the country, so you have to tell a joke. You go and knock on their door, and you have to tell a joke to get your candy.

“I know my mom’s a stickler about it. If you don’t tell a joke, you’re not getting any candy. Those poor kids, they know better. You better have a good joke at Halloween time.

“Whenever I tell people that, even when I was in Iowa City at the University of Iowa, they’re like, ‘What? That’s so weird.’ But to me, that’s very normal. I think it’s weird you just knock on somebody’s door, in general, and ask them for candy. That’s a little strange, but you’ve got to earn it somehow.

“That was always a fun part of Halloween for myself. You and your friends come up with a list of funny jokes, and my mom still to this day will write all the jokes down on a list in her phone and send it to me and my brothers after trick-or-treat is over, and we get a kick out of them. So that’s where I get most of my jokes.

“But other than that, I’m just a very sarcastic person.”

I was next to ask a question, but I couldn’t just let that hang there. Forget the question, let’s stay on this path. So I asked if she had a go-to joke?

“I would switch it up a lot,” she said. “I was too worried about beating everybody I was trick-or-treating with to the next house. I didn’t really care about the joke.

“I was too worried about getting the full-size candy bars and being the first to knock on the door. I know that’s super surprising, but I was in a full sweat at trick-or-treat. I came home, I had to go straight to the shower before I counted my candy because that’s all that mattered is that I got first.

“I got first every year. The amount of candy I had, I was the first to the door, I had the best costume, I had the best joke. I just dominated trick-or-treat.”

Whatever she does, Clark wants to win. Whether it’s a basketball game, half-court shot, game of HORSE, round of golf, or trick-or-treating. It doesn’t matter.

She’s been a clown and a blue M&M, for example. Clark said she never dressed up as a basketball player, but she was proud of her costumes.

“I had a really good costume, but I’m going to keep that one to myself,” she added. “The real people know about my trick-or-treating days know my one really, really, really good costume. It would never surprise any of you, but I can’t tell you all that. Maybe you’ll come across a picture of it.”

Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton hosted a Halloween party two weeks ago and Clark was there, dressed in all-black leather.

And in a few weeks, she’ll dress up as a golfer as she plays in a Pro-Am at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Fla.