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Indiana Fever -Star Sophie Cunningham, the popular “Enforce” teammate of Caitlin Clark, gave an inner look at the treatment of Clark of other teams and the consequences of the excitement it has created during WNBA games.
Cunningam revealed how her former team, Phoenix Mercury, planned to play Clarkf during the Phenomena Rookie season in 2024. Cunningham played his first five seasons in Phoenix before leaving to join the fever for the past season.
“You’ve seen players in our league try to like to tighten up Caitlin … Even when I wasn’t on her team, I know the conversations that Phoenix had in the dressing room, like ‘No, we want to show her what w really is,’ and I get it to a certain extent, and every rookie that comes into the league, it’s how to treat them, but there’s more for her,” Cunningham said in her pod.
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Indiana Fever Guard Sophie Cunningham (8) and Connecticut Sun Guard Jacy Sheldon (4) Scuffle in the second half of a WNBA basketball match in Indianapolis, Tuesday 17 June 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
“And now it’s too much to be on your team and see it, I’m like ‘what’s people doing, it’s just too much, it’s too much. I’m over it, and if I think it’s too much, it’s probably too much.”
Cunningham was on the other side of the situation when she started a match to defend Clark during a game against Connecticut Sun earlier this season. Cunningham said Clark after the game finally exclaimed “Finally!” In the dressing room.
“In the dressing room she goes, I think she’s like” finally! “” Cunningham said. “But I think that kind of had our team together as a whole. Everyone was like, ‘we have to protect each other.'”
The skuffle went down in Connecticut on June 17, when Cunningham made a tough mistake on the Sun Guard Jacy Sheldon. Sheldon Poked clark in the eye Earlier in the game, and then colleague Sun Player Marina Mabrey pushed Clark to the ground.
So Cunningham chased Sheldon in the fourth quarter to commit a refund.
“Last second intrusive thought I was like ‘F — it’,” Cunningham said of his decision to start the fight.
Their heated exchange turned into a pushing match before players from both teams came over to break it up.
Cunningham, Sheldon and Sun Guard Lindsay Allen were thrown out of the game with about 40 seconds left before the fever took the victory home.
But Cunningham claims that the interaction left her face on her face.
“She didn’t mean to do it, but she chipped my tooth,” Cunningham said. “It’s a little discolored … We knead literally turning on the middle of the game, like face to face.
“There are a few players on their team that just do a little extra thing.”
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June 17, 2025; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Indiana Fever -vagt Sophie Cunningham (8) and Connecticut Sun Guard Jacy Sheldon (4) walk in a match in the second half at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. (Trevor Ruszkowski-Published Pictures)
Cunningham also claimed she was fine “like $ 900” by WNBA for the match. But also claims it was “her moment” as her supporters on Instagram and Tiktok quickly rose by a million in the days following the game. Cunningham previously claimed she was also fine of $ 500 for a Tiktok who jokingly criticized the WNBA judges.
She previously called the judges just days after the match on June 17, while talking to journalists, not to protect Clark when she first had to address the match in public.
“During that, it was just part of the game. I think the judges had a lot to do with it. It was a structure for a few years now of those who just didn’t protect the star player in Wnba,” Cunningham said. “At the end of the day I will protect my teammates. That’s what I do.”
Cunningham has become a folk hero for many, and her popularity is skyrocket in the days since the match.
With Cunningham earning the nickname “The Enforcer” to the fever, fans who count on her to protect Caitlin Clark can easily know to know that she is a black belt in the Korean martial arts in Taekwondo.
She earned the black belt at the age of 6.
Her father Jim played football at the University of Missouri and she ended up following in her father’s footsteps on the football field.
ONE 2014 article By Columbia Missourian reported that Cunningham was the first female to ever score any points for the team in history as she kicked two of four extra points instead of the team’s regular kicker who had torn an ACL.
Cunningham even handled kickoff tasks.
Sophie Cunningham #8 by Indiana Fever arrives at the arena before the game against Chicago Sky on July 27, 2025 in the WinTrust Arena in Chicago, Il. (Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images)
“I was so nervous,” Cunningham told the business. “I mean, I’ve never played football before in my entire life. Just when I got the ball (on opening the kickoff), I couldn’t hear anything. I just put the ball down and kick it.”
Cunningham comes from a family of farmers and credits that breed for the person she is today, according to Five-part feature series by the University of Missouri.
“So much of our success goes back to what we learned here,” Cunningham said of working on the farm. “We loved to get out to the yard to help. We found out how we work hard and work together. It made us go into yard.”
