MINNEAPOLIS — There's something special about Caitlin Clark. But its not everyday you hear how she is bringing families closer to one another.
From a dad to an athlete, Dr. Asitha Jayawardena wanted to say thank you in a Star Tribune Op-Ed.
"Dear Caitlin Clark," he wrote. "This week, I was lucky enough to see you play in person. I brought my 5-year-old daughter to Williams Arena in Minneapolis, where I live now with my wife and two girls."
As a pediatric ENT surgeon at Children's Minnesota, kids are his life.
"I always knew I wanted kids," Jayawardena told KARE 11, after dozens of comments were left on the article. "When I found out she was a girl, it was the happiest day of my life. But I was also like, 'How do I do this? Where's the manual?' What I realized is there's no manual, but there's a cheat code."
He says at the back of his mind, he always envisioned his future kids differently. He envisioned himself teaching a little boy, not a little girl, how to play sports.
"I was stuck in a rut in my own fatherhood, because I had only ever imagined raising a boy," wrote Jayawardena. "I don't believe this shortsighted childhood perspective was borne of bigotry or pro-patriarchy sentiments. Rather, like many Americans, my fault was that the lens in which I viewed the future was biased by my own personal experience."
He goes on to write how it was easy to connect with his 3-year-old on how they both "love cinnamon rolls and have regular daddy daughter dates exploring various cinnamon roll shops around the Twin Cities. My eldest daughter has been more complex."
But he said he did find a cheat code for his 5-year-old. "Caitlin Clark."
He watched as her face lit up. He talked about how magical it was to see that. And even though there were thousands of people in the Williams Arena, it felt like it was just the two of them.
"At one point, my daughter leaned over to me and said, 'She hits that shot in the game because she works on it a lot in practice, right daddy!'" wrote Jayawardena. "It was worth every penny."
And he can't wait for the day where he gets to teach the sport to his little girl.