I debated whether I would write this story at all. But I mentioned in previous emails that I was rooting against the LSU women’s team because of their coach, and so I figured I should explain some of it.

There are a lot of things that I have not liked about things that Kim Mulkey has said over time. Her comments to stop testing for COID during the Final 4 of the pandemic really rubbed me the wrong way. And there are plenty of other historical things – such as Baylor not retiring Brittney Griner’s number until after Mulkey left for LSU because of a feud between the coach and player. But lets focus on the recent pieces.

The SEC tournament title game between South Carolina and LSU got ugly. LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson intentionally fouled South Carolina after a steal and then bumped into South Carolina’s Ashlyn Watkins. And then everything escalated into chaos when Kamilla Cardoso shoved the LSU guard to the floor. The game then was delayed for 20 minutes as the benches cleared, multiple players were ejected and Johnson’s brother jumped over the offical’s table from the stands to run on the court to get into the fight.

After the game, Cardoso apologized for her actions. South Carolina’s Dawn Staley gave the type of statement you would expect a coach to say. “I just want to apologize to the basketball community… When you’re playing in championship games like this, in our league, things get heated. No bad intentions… I want to apologize for us playing a part in that… That’s not who we are and not what we’re about.” I thought it was classy – it mentioned that the emotions are high but fighting should not happen and we are sorry about it.

Then, of course, there was Kim Mulkey. “No one wants to see that ugliness. But I can tell you this: I wish she would’ve pushed Angel Reese. Don’t push a kid – you’re 6-foot-8 – don’t push somebody that little. That was uncalled for in my opinion. Let those two girls that were jawing, let them go at it.” No apology. No recognition that in a game being watched by so many people that having it delayed by 20 minutes due to the bench’s flowing out onto the court to fight was not wrong. And most likely, if Angel Reese had done what Cordoso did, I am sure that Mulkey would have come out and said Reese was defending her teammate like a good teammate would.

But then, she doubled down a few days later. “It’s so out of control with the media right now. You don’t get this much attention when men do it. So why do you keep writing it about the women? It really comes across, and I’ll just say it, it comes across as a little bit sexist. And you’re tearing down two great teams. You’re tearing down a woman who coaches one of those teams. Stop it, it’s not newsworthy after the first introduction. I’ve seen every men’s game that’s had something like that, and it’s no big deal. Nobody got in a fight. There were no punches thrown. There was nobody choked. It was a shoving match. Whoop dee doo! So let’s move on.”

There is some truth in what she said – at the end of the day, it did turn out to be simply a shoving match. My problem is the fact that Mulkey doesn’t have the recognization of the situation. Two top 10 teams in women’s basketball got into an altercation, the leading scorer for the undefeated #1 team in the country was suspended for the first game of the NCAA Tournament because of it, a relative for one of the players was arrested and spent the night in jail for his role in the altercation, and one of the coaches reaction to it is that she wished the player had pushed her center so we could watch her put the player in her place.

So, lets do a hypothetical that never would have happened, but lets do it. Lets say Purdue had not lost to Wisconsin in the Big 10 tournament and was playing Illinois in the Big 10 championship. Late in the game, Lance Jones steals the ball from Terrence Shannon and Shannon intentionally fouls him. Then, he bumps into Braden Smith and starts jawing with him. So, Zach Edey comes out of nowhere and send Shannon flying to the ground. The benches clear, Shannon’s brother (I don’t know if he has a brother or not – but lets play along) runs through the stands over the table and shoves Edey, police run onto the court to try to calm the situation, Edey gets suspended for the game against Grambling in the NCAA tournament, and the Illinois coach says, “I wish that Edey had shoved Coleman Hawkins instead to pick on someone his own size”. Do you think that the Illinois coach would be raked over the coals for his comments?

First of all, this is ridiculous – there is no one who is Edey’s size. Second of all, most coaches are smart enough to say the correct thing and apologize for how the heated situation escalated – and could never imagine Brad Underwood or Matt Painter saying that they wish the fight had happened with people their own size. But most importantly, realize the situation. A #1 seed is losing their star player for the first round of the tournament. A fight just happened where a fan was arrested for what happened. And you don’t think the media would be all over this story.

My feeling at the time was that the media isn’t tearing into Mulkey because they are sexist. They are tearing into Mulkey because the fight got out of hand, it had ramifications for the #1 seed of the NCAA Tournament and the only person not recognizing that was Mulkey. The only thing sexist in my mind at the time was that the brother came running onto the court thinking that Flau’jae Johnson needed to be defended.

She recently has been put under fire by the Louisiana governor because of the fact that during the Iowa / LSU game, while the national anthem was being played, the Iowa players were out there holding hands respectfully while the LSU players were nowhere to be seen. That is because they were in the locker room doing their pre-game routines. He even threatened that scholarships should be taken away for not showing respect to the national anthem. This all falls on Mulkey.

I don’t think that the players are protesting the national anthem, and I certainly don’t think Mulkey is. Mulkey even said as such – it is just their routine. “Honestly, I don’t even know when the anthem was played. We have a routine where the team comes off the court at the 12 minute mark and we do our pre-game stuff,” said Mulkey.

Others also pointed out that the LSU football team also is not out during the national anthem. So, this isn’t a men’s/women’s thing. We can all argue about whether or not the national anthem should be played at sporting events – and while I like it, I can see both sides of the argument. But I will say this potentially unpopular statement.

She said she doesn’t even know when the anthem is played. That is a horrible lie – she knows exactly when the national anthem is played. She made a choice that she wants to use that time to prepare to win the game. But that choice has consequences – because whether it is fair or not, this gets perceived as the team is protesting the anthem. And when 12.3 million people are watching, it is a bad look when your opponents are out there respectfully for the anthem and you are not even on the court.

Then, during another press-conference, she used her time to talk about how her lawyers were ready to sue the Washington Post for a hit piece that was about to be published. She complained about how it was ridiculous that they were demanding answers to questions when she was preparing for the NCAA Tournament.

So, I read the eventual Washington Post story, and I don’t think it put her in the best light. I also don’t think that there was anything in there that required the need to state that your lawyers would be reviewing it and preparing a defamation lawsuit. And to be fair to the Washington Post writer, I am not sure how he is supposed to write an article about Kim Mulkey when Kim Mulkey refuses to answer any questions. Of course, they were asking for interview requests and answers to their questions – because a story about one of the best coaches in the history of the game is most relevant in March – when that coach is leading her team towards a National Championship.

Over the month, I have read stories about many of the coaches in the tournament. And they had quotes and interviews from that coach. I guess Mulkey has every right to not give an interview to a major news organization – but it seems a little wrong to then prepare to sue them when the story gets slanted in a negative light (that you don’t even know yet since at the time you mention the lawsuit, the story has not been published).

I was ready to argue that it isn’t sexist that the Washington Post wants to write a story about woman who has coached more national champions than only Geno Auriemma and Pat Summit. It is fantastic for the game of women’s basketball that the media wants to write an expose about one of the best basketball coaches of all time. And maybe if she spent more time working with the media instead of fighting the media, she could shape her story the way she wants it.

And then the LA Times article came out. And all the things that Kim Mulkey has been fighting about came out for all to see. And everything suddenly gets murky.

I enjoy a joke that I once heard. “When everyone is out to get you – paranoia is just smart thinking.” It is hard to blame Kim Mulkey for not trusting the media when stories like the LA Times come out. And I did a quick check. This is the first time I had heard that the LSU football team was not on the field for the national anthem. So why is one of the top 15 teams in college football not getting called out for this practice, but Kim Mulkey’s Tigers are. I don’t remember the Louisiana governor coming out this fall about the football team, so why is the women’s team being held to a different standard.

As much as I don’t want to say it, Kim Mulkey is right. At the end of the day, Kim Mulkey is a fantastic basketball coach who should be respected for the work she does. She is a fighter and she develops teams of extremely strong women who will not back down from anyone. It is not fair or right that she be criticized for being a passionate fighter for her team, because while other coaches might say it more politically correct, they all will go to fight for their players.

She is also wrong. Because as unfair as it is that she has to deal with the perceptions, it is important for the game of women’s college basketball. She has to understand that as a Hall of Famer as a player who will likely some day be a Hall of Famer as a coach and is currently constantly creating teams capable of winning the national championship, she is one of the faces of women’s basketball. And so she is going to get a ton more attention from the press, and that attention will sadly come with the criticisms. So while it might be that she wants to constantly fight with them, she needs to realize that part of the reason that everyone is hanging on every word she says is because she is important. And when she comes out and says things that don’t sound right, whether fair or not, she will get criticized.

Whether Kim Mulkey likes it or not, she has earned some of the criticism that she gets. She is confrontational and has strong opinions, and she is happy to let everyone know it. She should get respect for not backing down from her view when she shouldn’t have to, and she should get criticism for the perceptions around her program that those views cause.

In doing research on how great Kim Mulkey is, I learned something interesting. Kim Mulkey has won 722 games, which places her 39th all-time in number of victories (and of course, her 4 national championships is 3rd – simply amazing). However, did you know that in the Iowa / LSU game, she was not the coach who had won the most games. Lisa Bluder, the coach for Iowa, has won 881 games – making her tied for 11th. And while I am not an expert (since I didn’t even know she was the winningest coach in Big 10 history), while I am sure she has been criticized by the media for something, she certainly does not get the kind of negative press that Mulkey gets.

It is not fair that Mulkey should have to defend teaching a physical brand of basketball. But life is unfortunately not fair. And the reality is that when you win as often as Mulkey does, people are going to listen to what you say – and many are going to disagree with you.

For me, I still will likely find myself rooting against LSU while Mulkey is there. It is similar to the fact that I disliked coaches like Bobby Knight and Jim Boeheim for things they did or said so much that I rooted against their teams. But I have a ton of respect for Kim Mulkey, just like I did for Knight and Boeheim. There is no questioning that she is one of the best women’s college basketball coaches ever, and she deserves a lot more praise for her accomplishments than the constant criticisms she gets for some of her opinions.