By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
She is very much the head women’s basketball coach at LSU and is knee-deep in all that involves. Workout schedules, recruiting calls, scheduling, public appearances – like one she made Tuesday night in Shreveport – are all part of it.
But if you think Kim Mulkey has left her previous experiences all behind, then you must not know Kim Mulkey.
She entertained a capacity crowd gathered for the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl Kickoff Dinner at the Shreveport Convention Center with her distinctive style of what-you-see-is-what-you-get charm, which she has never been afraid to put on display ever since she took the floor as the pigtailed point guard for Louisiana Tech in 1980.
But at age 60, Mulkey is nothing if not a product of the experiences she has been through during her time as a national championship player, United States Olympic gold medalist, three-time national championship coach and Basketball Hall of Fame inductee.
From Tickfaw to Ruston to Waco to Baton Rouge, it’s been quite a journey.
“I’ve been blessed,” Mulkey says.
Talk to her long enough and you will find that out just how blessed. There’ve been a lot of right-place-at-the-right-time moments, but she’s also had moments when she was in the wrong place at the right time. And she did not let that stop her.
After 19 years at Tech – 15 of those as an assistant coach to Leon Barmore – she thought she was about to become the next coach of the Lady Techsters.
Until she wasn’t.
“It wasn’t about money,” Mulkey says. “It was about following in the footsteps of a legend. And it was about security.”
So she left for Big 12 bottom-feeder Baylor, which seemed like the wrong place to be. But it was the right time to hire Mulkey, who built a program that would go on to win national championships in 2005, 2012 and 2019.
She thought she might be at Baylor for the rest of her coaching career.
Until she didn’t.
“It’s the timing in someone’s life … that’s what brought me back home (to Louisiana),” she says.
“I left a great team – a Top 5 team – and left the program in wonderful shape. I just felt inside my gut that this was the right time to come back. Not just to rebuild the women’s program, but because I have these Louisiana ties, it just felt right.”
It’s been 16 months since Mulkey left the security of one of the top jobs in all of women’s basketball to come to LSU. The Tigers were coming off a 9-13 season and had been middle of the pack in the SEC standings for quite a while.
In other words, they weren’t relevant. With Kim Mulkey, that’s simply not going to work.
“We rolled up our sleeves and went to work and got some recruits in here,” she says. “It’s fun.”
The results have been obvious as Mulkey led the Tigers to a 26-6 record and a second-place finish in the SEC at 13-3. She won national Associated Press Coach of the Year honors – for the third time (2012, 2019), something only two other women’s coaches have done.
“When you start winning — like we did last year unexpectedly — people like winners and with the connection to me being back home and the support we had, we just got on a roll,” she says. “It’s not new to LSU women’s basketball; it’s just been down for a while. It’s been great to be back.”
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com
Photo by JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports