Way back when, so much so that I was actually a young sports writer, I remember being apprehensive about what to ask Grambling’s legendary coach Eddie Robinson when I was about to interview him.
I mean, c’mon now; everybody knew Eddie was sports royalty. Eddie was the man. Eddie certainly wouldn’t have time to answer any questions I might have, right?
I figured I needed to write down a notebook full of questions to hide my obvious nervousness. Certainly it was just a matter of how many questions it would be before Eddie said to some Grambling official “Who let this rube in here?”
But before I left for this soon-to-be-embarrassing moment, I received this piece of advice from a grizzled, ink-stained wretch (translated: veteran sports writer): “All you need to do is ask Eddie one question and you won’t even need to ask another. He will fill up your notebook for you.”
And that’s what he did. Not just to me. Eddie was like that to everybody.
Coach Robinson is long gone, but there’s another Lincoln Parish legend that fits that description these days.
Reporters hardly ever fill up notebooks with quotes anymore, but they are well advised to have a charging device on hand whenever LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey sits down in front of a microphone after a game.
If there’s an over/under on the number of questions that will be asked, take the under.
In covering the Lady Techsters in the early 1980s, I don’t remember her exactly being a quote machine. She’d share an opinion but it didn’t go much beyond what you’d expect from a college athlete.
But as she has grown from player to assistant coach to head coach to multiple national championship coach, she isn’t afraid to tell you what she thinks.
Even if you don’t ask.
Mulkey got Win No. 750 of her career earlier this week when LSU beat Kentucky. Lots of coaches would have said something along the lines of being “thankful for all the players and assistant coaches and the support along the way.”
Kim said that. And more. A whole lot more.
“Actually, when we went to the locker room, I got drenched,” she said. “I thought, why are y’all doing this? Because we beat Kentucky? But I didn’t say anything. Just celebrated with them a little bit. I thought maybe they’re just really proud of themselves and as they should be.
“And we’re getting ready to say the Lord’s Prayer, and I look at two of my kids and they have shirts on, and then it hit me. Oh my lord, that’s why y’all drenched me. 750 victories. They have a shirt that the coaches had given them. I didn’t know, so I interrupted the Lord’s Prayer to say, ‘Whoa, wait a minute here.’ And that’s how I found out it was 750.”
Mulkey then reminded everyone that 750 victories are 750 more than she had planned on getting when her playing days were over at Tech.
“I was never going to be a coach,” she said. “My degree is in business administration. I was working on my MBA, and got talked into doing this by the President of Louisiana Tech (F. Jay Taylor). And I guess that man knew more what I needed to do than I did, and here I am going almost 40 years in this business now it’s a blessing. You don’t you don’t win games and championships without great players.
“What coaches do is they manage things. They manage a team. They manage assistant coaches, they communicate with administration, then they try their best to make players believe in what they’re selling.
“And you might tweak something in the middle of the game, but at the end of the day, you do not win anything without great players, and that’s what I would think from my career, is oversight. How many did I get to coach? How many great players did I get to coach? And I don’t mean great that they were all national player of the year. We won a national championship in 2005 with not one high school all-American.
“But those were kids that believed in what you were doing, and they bought in, and that’s what I think when I think of 750 victories.”
Any further questions?
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com