The unending awfulness of Kim Mulkey, Brittney Griner’s former coach

Kim Mulkey, the head coach of Louisiana State University’s women’s basketball team and a former coach to WNBA star Brittney Griner, made headlines earlier this week with her cold response to a reporter mentioning Griner’s detainment in Russia.

Mulkey, who rode Griner to an NCAA championship in 2012 during her time coaching at Baylor University, hasn’t publicly commented on Griner’s February arrest and subsequent imprisonment. When the reporter noted he hadn’t heard Mulkey discuss her former player’s predicament, Mulkey snapped, “And you won’t,” before quickly moving on to a different question.

It was a public dismissal of the star who fueled Mulkey’s most successful athletic accomplishment: a 40-0 record and a national title she can flaunt to boosters until the end of her days.  

But that’s par for the course for Mulkey, who has developed a shameful track record as a coach that eclipses her championship pedigree. With time, she’s built a reputation as a self-absorbed ignoramus. Many, for example, have noted her acerbic relationship with Griner, which Griner has suggested stems from Mulkey’s rejection of her identity as a queer woman.

In the past, Griner has said Baylor’s coaches discouraged her from coming out when she played there. 

“It was a recruiting thing,” Griner told ESPN in 2013. “The coaches thought that if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn’t let their kids come play for Baylor.”

“It was more of a unwritten law [to not discuss your sexuality] … it was just kind of, like, one of those things, you know, just don’t do it,” she told ESPN. “They kind of tried to make it, like, ‘Why put your business out on the street like that?’”

Griner also reportedly wrote in her 2014 autobiography about repression she experienced while playing for Mulkey:

“I would love to be an ambassador for Baylor, to show my school pride, but it’s hard to do that. … I’ve spent too much of my life being made to feel like there’s something wrong with me. And no matter how much support I felt as a basketball player at Baylor, it still doesn’t erase all the pain I felt there.”

Mulkey’s awfulness doesn’t end with her treatment of Griner. In 2017, after an investigation found Baylor officials mishandled allegations of sexual assault involving students, including multiple athletes, Mulkey denounced public criticism about the incident and went on a public rant urging Baylor fans to assault anyone who said they wouldn’t send their daughter to the school.

“If somebody’s around you, and they ever say, ‘I will never send my daughter to Baylor,’ you knock them right in the face,” she hollered, adding: “It’s the damn best school in America!”

(As you listen to her, keep in mind: This investigation led to the demotion of then-university President Ken Starr and the firing of football coach Art Briles.)

Mulkey has proven herself to be a deeply untrustworthy overseer of the people she coaches. The image of her snapping at a reporter for daring to ask her thoughts about an athlete she coached — one she used to accrue fame and money — being held captive by a hostile foreign adversary is a defining moment for her career.

And, for what it’s worth, it’s excellent recruiting material for LSU’s opponents.