Maga darling or woke warrior? Kim Mulkey probably doesn’t care

Eeverything about Kim Mulkey screams LOOK AT ME – out her flashy sideline to her in-your-face coaching style to her combative media attitude. But perceptions of Mulkey have never shifted more wildly than during this year’s NCAA women’s basketball tournament, where the LSU coach has come under a level of criticism unlike anything she has ever experienced in her lengthy hoops career.

The rollercoaster ride began late last month, when the 61-year-old devoted the first of two postgame news conferences to criticizing an impending “hit piece” from the Washington Post. This despite the newspaper asking for her cooperation for two years and giving her two more days to respond to a final list of questions. Mulkey threatened legal action and labeled Kent Babb, the respected Post writer in question, a two-bit muckraker. (“Not many people are in a position to hold these types of journalists accountable, but I am, and I will,” Mulkey said.) While the aggressive PR defense endeared Mulkey to groups of conservative-leaning hoops agnostics who Already wary of the press, it had the counterproductive effect of offering free advertising for what turned out to be a fairly benign profile – a major disappointment to readers who half expected the Post to report that on January 6 they were in the Capitol had been. based on the coach’s outburst.

Just when Mulkey seemed beyond redemption, the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed before LSU’s Sweet Sixteen matchup with UCLA, touting it as a reckoning between good and evil. Writer Ben Bolch described UCLA as “milk and cookies” and “America’s sweethearts,” while portraying LSU’s predominantly black women’s team as “Louisiana hot sauce” and “dirty rookies.” Bolch and the Times tried to save facealbeit without mentioning the role massive layoffs at the newspaper played to help the column sneak through. Even as Mulkey defeated the press again, she nevertheless made sure to frame Bolch’s broadside as a sexist attack while ignoring the obvious racial components. “How dare people attack children like that,” she said angrily. “You don’t have to like the way we play. You don’t have to like the way we talk nonsense… But I can’t sit here as a mother, grandmother and leader of young people and allow anyone to say that. Because guys, that’s wrong. I recognize sexism when I see it and when I read it.”

When LSU was defeated by a Caitlin Clark-inspired Iowa on Monday night, ending their title defense, it looked like Mulkey’s arc would end with opponents laughing by sharing photos of her with an image of the Capitol riot. on top of her green screen pantsuit. But a reporter noticed that LSU had not been on the field for the national anthem and asked Mulkey about it after the game. most watched women’s college game in history. “I don’t know,” said Mulkey, who insisted the move was not politically motivated. “We come in and do our pregame stuff. I’m sorry, listen, none of that was done intentionally.

Whether she was reluctant or not, that stopped Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, a celebrity Trump rose, from calling for student-athletes who don’t stand for the national anthem to lose their scholarships. “My mother coached high school women’s basketball during the height of desegregation,” Landry wrote on X. “No one has more respect for the sport and Coach Mulkey. However, on top of respect for that game is a deeper respect for those who serve to protect and unite us under one flag!”

All this only clouds the image of a coach who can no longer seem misunderstood. While UConn’s Geno Auriemma and South Carolina’s Dawn Staley are well-known figures in women’s basketball, Mulkey remains an enigma despite a career that began nearly 50 years ago. A 6-foot-1 point guard, she led Louisiana Tech to two national championships and won an Olympic gold medal with the 1984 U.S. National Team. She would spend the next fifteen years on the Lady Techsters bench as an apprentice coach, with she molded herself in the mold of her idol and mentor Pat Summitt – perhaps the best thing she ever did.

By the time Mulkey got her first head coaching job at Baylor, when she was running errands and breaking down her ex-husband’s last name, I was a student reporter on the Missouri women’s basketball beat. And even then, Mulkey stood out in a coaching cohort that included Texas’ Jody Conradt, Texas Tech’s Marsha Sharp and other living legends. You knew it was only a matter of time before Mulkey made Waco a title city, starting with the signing of a spectacular Vincentian-American great named Sophia Young. Within three years, Mulkey led Baylor to the 2005 national championship and Young was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

Weeks after the confetti fell in 2005, I met Mulkey in New York as she was leave a dinner honoring the winning men’s and women’s college hoops coaches. She couldn’t have been nicer, more patient, or gentler – perhaps because she was still the new kid on the block and Summitt, her idol, was the dominant woman on the sidelines. And while the success that has come with three more national titles has stretched Mulkey’s ego, part of me wonders if she has become a lightning rod in part to fill some of the void Summitt left after her . dead in 2016.

That’s not to forgive Mulkey’s transgressions. She could have done that stood in for Brittney Griner (still the best player she ever coached) when the great Baylor was stuck in a Russian prison. She could have thought twice before defending the sexual assault and Title IX scandal that rocked Baylor and brought down once-untouchable football coach Art Briles. (“If anyone is near you and ever says, ‘I will never send my daughter to Baylor,’” she said on court after earning her 500th victory, “punch them right in the face.”) She had can go far less dismissive of gay players. She could have done more to stop Clark from leaving Monday than just defend her against Hailey Van Lith, the undersized LSU guard who was doomed to eternal meme hood despite her best efforts. If anyone at LSU were to beat Clark one-on-one, you’d expect it to be standout Flau’jae Johnson — who is not only bigger and more dynamic, but also came into Monday’s game expecting Clark to are her Job. “There’s not a lot of strategy,” Mulkey said of her defense after Monday’s game. ‘You have to guard her. No one else seems to be able to guard her. We didn’t even guard her last year when we beat them.

Overall, Mulkey comes across less as a cartoon villain than as the blinkered mama bear whose only concern is for the cubs in her care. That was evident in her non-answer to the anthem question (who would want to fan the flames even further after the tournament she just had?), and in her justified response to the UCLA column. When a tearful LSU star Angel Reese revealed some of the horrors she’s endured since the team audaciously won the title last year, I couldn’t help but think of the lengths Mulkey went to protect Reese from the press after retaining her best player for the first few games of the season. “Those children are like my children,” she says said at the time, “and I’m not going to tell you what you don’t need to know. That’s just the way I approach things.” It goes a long way to explaining why a parent can still send their daughter to play for her.

No doubt, the scrutiny on Mulkey will only intensify as interest in women’s basketball grows. And that investigation will most likely reveal a coach in an odd position: a polarizing figure who doesn’t quite settle on either pole. One minute she’s being touted as a Maga darling; the next she is beaten like a waking warrior. On the one hand, she has not been very progressive on issues of sexuality and gender-based violence, complaining about the media and journalists in the same way as many on the right. On the other hand, she has led an LSU team of mostly black women to a national title, defended her players against sexism and is now being targeted by the same people who attacked Colin Kaepernick around the national anthem. And maybe that ambiguity has to do with the fact that all Mulkey really cares about—all she’s ever really known—is the relentless pursuit of winning basketball games. In Mulkey’s world, everything else, for better or for worse, is superfluous.