Why Do Reporters Keep Coming For Kim Mulkey’s Crown?

Kim Mulkey is arguably the most accomplished basketball icon in Louisiana's history. Before you get too far, Pete Maravich was born in Pennsylvania and went to high school in the Carolinas...just just played college ball at LSU. Karl Malone is from Louisiana, and is a legend at Louisiana Tech...but will all of his achievements, he lacks championships. The best argument is Shreveport's Robert Parish. Since he played his college basketball at Centenary, and went on to win 4 NBA Championships during his Hall of Fame career.

But look at Mulkey. The Tickfaw, Louisiana native won two National Championships as a player at Louisiana Tech, and another National Championship at Tech as an Assistant Coach. While she wanted to coach at Tech, she ended up having to take her talents to Baylor where she became a 3-time National Champion. After her time at Baylor came to an end (with an .827 winning percentage), she came home to LSU where she again won a National Championship.

Oh, and she has an Olympic Gold Medal.

So 7 National Championships, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, and an Olympic Gold Medal. There's not really only else in the history of Louisiana that is on her level.

But that has apparently made her a giant target for national voices. Especially writers.

Mulkey is a strong, loud, and successful woman, which makes it hard for some people to handle her. You can't put Mulkey in a box. You can't tell Mulkey what to do. In many cases, you can't beat Mulkey.

The majority of her players express nothing but love for Mulkey. She's tough, but has one of the biggest hearts we've seen in sports. The class she often displays while consoling opponents in the post-game handshake line is something we don't often see from coaches of her level. She truly cares, which is part of why she can find herself ruffling feather (sometimes while wearing them).

One time, Mulkey told a TV reporter during a game that she was so embarrassed by the play, she'd turn the game off if she was at home watching it. That's stone cold honesty, and the Mulkey way.

People get mad at Mulkey for the weirdest things. She's a winner, has no recruiting or academic violations in her history, and is flashy...so that makes people uncomfortable when she throws out heavy honesty. Like when she uses different phrasing for a long-time idiom.

After a tough loss to South Carolina in the SEC Tournament Championship Game, Mulkey came into the press conference with tons of praise for South Carolina. But when asked about the fight that broke out late in the game, when South Carolina's Kamilla Cardoso took a cheap shot blindside hit on a smaller LSU player. Cardoso is 6'7, and the player she attacked LSU's Flau'jae Johnson...who is 5'10.

Cardoso got a fighting foul, and was ejected. But somehow she's allowed to play in the NCAA Tournament still. Both LSU and South Carolina had multiple players ejected.

Mulkey praised the physicality of both teams, but when she got to the fight, she said in her press conference she called it "ugly" and "not good". However she was attacked from coast-to-coast for saying "I wish she would have pushed Angel Reese".

What Mulkey said was a paraphrase of the classic idiom "pick on someone your own size". Because Angel Reese is over 6 foot tall, much closer to Cardoso's height than the smaller player Cardoso attacked. Who would have thought a full blown smear campaign would be launched against a coach with this resume for saying "pick on someone your own size". But that's what Mulkey deals with.

After having to deal with that to end the SEC Tournament, national writers decided it was time to sling more at Mulkey. The next volley came from the Washington Post.

As the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament got underway, national reporters started to post on social media that a "bombshell" report on Kim Mulkey was coming. Their posts indicated that it was coming from the Washington Post, and would be released on Monday morning.

In one of her first NCAA Tournament press conferences, Mulkey opened with a statement about the upcoming story. She even threatened legal action. You can see some of her comments here:

But then Monday came, and no story. Tuesday rolled around...nothing. The whole week rolled by without a story. By the following Saturday, the story slipped out. Not a big huge presentation of this grand story they built up, just a little write up. Nothing in the story was groundbreaking, not much controversy, just a guy who really doesn't like Kim Mulkey writing about why he doesn't like Kim Mulkey.

So what happened?

We probably will never know for sure, but I can tell you what it looks like.

From over here, it looks like a bunch of reporters getting excited because one of their guys is going to write up a hit piece on someone they don't like. They all start building excitement for it through their social media, and then the focus of the story steps in. The victim of the story threatens to sue if the content is any less than the truth. The writer's boss hears this, and asks to take another look at this story, which is when something may have changed.

Obviously something came up to delay it from being released when we were told it would come out. Then it was delayed to a release time that's not often reserved for "bombshell" reports, and once we read it, we see the "bombshell" is gone. Did the bosses at the Washington Post realized the fuel in this story didn't meet standards, and knew they would be getting sued if they let it go?

Speaking of "standards", that brings us to the next attack on Kim Mulkey.

While deep in the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, the Los Angeles Times decided it was time to take a run at Mulkey and her team. The article positioned LSU as "evil" against the UCLA team that was "good". This reporter used terms that result in pornography in an online search to describe the LSU team.

Mulkey had to go to another press conference to put, yet another, hit piece on blast.

This time, the publication openly addressed it. The site edited the story to take some of these elements out. Then the reporter was forced to offer an "apology" writing off his attacks as trying to be "clever". However the name Kim Mulkey doesn't appear in the apology letter.

Which honestly, looking at Kim Mulkey's real resume, is probably fine with her. Because while she continues to take on these attacks, she constantly lifts up her players, her school, her conference, and the game of women's basketball. Kim Mulkey is more concerned about getting it done, and getting it done right, than she is about what a reporter shopping a 2-year vendetta against her thinks.