FORT WORTH, Texas — With the sincerity of a parent, and the conviction of a preacher, Kim Mulkey looked at me and said of her Brittney Griner, “That’s someone’s child. That’s someone’s baby.”
She still is.
Even if you disagree with her.
This exchange happened in 2013, after Baylor beat TCU in Fort Worth when I asked the then Baylor coach about how she handled Griner’s critics, who existed mostly because she committed the unpardonable sin of not looking feminine.
Kim Mulkey, now the head coach at LSU, is no different from the idiots she once criticized for going after the baby she would protect only when it served her purposes to win basketball games.
Mulkey should be commended for her fearless willingness to put herself out there verbally, and shamed for her pathetic double standard when it comes to Griner.
When Mulkey recruited Griner out of Houston, a process that took years, she sold herself as the de facto parent who would watch out for the young person as if she was her own.
When Griner was the best player in college basketball at Baylor, which included the 40-0 national title season in 2012, she was the subject of some of the meanest, nastiest taunts ever conceived, and Mulkey stood up for her.
Now, momma has washed her hands of that baby over politics.
Mulkey is no momma. She re-exposed the worst of her profession who uses kids to meet their own selfish needs.
Griner is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence in Russia after she was caught with vape cartridges containing hash oil. The U.S. Government has classified this as a “wrongfully detained,” and is negotiating with Russian authorities for her release.
This week, Mulkey was asked by a reporter in a press conference in Baton Rouge about Griner’s situation.
Reporter: “Brittney Griner’s situation; I don’t think I’ve seen anything from you on that.”
Mulkey: “And you won’t.”
Where is the respect, the decency, that the tough-talkin', southern-twanged momma once professed for her BG?
This is someone’s baby.
As a human being, and Christian, this is a deliberate failure.
Long before Griner was arrested, she was part of the group of athletes, male and female, who took part in the Black Lives Matter movement.
In 2020, Griner told the Arizona Republic, “I honestly feel we should not play the national anthem during our season. I think we should take that much of a stand.”
That’s an ender for someone like a Kim Mulkey, or any number of the millions of strident conservatives who celebrate America’s free speech laws only to condemn the actual words.
There is a way to respect the person while disagreeing with them.
What Mulkey stubbornly refused to say, current Baylor women’s basketball coach Nikki Collen did this week during a meeting with the press in Waco.
“BG, first of all, is human first. I think this is a human rights issue. No one is saying she didn’t make a mistake. None of us are perfect,” Collen said. “I would want to know if I did something and was stuck in a foreign country and what it was, what it wasn’t — I think we all know that 10 years is a long time.”
She also said, “I see her as a mother, as a sister, as a spouse, as a daughter, as an unbelievable ambassador for the game of basketball. We can argue about kneeling or not kneeling all day long. Brittney Griner has worn that USA across her chest and won gold medals for this country. She’s represented Baylor. She was Baylor. She made Baylor a household name.”
This is all Mulkey had to say; or something remotely close to it.
She couldn’t. Because she is among the throngs of people who think Griner is getting what she deserves.
Brittney Griner didn’t make Kim Mulkey, but Kim Mulkey is not where she is today without Brittney Griner.
If anyone should be able to separate the person from politics it’s a coach. Especially a Division I coach who has no career without real players.
However great Kim Mulkey has come to believe she is, she’s a high school coach in Dead Broke, Louisiana, teaching gym and history making $55,000 a year without real players like Griner.
Griner helped to make Kim Mulkey not just money, but stupid money. Millions of dollars to coach a sport that does nothing but lose money.
It’s not as if Mulkey hasn’t made some exceptions before with Griner.
After Griner’s career at Baylor was finished, she told espnW that Mulkey, “Told players not to be open publicly about their sexuality because it would hurt recruiting and look bad for the program.”
Griner said she told Mulkey in the recruiting process she was gay. Mulkey basically told players to keep it quiet. That is, sadly, not uncommon with women’s basketball, or women’s sports.
When Griner was the best player in her sport at Baylor, Mulkey loved her.
Now that Griner is stuck in a Russian prison over a nothing charge, Mulkey washed her hands of her, even though “That’s someone’s child. That’s someone’s baby.”
