Everything about Kim Mulkey screams LOOK AT ME – from her garish sideline fashion to her in-your-face coaching style to her combative media posture. But perceptions of Mulkey have never shifted as wildly as during this year’s NCAA women’s basketball tournament, where the LSU coach has been under a level of scrutiny unlike any she has endured over her long hoops career.
The rollercoaster ride started late last month, with the 61-year-old dedicating the first of two postgame news conferences to lambasting an imminent Washington Post “hit piece” on her. This, despite the paper spending two years courting her cooperation and giving her two more days to respond to a final list of questions. Mulkey threatened legal action and tarred Kent Babb, the respected Post writer in question, as a two-bit muckraker. (“Not many people are in a position to hold these kinds of journalists accountable, but I am, and I’ll do it,” Mulkey said.) While the aggressive PR defense endeared Mulkey to swathes of conservative-leaning hoops agnostics who are plenty leery of the press already, it had the backfiring effect of providing free advertising for what proved to be a fairly benign profile – a major letdown for readers who were half expecting the Post to report that she had been at the Capitol on January 6, based on the coach’s outburst.
