Kim Mulkey is one of the greatest coaches in the history of LSU athletics, but skeletons can even come out of her closet.
Mulkey refused to answer a question about Britney Griner’s imprisonment in Russia. Griner has been imprisoned in Russia since February on a drug charge. Mulkey was asked to comment on Griner’s imprisonment. The reporter stated that he hadn’t “seen anything from [her] on that.”
“And you won’t,” Mulkey replied.
Griner played at Baylor from 2009 to 2013 and was a star player for Mulkey when she was the head coach there. Griner helped lead the Bears to a 40-0 record along with the national championship in 2012. In that same year, Griner was named the national player.
The clip of her declining to comment on Griner’s imprisonment has gone viral on social media. Many have been outraged over Mulkey’s dismissal of her former star player’s imprisonment, even some of her former players.
Queen Egbo, a former Baylor and current Indiana Fever player, took several jabs at her former coach to her dismissal of Griner’s situation.
“A player that built Baylor, two national titles, & a 40-0 record,” Egbo tweeted. “Yet her former coach refuses to say anything or simply just any kind of support. Keep that in mind when you’re choosing schools.” Egbo played alongside Giner on the 2019 national championship squad.
Chloe Jackson, another one of Mulkey’s former players at Baylor, also took issue with Mulkey’s comments.
“And I will say it again,” Jackson tweeted. “SILENCE SPEAKS VOLUMES, smh.”
This isn’t the first time Jackson has come after Mulkey on Twitter. Jackson also criticized Mulkey’s silence on the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Nikki Collen, who took over for Mulkey as the head coach at Baylor, has been very vocal in her support of Griner. Collen has shared messages on Twitter and has spoken in support of Britney Griner. At her press conference on Monday, the same day as Mulkey’s, Collen spent five minutes discussing Griner’s imprisonment in Russia.
“Those that have been around me know I get pretty emotional,” she said. “I think BG, first of all, is human first. I think this is a human rights issue. No one’s saying she didn’t make a mistake. None of us are perfect. But I guess I would wanna know if I did something and was stuck in a foreign country, what it was, what it wasn’t. I think we all know that 10 years is a long time. I see her as a mother, as a sister, as a spouse, as a daughter, as an unbelievable ambassador for the game of basketball.”
Although she had given a brief statement of thoughts and prayers to Griner and her family when asked about it on the podcast Tiger Rag Radio, Mulkey has been silent on the issue. Why has she been so numb to discuss the imprisonment of the greatest player she has ever coached? It’s not a great look especially considering the fact that other coaches including Collen and South Carolina Head Coach Dawn Staley have voiced their support for Griner, a player that did not play for either coach.
Mulkey is seen as a God-like figure in sports. However, she has been seen as a controversial figure in recent years.
Griner and Mulkey had a falling out as soon as Griner graduated and began her professional career. Griner accused Mulkey of forcing her to hide her sexuality.
“It was a recruiting thing,” Griner said during an interview with ESPN back in 2014. “The coaches thought that if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn’t let their kids come play for Baylor.”
This isn’t the first time that there has been a belief that Mulkey has been accused of being uncomfortable around coaching members of the LGBTQ community. In the summer of 2012, Cyd Zeigler, the founder of Outsports, asked Mulkey if she has had a gay player on her team.
Mulkey’s response: “Don’t ask me that. I don’t think it’s anybody’s business. Whoever you are, I don’t care to know that.”
Former ESPN reporter Kate Fagan, who wrote the story about Griner having to hide her sexuality at Baylor, said that Mulkey tried to get her fired after she published the story.
“I did a story in which Brittney Griner told me that when she was at Baylor that she was not allowed to be openly gay, and this wasn’t a shocking story considering it is actually written in the handbook of Baylor University that you are not allowed to be openly gay at Baylor University,” Fagan said on the podcast, The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. “But after we put out that story, Kim Mulkey believed that I had forced Brittney Griner to say this, and she told the higher-ups at ESPN that I needed to be fired for this.”
After losing to the University of Connecticut in the Elite Eight in the Women’s NCAA tournament in March 2021, Mulkey suggested that they would get rid of COVID-19 testing because she thought that it could ruin a student-athlete’s chances of playing in the Final Four. This was during the pandemic and people were still getting sick and dying at high numbers.
“After the games today and tomorrow, there’s four teams left, I think, on the men’s side and the women’s side,” Mulkey said after Baylor’s loss to UCONN. “They need to dump the COVID testing. Wouldn’t it be a shame to keep COVID testing, and then you got kids that test positive or something, and they don’t get to play in the Final Four? So, you just need to forget the COVID tests and get the four teams playing in each Final Four and go battle it out.”
Mulkey tested positive for COVID-19 two months prior to her press conference after having a holiday gathering with friends and family. Baylor had one game scratched and two others were postponed. When Mulkey returned to coach her team, she told reporters that the NCAA would continue the season because of the “almighty dollar,” not caring about players and coaches’ safety.
“The season will continue on.” Mulkey said in January 2021. “The NCAA has to have the almighty dollar from the men’s tournament. The almighty dollar is more important than the health and welfare of me, the players, or anybody else.”
Having openly gay athletes doesn’t hurt recruiting. But coaches not supporting their players does. 
When you have former players that you coached coming after you after you refuse to comment or even give your thoughts and prayers to one of the greatest players you’ve coached being detained in a country that is at odds with the United States, recruits see that.
When you tell players you can’t be gay because you believe it will hurt your own self-image, recruits see that. When you are silent on the murder of George Floyd as well as other racial injustices, recruits see that.
“Kim Mulkey is my dark horse for person in sports that you never want to cross,” Fagan said. “She might not even be the dark horse. She might just be the No. 1 person in sports that is terrifying.”