Kim Mulkey’s success should not obscure her shortcomings

After entering the NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed due to a 30-1 regular-season record, newly-named 2019 WBCA Coach of the Year Kim Mulkey’s Baylor Bears have not disappointed. Propelled by the dynamic duo of Kalani Brown and Lauren Cox, the Bears have dominated.

With an Elite Eight victory over Iowa, Baylor returns to the Final Four for the first time since 2012, seemingly poised to claim the championship. The Lady Bears’ previous appearance featured a squad — led by then-junior Brittney Griner — that secured a 40-0 record by trouncing Notre Dame in the national title game.

Such success would further cement Mulkey as one of the greatest women’s basketball coaches of all time. And, possibly, a title victory could result in Mulkey pursuing new opportunities.

But sports, especially women’s sports, is about more than wins and losses. Sport is a political institution communicating ideas of race, gender, sex and power. And the messages consistently sent by Mulkey are problematic.

Why Mulkey was a true Lady Techster

To adequately understand and appreciate the problematic politics of Mulkey, it proves necessary to begin with her playing career. The Tickfaw, Louisiana native would take her talents to Louisiana Tech University in the fall of 1980.

Aiming to legitimatize the women’s basketball program she established in 1974, Louisiana Tech head coach Sonja Hogg prioritized proving that her players remained appropriate, admirable young women. Described by Sports Illustrated as “a no-nonsense lady, from the tip of her spike heels to the top of her lemon-meringue hair,” Hogg refused to use the mascot of Louisiana Tech’s men’s teams, a Bulldog, for her team because, as she put it, “a lady dog is a bitch.” Instead, her athletes would be Lady Techsters.

As further indication of the importance she placed on her players’ image, Hogg ceded all strategizing duties to co-head coach Leon Barmore in 1982. Hogg then devoted her time to developing a team of “ladylike” role models. A “lady” she encouraged her players imitate was Anita Bryant, the country singer turned orange juice spokeswoman turned anti-gay activist.

Kim Mulkey embodied the ideal Lady Techster.

In 1983, Sports Illustrated’s Alexander Wolff wrote of Mulkey: “At 5’4”, the pigtailed Mulkey, who hails from Hammond, La., is the Norma Rae of women’s basketball.” And Mulkey readily embraced her “Hammond Honey” nickname, even suggesting to sportswriters that it “improved her love life.”

On the Lady Techster’s ideology, Mulkey once said:

We always have to look like ladies. Sometimes it’s a pain, but if you want to be a national champion, you have to look like one.

And national champions they would be.

Propelled by Mulkey’s penetrating point guard play, Louisiana Tech would win the final AIAW National Championship in 1981 before winning the first NCAA National Championship in 1982.

The combination of their on- and off-court performances enhanced the appeal of the Lady Techsters. In Ruston, interest in the women’s team outpaced the interest in the men’s team, even after a young Karl Malone took the court for the Bulldogs.

Following her tenure at Louisiana Tech, Hogg would take her Lady Techster ways to Waco, Texas. Then, in 2000, her former point guard would assume the helm of the Baylor women’s basketball program, with Mulkey adapting Hogg’s politics and positionings for the 21st century.

Why Mulkey’s dismissiveness of Brittney Griner’s sexuality matters

While Hogg demanded overt displays of femininity to discourage accusations of homosexuality, which she supposed would delegitimize the players and the team, Mulkey’s strategy has been one of silencing players.

The reflections of Brittney Griner highlight Mulkey’s ideology of avoidance. In her 2014 autobiography, In My Skin, Griner recalls Mulkey telling her:

Big Girl, I don’t care what you are. You can be black, white, blue, purple, whatever. As long as you come here and do what you need to do and hoop, I don’t care.

Reacting to Mulkey’s words, Griner writes: “She basically did that whole thing people do when they’re trying to seem cool with [being gay] but don’t really know how to talk about it.”

Reflecting on her relationship to Baylor, Griner further explains:

I would love to be an ambassador for Baylor, to show my school pride, but it’s hard to do that. ... I’ve spent too much of my life being made to feel like there’s something wrong with me. And no matter how much support I felt as a basketball player at Baylor, it still doesn’t erase all the pain I felt there.

However, the problematic aspects of Mulkey’s conservative culture extend beyond the individual experiences of Griner.

Baylor women’s basketball exists in an American sports culture that sends powerful signals about social values. Mulkey’s actions and attitudes suggest that certain individuals and ways of being are more valued than others. She has accepted and, in turn, perpetuated, the assumption that heterosexuality is necessary to a woman athlete’s legitimacy.

But this belief does not simply inhibit the autonomy and agency of women athletes. By willfully ignoring the alternative identities available to women athletes, she strengthens the status-quo hierarchy of American sport and society.

Why Mulkey’s boosting of Baylor matters

Mulkey’s treatment of Griner, thus, cannot be considered separately from her implicit support for the Baylor football players accused of sexual assault.

In February 2017, Mulkey condemned critics of the university and its athletes. In a postgame speech, she told fans:

If somebody around you and they ever say, ‘I will never send my daughter to Baylor,’ you knock them right in the face.

Mulkey would somewhat retract her stern sentiment. Nevertheless, her words should not simply be seen as an impassioned expression of support for her institution.

Instead, like the ideological priorities she has imposed on her athletes, her words indicate an unquestioned endorsement of normative heterosexuality and traditional, even toxic, masculinity. In her position as head coach of an elite women’s basketball program, Mulkey consistently has chosen to bolster the paternalistic power of sport and society that sustains women’s secondary, submissive status in both spheres.

Why Mulkey’s fashion is a facade

Yet, on the surface, Mulkey also appears to subvert status-quo social norms by offering an inspiring example of a smart, savvy, strong-willed and supremely fashionable women’s basketball coach.

However, like Sonja Hogg, Mulkey has carefully-crafted her public persona. She may not have the iconically-80s “lemon meringue” hairdo of Hogg, but her image also works in service of her ideological assumptions.

In short, her fashion is not frivolous.

Throughout Baylor’s reign at the top of the women’s college basketball ranks, Mulkey’s flair for fashion has attracted increasing attention. During this year’s broadcast of Baylor’s Sweet Sixteen game, ESPN even aired a feature on Mulkey’s fashion, with Carolyn Peck visiting the coach’s home in order to marvel at her closet of stylish suits.

Considered in context with her other choices, Mulkey’s fashion does not demonstrate that women can be fierce and feminine. Rather, her stylings suggest that women first should show they undoubtedly are feminine in order to be able to show they also are fierce. This is not a distinction without a difference. Following the example of Hogg, the performance of femininity provides the supposedly-needed permission for women to enter and excel in a traditionally-male space.

In an interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe, Mulkey appears to admit as much, suggesting she would prefer to coach in sweats. Instead, her lifelong friends ensure Mulkey always stalks the sideline in style.

Why it matters that Brittney Griner played for Baylor

Ironically, Mulkey’s basketball program provided a powerful platform for resisting her political prerogatives.

Even as she struggled with criticisms and constraints, BG remained BG.

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

As she collected an array of national awards and, in turn, attracted an abundance of often-invasive attention, Griner increasingly introduced her alternative identity to the nation. Griner’s queer seemingly served as a statement against the ideology her coach — and society at-large — sought to impose.

Griner’s presence at Baylor serves as an important reminder of the power of women’s sports to expose and erode the absurd expectations of gender, sex and race that have long produced inequities in sport and society.

It is the responsibility of those in leadership positions in women’s sports to harness their power toward inclusiveness and change — Mulkey, included.