Women’s college basketball has arrived!
Way to go, Kim Mulkey, four-time NCAA championship coach, two-time championship player and the head coach of the defending champion LSU women’s team.
You’ve done it.
Your unhinged rant about the alleged, impending, never-before-seen, purported ‘‘hit job’’ on you coming from the Washington Post was magnificent. It looked as though you were testifying before a Senate crime committee.
You’ve put women’s hoops up there with the big boys. Up there where every supporter has said the sport must go for fairness, equity, scrutiny, the American way.
Indeed, nothing says ego, entitlement and status like a furious diatribe from a coach at a news conference about a piece of unseen journalism. And nothing guarantees more viewers of the alleged upcoming story.
To refresh your memory: On Saturday, Mulkey, who dresses for games like a Mardi Gras reveler or human candy cane, ripped into the writer who, as she noted, has been working on a story about her for two years. The writer allegedly tried to talk with ‘‘disgruntled’’ former players, and he already had written about LSU football coach Brian Kelly in 2022. Man, did that story make Mulkey mad. So mad that she has refused every request the writer has made to talk with her for two full years.
The writer, by the way, is veteran sports journalist Kent Babb, whose piece about Kelly — titled ‘‘In Baton Rouge, There’s a $100 Million Football Coach and Everyone Else’’ — was absolutely spot-on. As detailed in Babb’s piece, Kelly makes $24,657 per day, while the median income for people living near the football stadium is $24,865 per year.
Mulkey, who recently signed a 10-year contract extension for $32 million, was very upset about that expose. The nerve of these writers. Kelly is King of the Swamp. Mulkey perceives herself as the Swamp Queen.
Part of me thinks that this whole thing was staged, that Mulkey and the NCAA gleefully and quietly plotted this PR gem for years. The timing was perfect: Go after a scribe (and his arrogant media outpost), play victim, play martyr, tell the world this is why nobody trusts the media, remind your team that the whole world is against us.
Then Mulkey’s cherry on top from Saturday, to let everybody know she’s a fighter: ‘‘I’ve hired the best defamation law firm in the country, and I will sue the Washington Post if they publish a false story about me. Not many people are in a position to hold these kinds of journalists accountable, but I am. And I’ll do it.’’
This is where you start chuckling. A tip here, Coach: Facts and opinions are not ‘‘false’’ things. You’re a public figure. Unless a piece was written with reckless disregard for the truth, knowingly false and still printed, it ain’t libel or slander. It’s called journalism.
Facts are true things.
But if Babb and the Post print lies, then sue ’em back to the Stone Age, Coach. Absolutely. While you’re at it, have fun with your own discovery and depositions. Have fun talking under oath about how you are not loved by the gay community. How you didn’t support your gay former star Brittney Griner, who led your Baylor team to a 40-0 season and a national championship. How you barely spoke about her while she was imprisoned in a Russian gulag.
Tell them how in March 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, you said the NCAA Tournament should ‘‘dump’’ its COVID testing.
Tell them about being suspended from the 2013 NCAA Tournament for your comments about officials.
Tell them why you called Babb — a nationally honored sportswriter whose book ‘‘Across the River,’’ about an inner-city New Orleans high school football team, is one of the best and most passionate sports books I’ve ever read — ‘‘sleazy.’’
And, above all, remind us why ESPN writer Kate Fagan said on a podcast: ‘‘Kim Mulkey is my dark horse for person in sports that you never want to cross. She might just be the No. 1 person in sports that is terrifying.’’
Oh, that lawsuit will never happen. Not a chance.
But women’s college hoops has stars such as Caitlin Clark, who dresses down like Mike Tyson entering the ring, and Angel Reese, who dresses up like a fashion shoot is breaking out, and the whole sport is rocketing upward.
So good work, Kim Mulkey. As we know, every great drama needs a bad guy. You got it.
chicago.suntimes.com
Way to go, Kim Mulkey, four-time NCAA championship coach, two-time championship player and the head coach of the defending champion LSU women’s team.
You’ve done it.
Your unhinged rant about the alleged, impending, never-before-seen, purported ‘‘hit job’’ on you coming from the Washington Post was magnificent. It looked as though you were testifying before a Senate crime committee.
You’ve put women’s hoops up there with the big boys. Up there where every supporter has said the sport must go for fairness, equity, scrutiny, the American way.
Indeed, nothing says ego, entitlement and status like a furious diatribe from a coach at a news conference about a piece of unseen journalism. And nothing guarantees more viewers of the alleged upcoming story.
To refresh your memory: On Saturday, Mulkey, who dresses for games like a Mardi Gras reveler or human candy cane, ripped into the writer who, as she noted, has been working on a story about her for two years. The writer allegedly tried to talk with ‘‘disgruntled’’ former players, and he already had written about LSU football coach Brian Kelly in 2022. Man, did that story make Mulkey mad. So mad that she has refused every request the writer has made to talk with her for two full years.
The writer, by the way, is veteran sports journalist Kent Babb, whose piece about Kelly — titled ‘‘In Baton Rouge, There’s a $100 Million Football Coach and Everyone Else’’ — was absolutely spot-on. As detailed in Babb’s piece, Kelly makes $24,657 per day, while the median income for people living near the football stadium is $24,865 per year.
Mulkey, who recently signed a 10-year contract extension for $32 million, was very upset about that expose. The nerve of these writers. Kelly is King of the Swamp. Mulkey perceives herself as the Swamp Queen.
Part of me thinks that this whole thing was staged, that Mulkey and the NCAA gleefully and quietly plotted this PR gem for years. The timing was perfect: Go after a scribe (and his arrogant media outpost), play victim, play martyr, tell the world this is why nobody trusts the media, remind your team that the whole world is against us.
Then Mulkey’s cherry on top from Saturday, to let everybody know she’s a fighter: ‘‘I’ve hired the best defamation law firm in the country, and I will sue the Washington Post if they publish a false story about me. Not many people are in a position to hold these kinds of journalists accountable, but I am. And I’ll do it.’’
This is where you start chuckling. A tip here, Coach: Facts and opinions are not ‘‘false’’ things. You’re a public figure. Unless a piece was written with reckless disregard for the truth, knowingly false and still printed, it ain’t libel or slander. It’s called journalism.
Facts are true things.
But if Babb and the Post print lies, then sue ’em back to the Stone Age, Coach. Absolutely. While you’re at it, have fun with your own discovery and depositions. Have fun talking under oath about how you are not loved by the gay community. How you didn’t support your gay former star Brittney Griner, who led your Baylor team to a 40-0 season and a national championship. How you barely spoke about her while she was imprisoned in a Russian gulag.
Tell them how in March 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, you said the NCAA Tournament should ‘‘dump’’ its COVID testing.
Tell them about being suspended from the 2013 NCAA Tournament for your comments about officials.
Tell them why you called Babb — a nationally honored sportswriter whose book ‘‘Across the River,’’ about an inner-city New Orleans high school football team, is one of the best and most passionate sports books I’ve ever read — ‘‘sleazy.’’
And, above all, remind us why ESPN writer Kate Fagan said on a podcast: ‘‘Kim Mulkey is my dark horse for person in sports that you never want to cross. She might just be the No. 1 person in sports that is terrifying.’’
Oh, that lawsuit will never happen. Not a chance.
But women’s college hoops has stars such as Caitlin Clark, who dresses down like Mike Tyson entering the ring, and Angel Reese, who dresses up like a fashion shoot is breaking out, and the whole sport is rocketing upward.
So good work, Kim Mulkey. As we know, every great drama needs a bad guy. You got it.
LSU coach Kim Mulkey playing victim card, but what exactly is she complaining about?
Nothing says ego, entitlement and status like a furious diatribe from a coach at a news conference about a piece of unseen journalism. And nothing guarantees more viewers of the alleged upcoming story.
chicago.suntimes.com
