Collen ‘going to be me’ taking over Baylor women’s program

Nicki Collen knows she has taken a different and more meandering path than a lot of coaches. The latest step to becoming coach of three-time national champion Baylor happened in a hurry.

“It hasn’t been an even staircase to the top,” Collen said Wednesday. “But I have a lot of experience, I have a lot of life experience, and so I bring a different things to the table. I’m a mom, I’m a wife, I’m all those things all of the time. And I’m also at a point in my life where I’m comfortable with who I am.”

Collen was preparing for her fourth season as head coach of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, even leading them through practice Monday before being named that night as the new coach for the Baylor program that Kim Mulkey built into a national power the past 21 years until returning to her home state as LSU’s coach. The Lady Bears were national champs in 2005, 2012 and 2019, and won the Big 12 regularseason title each of the past 11 seasons.

“I’m not trying to be somebody I’m not, and I’m not going to try to be Kim Mulkey,” Collen said before her formal introduction on the campus in Waco, Texas. “I’m just going to be me. And I’m not saying that makes it easy. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the right formula, but it’s my right formula.”

She told the crowd at the Ferrell Center she was going to be “authentically me,” and understood why a few days earlier they didn’t even know her name while Mulkey’s name is still synonymous with Lady Bears basketball.

“The expectations haven’t changed,” Collen said. “Maybe how we do it has changed, but the expectations haven’t changed.”

Collen got emotional while explaining how she signed her Baylor contract on Monday, the birthday of her late sister who passed away seven years ago after a short bout with cancer.