It was only matter of time
Baylor’s Kim Mulkey reflects on 40-year journey to Hall of Fame.
Choosing which Springfield in which state you want your smartphone to direct you to is the most challenging part of a standard trip from Tickfaw to Springfield.
Tickfaw is the easy one. While the U.S. Geological Survey indicates there are 33 Springfields in the United States, there is only one Tickfaw.
The drive from Kim Mulkey’s little hometown to Springfield, La., is but a hop, skip and a jump down I-55. Not even 20 minutes.
But Mulkey’s 1,500-mile trek from Tickfaw, La., to Springfield, Mass., home of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, is much more than a weekend-long drive.
It has taken countless hours in the gym, a lake of tears, an unbreakable passion for basketball for Mulkey to arrive at a place she unquestionably belongs.
Already a member of eight halls of fame, including the National High School Hall of Fame, for the Baylor women’s basketball coach says the Naismith, which was announced two weeks ago, is different.
“This is the granddaddy of em all,” she said. “This is something that a lot of players and coaches dream of, but I can’t tell you that I dreamed of it because I never thought I was gonna be a coach, and here I am 35 years later, coaching.
“It’s an unbelievable honor. I’m humbled.”
And deserving.
Mulkey, the only person to have won an NCAA title as a player, assistant coach and head coach, is joining elite company — fewer than 400 individuals are enshrined in the Hall. Mulkey will enter as part of a notable 2020 class that includes NBA greats Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Rockets legend Rudy Tomjanovich, who is one of 14 coaches to have won multiple NBA championships.
Joe B. Hall, Bob Knight and Dean Smith are the only others to have won NCAA championships as a player and head coach. With three national titles, Mulkey is third on the women’s coaching list behind Hall of Famers Geno Auriemma and Pat Summitt.
She was primed to add another trophy, as Baylor, which finished this season having won 23 games in a row was the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament that won’t be played because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Mulkey, who started at Baylor in 2000 and has a 604-101 record in Waco, has long been one of the best coaches in the country. Period.
Note there is no qualifier there. She is that good.
Yet when she says she is humbled by the upcoming induction, she means it.
Coaching is surely her calling, but it wasn’t a lifelong dream. Her childhood imagination didn’t include a coaching career, let alone a hall of fame one.
All she knew was that she wanted to win.
After her father signed her and her younger sister Tammy up for little league because there were no softball leagues, Mulkey pushed to become the best player. At 12, she was the first player taken in the draft, ahead of her sister and all the boys, and a little league and pony league all-star.
When she turned to basketball full-time, she dominated.
An angelic assassin, Mulkey averaged 38 points a game in high school, scoring the secondmost points in U.S. high school girls’ history, while leading Hammond to four straight state championships.
Mulkey said she was so competitive that she when she realized first place in grades meant she could be valedictorian of Hammond High School, she was determined to make it happen.
“I was not the smartest kid,” she said. “I did not make the greatest test scores on the SAT or ACT. But I knew if I outworked them I could do it.
“I always wanted to compete. And it made me feel worthy. It made me feel good. And the losing didn’t make me feel good, but it motivated the heck out of me.”
There hasn’t been much losing in Mulkey’s basketball life.
Her high school team went 136-5. She brought he pigtail to Louisiana Tech where in her four years starting at point guard (1980-84) the Lady Techsters went 130-6, won two national championships and made four Final Four appearances.
Mulkey was on the USA’s unbeaten Gold Medal squad at the 1984 Olympics. After being talked into becoming a coach, she was hired as an assistant at her alma mater, where the team racked up a 430—68 record and advanced to seven Final Fours with one championship during her tenure.
That she didn’t replace her former coach Leon Barmore after he announced his retirement at La Tech is still a shock to her.
She was offered the job, but with just a four-year contract instead of the five-year deal most coaches were being given at the time.
After 19 years at Louisiana Tech, she was hurt. She begged the school president for a fifth year, but to no avail.
“There’s an old saying, ‘Thank God for unanswered prayers,’” Mulkey said. “I did beg. I cried. I pleaded. I got down on my knees …
“And if there’s one thing you learn about me is that I’m a very principled person. I wasn’t asking for something that I didn’t deserve. And so, the rest is history.” Baylor Lady Bears history.
“It’s not about me,” Mulkey likes to say.
She is so wrong about that. Her teams battle like she does. They are tough like she is. Intense and intent.
They give nothing less than their best because she demands it.
Her run of excellence at Baylor — 18 NCAA Tournament appearances in 20 seasons, with NCAA championships in 2005, ‘12 and ’19 — isn’t about turning a program around so much as building one from scratch. The Lady Bears had never even been to the NCAA Tournament before Mulkey arrived.
Shortly after the news broke that Mulkey would be one of this year’s Hall of Fame inductees, Baylor fans rolled past her home in Waco in a “social distancing” parade that lasted nearly an hour.
She is that respected. That beloved.
A 57-year-old living legend, who has seemingly done it all.
“I don’t check off boxes,” she said. “But I had that conversation many times with my staff and my friends. Their question is, ‘Coach, how much longer you’re gonna keep doing this? What motivates you?’
“I can tell you what motivates me, winning. Winning championships.”
“I’ve never been a lifer. I have a life outside of basketball. And so, I’m just 57 years old, I’ll be 58 in May, but I’ve been doing this since I was 23 years of age as a coach.
“I’ve done it a long, long time, but I’ve done it pretty quickly. So, I’ve got a little gas left in that tank.”
Even after a 40-year journey to Springfield, she’s still rolling.