By Malcolm Butler
It’s that time of the year.
March Madness.
Once of the best times of the year if you are a fan of college basketball. Men’s or women’s.
And just as sure as our cars in north Louisiana will be covered with pollen this time of the year, I am also sure that I will hear or read numerous times what I like to refer to as The Great Kim Mulkey Debate.
First, let me say congratulations to Kim on winning her fourth national championship title as a head coach; three at Baylor and now one at LSU. What a great game yesterday despite what I think we can all agree was some of the worst officiating you will ever see in a national title game — or any basketball game. The lack of awareness by the striped shirts yesterday was appalling.
It didn’t decide the game by any stretch, but it took the stars for both teams off the floor way too much.
But I digress.
Kim Mulkey is one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game. And no surprise as she learned from another one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game in Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer Leon Barmore. Coach Barmore knows a thing or two about national titles.
So what is to debate? Oh, the topic of Kim leaving LA Tech and going to Baylor more than two decades ago.
The year was 2000. Coach Barmore shocked every one when he announced his retirement (the first time) in March, the day before the Lady Techsters opened the NCAA Tournament hosting the first two rounds in Ruston. Tech fans remember. Catrina Frierson’s two free throws with 2 seconds to play to beat Vanderbilt in round two? Tech would advance to the Elite Eight before falling to Nancy Darling and Penn State in Kansas City.
Following the loss to the Nittany Lions, the “national search” began.
Now, keep in mind I was in my eighth month on the job as the Tech Sports Information Director. I was not on executive staff yet, thus I was not in the high-level meetings. I was a wet-behind-the-ears SID who was on a need-to-know basis. So I had no inside info. I was not in “the room” for the meetings with Kim and then-Tech President Dr. Dan Reneau and Tech Director of Athletics Jim Oakes and whoever else.
We all know the story that became public. Kim wanted a five-year contract. Tech offered a four-year contract. And Kim opted to head to Waco where another former legendary Tech coach Sonja Hogg helped lure her to a Lady Bears program that wasn’t very good at the time.
It got a little dicey in the newspapers. Some things were said.
And 17 days later, Leon came back out of retirement for two more years.
Since then every year in March when Kim is doing what Kim does — leading her team deep into the NCAA Tournament — old wounds open for some Tech fans. This year is no different. In fact it may be worse now that she is at an in-state school in LSU.
I have seen it all over social media the last week. People who understandably so are still mad or irritated because Kim isn’t coaching at Louisiana Tech.
And the blame game begins.
I’ve always believed that you could look at both sides and ask why. Why, Tech? We couldn’t have offered her five years? Or … Why, Kim? You couldn’t have accepted four years knowing you were going to win and get more?
And there is a group of Tech fans and just people in general who fall on both sides of this Great Kim Mulkey Debate. Some blame Tech. Some blame Kim.
But here is what a lot of folks either don’t understand or don’t want to accept in this debate. Kim Mulkey, in my opinion — and I guess it is just opinion based on logic — wouldn’t still be in Ruston.
In 2000 when she left to go to Baylor she made more money there than what she would have made at Tech. Despite the fact Tech was a Top 5 team and Baylor was a below average team. The Big 12 school was able to afford more. Even then. More than two decades ago.
So let’s play the “What If” game.
What if Kim Mulkey had stayed at LA Tech, signing either a four- or a five-year contract. Well, I don’t believe she would have still been in Ruston at the expiration date on that first contract. The money that was starting to be dumped into women’s basketball (and other sports outside of football and men’s basketball) from TV contracts and BCS revenue and was beginning to create the great divide.
Kim is a winner. She always has been. At every level. And winners are sought after with big dollars on the collegiate level.
An illustration of that fact is (according to a number of media outlet stories I found online) Kim’s eight-year contract at LSU garners her around $2.5 million PER year the first few years. That’s generational wealth.
I don’t have the contract in hand, but I imagine that amount increases deeper into the life of the contract. She earned a little extra spending money Sunday with a $150,000 bonus for winning the national title.
So, Kim is making roughly eight to 10 times what Louisiana Tech can afford to pay the same position.
Now back in 2000 or 2002 or 2004, LSU wasn’t paying $2.5 million; nor was any school. Pat Summitt at Tennessee was the first women’s head coach to make $1 million per year, signing that extension in 2006. But $500 to $750k per year at the top power 5 programs was realistic back then. And back then it would have been about three to four to five times what Tech was paying.
Kim would have won at LA Tech. She would have won and schools with deeper pockets would have come calling. And they would have come calling quickly and aggressively. And despite Kim’s deep connection to Tech, it would have been impossible to turn down that kind of generational wealth for her family.
The late Kurt Budke succeeded Leon Barmore in 2002. In 2005, Kurt left Ruston to take the head job at Oklahoma State. Why? Because of money and facilities and charter flights; all the things that money can do for a program. And no one could blame him.
So every March when the tournament rolls around and Kim is spotlighted doing her thing with her program, old emotions resurface with the Great Kim Mulkey Debate.
Some Tech fans pull for her and firmly believe she would still be in Ruston. Some Tech fans pull against her and say she had no loyalty. I don’t believe either.
I personally believe the contract disagreement in 2000 simply expedited what the millions of dollars in college athletics would have brought sooner than later.
