Kim Mulkey

HEAD WOMEN’S BASKETBALL COACH, LSU KIM MULKEY KIM MULKEY BIO

Hometown: Hammond Age: 59 Family: Son Kramer Robertson and daughter Makenzie Fuller Years with company: 1 year MILESTONES

1984: Plays for Team USA and becomes an Olympic gold medalist. • Only person in college basketball history—men’s or women’s—to win national championships as a head coach, assistant coach and a player. 2022: Wins 650th game as a head coach, becoming the fastest coach in men’s or women’s Division 1 college basketball history (758 games) to reach that milestone. 2021-22: In first season at LSU, leads the greatest single-season turnaround by a firstyear head coach in SEC history with a 26-6 record after taking over a team that went 9-13 the previous season. • Nine-Time National Women’s Basketball Coach of the Year. • Coached 20 players who have earned AllAmerica honors by various entities. • Student-athletes, throughout her head coaching career, have a 100% graduation rate.

Q&A

Proudest business achievement

Influence young women by being a leader they want to follow. Giving them confidence in what they are doing. And lastly, show them how to handle success and failure.

Hardest lesson learned

How to deal with things out of your control, like death, divorce and discrimination as a 12-year-old playing baseball with boys.

Best advice

Always be you! Learn from other leaders and incorporate it into your own leadership style.

“You just have to know what you’re doing, and you must believe in what you’re doing.”

They might do it through gritted teeth, but the LSU faithful usually extend a new coach a little patience. It takes time to build a winning team, fans begrudgingly concede, and a turnaround doesn’t happen overnight.

Unless the coach is Kim Mulkey.

Hired last April, Mulkey took the languishing LSU women’s basketball team from winning nine games during the 2020-21 season to a 26-6 record this past season. The team finished second in the SEC and secured a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament. It was the Lady Tigers’ best record since 2007-08—an about-face that earned Mulkey AP Coach of the Year for the third time.

Moreover, the fun-to-watch Mulkey also accomplished what LSU Athletic Director Scott Woodward expected when he hired her: She put fans in seats. Sure, they came to watch the Lady Tigers win, but they also came to see Mulkey’s fiery energy, her balance-defying sideline squat (in heels) and her iconic courtside fashion. Mulkey’s first season brought record-setting attendance.

Basketball fans nationwide know Mulkey from her decades-long career—as a collegiate player, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist and a wildly successful coach. Her 21-year career at Baylor University yielded three national championships. She also earned two as a player and one as an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech, making her the country’s most successful player-turnedcoach in college basketball history. Only Dean Smith and Bobby Knight also earned national titles as both players and coaches. For her scores of accomplishments, Mulkey will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, in May.

That would be plenty to energize the fan base, but Mulkey’s status as a home state girl gives her additional currency. The Tickfaw native and former Lady Techsters point guard says part of her decision to take the LSU job was because she wanted to make a difference in Louisiana.

“I just wanted to do something positive for the state,” Mulkey says. “I knew my state and LSU, and they’re hungry. They’re passionate people.”

Her success, she maintains, doesn’t come from anything mysterious.

“You just have to know what you’re doing, and you must believe in what you’re doing,” she says. “When I step before those young ladies, I have to know what I’m doing and I have to believe what I’m telling them. You can’t lead somebody if you just get up there and go through the motions. People can see through it.”

Mulkey says her characteristic confidence stems from her early days on the court, as a small point guard who needed to command respect from teammates and opponents alike.

“If you’re going to lead somebody and you’re my size (Mulkey stands 5 feet, 4 inches), you’ve got to have them follow,” she says. “You’ve got to have them believe in you as a player, and then it carries over into coaching, or anything I’m doing.”

Throughout the long basketball season, Mulkey grinds away nonstop, planning, strategizing and adjusting. She says she’s a stickler for loyalty from her staff. She requires little sleep and maintains a lifelong practice of not consuming coffee or alcohol. In the offseason, she likes to spend time with her grandchildren and work in the yard. Only recently did she stop mowing her own lawn.

Looking back on her inaugural season, Mulkey is quick to share credit with her players.

“You can’t be a leader if people don’t follow you,” she says. “I’m only as good as my players, and I’m forever indebted to my first group of players at LSU.”

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HTB’S CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

2022 Influential Women in Business Honoree

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