Kim Mulkey hada little business to take care of Saturday before she returns to building the LSU women's basketball program into a national champion.
NBA greatMichael Jordan wasto introduce Mulkey, whom LSU hired just last month from Baylor, into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday night in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Mulkey, 58, and Jordan, 58, were in Los Angeles in 1984 for the Summer Olympics in which the United States women's and men's basketball teams won the gold medal. Jordan will also induct the late Kobe Bryant.
ESPN will televise the event from 4:30-7 p.m. from the Mohegan Sun resort - an hour from the Hall that is in Springfield, Massachusetts, where basketball was invented in 1891 by Springfield College instructor James Naismith.
"I didn't want to put anybody out that wasn't going to already being attending the Hall of Fame, and I am just as honored and humbled that Michael agreed to do it," Mulkey saidFriday.
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Mulkey's first choice was Leon Barmore, her coach at Louisiana Tech from 1980-84 when the Lady Techsters won the national championship in 1981 and '82 and an assistant to Mulkey from 2008-11 at Baylor. He was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2003. The 76-year-old Barmore is ill and will not attend, however.
"Very few athletes have in their DNA her type of competitive gene; the type that simply won’t tolerate losing," Barmore told the Lincoln Parish Journal in Ruston. "She was like that with our team and with herself. She wanted to be great. She carried that desire over to our team. I have coached very few people withher type of competitive DNA."
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Mulkey, a native of Tickfaw who led Hammond High to four state championships from 1977-80 and grew up an LSU fan, will be the sixth Naismith inductee who was either a player or coach at LSU. She is second of that group to be inducted who has not yet coached or played a game for LSU, but just hired by the school.
"I spent 18 years of my life growing up 30 minutes from the LSU campus and 19 years of my life in north Louisiana," Mulkey said.
The previous LSU inductees were players Bob Pettit in 1971, Pete Maravich in 1987 and Shaquille O'Neal in 2016 and women's coaches Sue Gunter in 2005 and Van Chancellor in 2007 before his first season at LSU in 2007-08.
"You're not here if you don't have great players, and I coached some of the greatest players," Mulkey said. "And then I don't have a lot of turnover on my staff. They recruit the players. They sell Kim Mulkey. They sell the program. This honor, it literally is because of the players and the coaches that coach with me."
When Mulkeygot the call from the Naismith Hall,shehad just returned home toWaco, Texas, in March of 2020, after the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City was canceled due toCOVID-19.
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"I was emotional already because of the seniors who lost that year," she said. "I got that call and just cried. I'm still emotional about it. I'm thinking, 'How did I end up here today?' "
Mulkey won three national championships at Baylor in 2005, '12 and '19 after becoming coach in 2000 upon leaving Louisiana Tech, where she was an assistant to Barmore from 1985 to 2000 and won the 1988 national title.
She is the only person in college basketball history to win a national title as a player, assistant coach and head coach. She is one of just three to win a national championship as a player and coach, joining Naismith Hall members Bobby Knight (1991) and Jordan's coach at North Carolina, Dean Smith (1983).
"I was blessed to coach some of the greatest in the game," Mulkey said. "And I was blessed to be at an institution that valued women's basketball. And you don't get into the Naismith as a coach without others."
Mulkey remainsthe youngest inductee into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame at 28 in 1990 and was named one of 25 athletes of the century in Louisiana in 1999 by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
Other inductees will be International Basketball Federation executive Patrick Baumann,10-time WNBA All-Star and four-time Olympic gold medalistTamika Catchings,15-time NBA All-Star and three-time NBA Finals MVPTim Duncan,15-time NBA All-Star and nine-time All-Defensive First Team selectionKevin Garnett, five-time Division II National Coach of the YearBarbara Stevens,four-time collegiate National Coach of the YearEddie Suttonand two-time NBA champion coachRudy Tomjanovich.
