Former Baylor Coach Kim Mulkey Declines to Comment on Britney Griner 'Situation'

Three-time coach of the year, and current LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey declined to comment on the “situation” with WNBA’s Britney Griner on Monday. Griner is imprisoned in Russia after being caught with hashish oil in her luggage while playing with the Russian Premier League during the WNBA offseason in February 2022.

Mulkey recruited Griner to Baylor University and was head coach for Griner’s four years at the university until she was drafted to the WNBA in 2013.

Mulkey was asked during a Monday press conference, “I wanted to get your thoughts on the Britney Griner situation, I don’t think I’ve seen anything from you on that.”

“And you won’t,” Mulkey responded:

Griner claims a 2013 “falling out” with Mulkey and also her dissatisfaction with the culture at the conservative Baptist private school as the reason she has since refused to attend a game at the university or associate herself with Baylor since she came out as lesbian and was drafted into the WNBA.

In 2013, Griner said that Mulkey did not have a problem recruiting her after she divulged to the coach that she was a lesbian. Griner blamed the religious culture of Baylor University for encouraging students to keep their sexual lives private:

“It was a recruiting thing,” Griner said during an interview with ESPN The Magazine and espnW. “The coaches thought that if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn’t let their kids come play for Baylor.”

“It was more of a unwritten law [to not discuss your sexuality] … it was just kind of, like, one of those things, you know, just don’t do it,” Griner said Friday. “They kind of tried to make it, like, ‘Why put your business out on the street like that?'”

…

“I told Coach [Mulkey] when she was recruiting me. I was like, ‘I’m gay. I hope that’s not a problem,’ and she told me that it wasn’t,” Griner said. “I mean, my teammates knew, obviously they all knew. Everybody knew about it.”

Griner and Mulkey had a “strained relationship since the player’s final days” at Baylor, where Griner made her name as a college player and also where she was playing when she decided to publicly announce her homosexuality prior to the 2013 draft, Yahoo Sports reported:

Griner and Mulkey have had a strained relationship since the player’s final days at the school. In a huge moment for the time, Griner publicly said she was gay ahead of the 2013 WNBA draft. She told reporters that she was encouraged to keep quiet about her sexuality while at Baylor, a private Baptist university in Texas. Griner also addressed it in her 2014 book, “In My Skin.” She said it was not meant to be a shot at Mulkey, but instead a remark about the culture and community at Baylor collectively.

The school includes in its student handbook a policy that sex should be confined to heterosexual marriage. It passed a resolution in May to commit to providing support for all students no matter their “sexual orientation or gender identity.” It still noted that “sexual relations of any kind outside of marriage” should not happen.

Mulkey has a history of declining to comment publicly on the sexual orientation of her players. In a 2021 article titled “Kim Mulkey brings her problematic history with LGBTQ athletes to LSU,” Outsports reported:

In the summer of 2012, for example, Mulkey spoke to Outsports co-founder Cyd Zeigler, who asked her a simple question: “Have you ever had a gay player on your team?”

Her response: “Don’t ask me that. I don’t ask that. I don’t think it’s anybody’s business. Whoever you are. I don’t care to know that.”

Though the media has painted Mulkey in a negative light, 2005 Baylor National Champion Emily Nkosi, who has also come out as homosexual, explained that Mulkey’s reactions follow the culture of the conservative Baptist college’s expectations from their athletes and staff:

Coach Mulkey is a member of an athletic department, a school, a town, a state and even a region that is known for its conservative belief system, which very much includes homophobia. As leader and icon in each of these arenas, Coach Mulkey has been unfairly singled out as particularly homophobic based on what happened with me and then Brittney Griner. But in my experience she did not express opinions that were different from the dominant belief system held in that community.

After Griner’s conviction, Baylor University said in a statement:

With the unsettling news of the verdict and sentencing of Brittney Griner, we continue to pray for her ongoing strength and safety throughout her detainment,” Baylor said in the statement. “We recognize the extraordinary complexity of this situation, yet we remain hopeful of the day she will again set foot on U.S. ground.”

Current Baylor women’s basketball coach Nicki Collen was also asked about Griner on Monday, and spoke at length about the Baylor legend, who she never coached. Collen said:

I think BG, first of all, is human first. I think this is a human rights issue. No one’s saying she didn’t make a mistake. None of us are perfect. But I guess I would wanna know if I did something and was stuck in a foreign country, and what it was, what it wasn’t. I think we all know that 10 years is a long time. I see her as a mother, as a sister, as a spouse, as a daughter, as an unbelievable ambassador for the game of basketball.

I just think about what it would be like to be away from my family for over 200 days. That’s to me first and foremost. I think this is a humanitarian thing … We should be doing everything in our power to get Brittney home.

Griner said her falling out with Mulkey was likely because the two women are “two strong-headed individuals.” Griner said, “It’s something I thought maybe we could have talked about. But it wasn’t, really … not with open ears, probably from both sides, from me or her. We’re probably two strong-headed individuals. So it’s tough. But I definitely wish Kim well. I know LSU got a good coach. So I’m happy for her.”