LSU's Kim Mulkey details rocky year in emotional speech. 'Most of you don’t know who I am.' (2024)

In an emotional speech Thursday night, Kim Mulkey detailed a rocky 12 months, which started when she first felt symptoms that led her to an alarming diagnosis and ended when she and her team faced criticism from Gov. Jeff Landry.

Mulkey spoke for nearly a half-hour Thursday. As part of her remarks — addressed to a large crowd at the LSU women’s basketball team’s year-end banquet — she thanked her players and staff, reflected on her third season in Baton Rouge and veered into an outline of the values that shape her identity.

Several times throughout her speech, Mulkey fought through tears. Among those moments: When she recalled her June surgery that cleared a blocked artery. Or when she introduced her son, ex-LSU baseball player Kramer Robertson. Or when she read aloud a pair of handwritten letters from fans.

“I'm emotional for a lot of reasons,” Mulkey said, her voice cracking “so you bear with me.”

The program held the banquet inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, where this season LSU lost only one of its 19 home games. In 2023-24, the Tigers went 31-6. Their NCAA tournament run ended in the Elite Eight with a 94-87 loss to Iowa.

Under Mulkey, LSU is now 10-2 in the NCAA tournament and 91-14 overall.

“Look around this building,” Mulkey said, raising her voice. “Look around this building. Wow — that's all I can tell you. This is why I came home. I came home to do good here, not bad.”

Mulkey did not directly mention Landry, who — in the week after LSU’s season ended — called for a policy that would require all athletes be present for the pregame national anthem or risk losing their scholarships.

The LSU-Iowa game sparked Landry’s push, even though he previouslyhad attended the LSU-Middle Tennessee NCAA tournament game at the PMAC and presumably saw firsthand that the Tigers were in their locker room during the anthem, as is their routine.

It was the latest in a line of off-court controversies that took the spotlight away from the Tigers’ performance on the floor.

The first was Angel Reese’s semi-mysterious four-game November absence. Then came Kateri Poole’s unexplained departure from the team. Once the postseason started, LSU and South Carolina engaged in a fourth-quarter scrap in the Southeastern Conference title game.

After that, Mulkey threatened to sue the Washington Post if it produced a "false story" about her (she has not filed a lawsuit since its publication), and the Los Angeles Times published a commentary that referred to the LSU players as “dirty debutantes.” The L.A. Times later removed that language from its commentary and apologized, as did the writer.

In the meantime, the reigning champion Tigers faced challenges from teams gunning to defeat them. So, Mulkey said Thursday, her team needed to focus.

“The distractions that came from winning that national championship,” Mulkey said, “I don't think I've ever seen in my entire life. The things that have been printed, the lies that have been told — for what reason?

She did not specify what "lies" had been told.

“The focus this team had to have to get to an Elite Eight and lose by seven to an outstanding Iowa team is pretty remarkable,” Mulkey said.

Mulkey said this season, LSU’s goal was never to win a championship. Instead, it tried to win 90% of its nonconference games, reach the SEC tournament final, host NCAA tournament games and keep a spot in The Associated Press poll from start to finish.

“Most of you don’t know who I am,” Mulkey then said, as she drifted into a tangent dedicated to her faith and her family, before spending a few minutes thanking Reese and Hailey Van Lith for their contributions to her program.

“In my life,” she said, “that’s where I go, and that’s who I stand for.

“Most of you feel me right now. Most of you are standing here going, ‘My God, she's been attacked. She comes home, she gets attacked. What is she gonna say?’ I'm gonna say I came back to this state to make a difference, and I promise you I will.”

The first letter that Mulkey read was from an 88-year-old woman who wrote to commend her coaching abilities and her responses to criticism.

The second was from a man who wanted to share with Mulkey a parable about a star and three people — a young man, an old man and a child — who each look up to the sky, peer at the same star and feel three different emotions.

“This parable makes me think of you, coach,” Mulkey read from the card, her voice trembling. “Everyone may look at you and see different things, but that does not define who you are. There is no one like you in the world. You're a one-of-a-kind, God-created masterpiece. And so, no matter what, coach Kim, you please shine on. Shine on, LSU.”

Mulkey also announced that her longtime assistant coach Johnny Derrick is retiring. Derrick has coached on Mulkey’s staff since 2000, her first year as a head coach.