For more than a week, LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey launched a preemptive strike against a Washington Post story that that was expected to drop before LSU’s Sweet 16 game against UCLA.
Kent Babb’s well-reported story that dropped on Saturday offered an in-depth though not surprising look into Mulkey’s style as a coach, her flaws and frailties as a human being.
Mulkey, the coach, is a dictator. Nothing new about that. Read the biographies of great college coaches — Eddie Robinson, Pat Summitt, Bear Bryant, Bob Knight, John Thompson, Mike Krzyzewski. The trait they share in common is that they’re all dictators. They are, at times, harsh, then compassionate. But all exercise unwavering iron-fisted control over their program and their players.
If you loved Mulkey before you read the Post story, you will likely love her more after you finish. If you despised Mulkey, you’ll simply know why. In any event, the Post piece threw yet another log on the fire that is making interest in women’s basketball burn brighter.
But for all of Mulkey’s concern about that story, the infinitely more offensive and damaging piece of journalism appeared in the Los Angeles Times, also on Saturday. The column relied on familiar racist, misogynistic tropes that let women know that, for all of the talk of popularity, they are still climbing up a steep mountain.
The column, written by Ben Bolch, made it clear that the convergence of racism and sexism continues to be a powerful undercurrent of contemporary culture.
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Unlike the Post story, which took a deep if unwelcome dive into Mulkey’s family dynamic, the Times story turned the LSU-UCLA game into a morality play that dredged up repulsive imagery of women in general and Black women in particular.
The piece since been revised, with some sentences removed, but the headline UCLA vs. LSU is America’s sweethearts vs. its basketball villains tells you everything you need to know about prevailing attitudes bubbling beneath the veneer of open arms celebrating the ascent of women’s basketball.
The column previously stated, “Do you prefer America’s sweethearts or its dirty debutantes? Milk and cookies or Louisiana hot sauce?” That line has since been removed.
The author asked these questions:
*The team that wants to grow women’s basketball or the one seemingly hell-bent on dividing it?
*The tender star player or the one who taunts?
He wasn’t finished: The UCLA-LSU game represented good versus evil. Right versus wrong. Inclusive versus divisive.
The piece predictably turned against LSU star forward Angel Reese, reminding us how Reese taunted Iowa guard Caitlin Clark as time wound down in the fourth quarter of last year’s championship game when it was clear that LSU would prevail. No mention of how Clark had talked trash and belittled opponents throughout the tournament.
The piece pointed out how Reese waved goodbye to tearful Middle Tennessee center Anastasiia Boldyreva after Boldyreva fouled out on March 24. He then writes: “UCLA, which operates in the saintly shadows while being as wholesome as a miniature stuffed Bruin mascot.”
We can dismiss this as a misguided piece of writing that will soon be forgotten. The column is the continuation of a racist pattern that emerged early in the 20th century when a Black athlete, Jack Johnson, gained global notoriety when he became heavyweight champion of the world. The writer, Jack London, called for retired champion Jim Jefferies to come out of retirement to save the white race from Johnson. Jeffries would become The Great White Hope.
Thirteen years earlier, Charles Dana, the editor of the New York Sun, warned readers “We are in the midst of a growing menace. The black man is rapidly forging to the front ranks in athletics, especially in the field of fisticuffs. We are in the midst of a black rise against white supremacy.”
Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
Sports are often used as a morality play, especially when a high-profile team made up of Black players competes against a team with a white star. In the case of LSU vs. UCLA, a mostly Black team goes against a team whose virtues — in the view of the writer — stand in contrast to those of the team with more white players than LSU.
Usually this has to do with some combination of intelligence, class or comportment.
I saw this firsthand in 1988 when the University of Miami football team, with a preponderance of Black players, played Notre Dame in a game the media rebranded Catholics (Notre Dame) vs. Convicts (Miami). White fans and many media members appeared to loathe Miami’s trash-talking, bodacious style of play.
I witnessed this again in college basketball when UNLV played Duke in the 1990 national championship game. In the week leading up to the game, Duke players were cast as choirboys while UNLV players were portrayed as gangsters and thugs. Duke had Black players, but they were portrayed as a particular “type” of acceptable Black players.
Coach Thompson’s Georgetown Hoyas of the mid-1980s and early 1990s had to fight demeaning media characterizations of being thugs because of their tough, aggressive, hardnose style of play.
Dawn Staley, South Carolina women’s basketball coach, complained during last year’s Final Four about how her team was being portrayed, especially by the Iowa head coach, Lisa Bluder, who said rebounding against South Carolina was “going to a bar fight.”
“We’re not bar fighters. We’re not thugs. We’re not monkeys. We’re not street fighters,” Staley said after Iowa upset South Carolina to reach the national championship game. “I do think that that’s sometimes brought into the game, and it hurts.”
Earlier this year, Staley took exception to CBS Sports Radio host JR Jackson’s characterization of senior center Kamilla Cardoso as “the giant Brazilian woman that knocks people over.” The radio host apologized.
We’re all entitled to our opinion. That’s why social media exists. But those charged with the privilege of being columnists for reputable publications and websites have the responsibility to provide perspective and informed opinion to elevate the conversation. There was no elevation in a piece of commentary that tapped into racist stereotypes to deride LSU in order to elevate UCLA. Racism is still real and potentially lethal. Earlier in the women’s tournament, members of the University of Utah women’s team were subjected to racist taunts as they left a restaurant in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
We should be celebrating the positive evolution in women’s basketball unfolding now. While the men’s tournament is being dominated by UConn, the women’s tournament offers myriad storylines and matchups. Not only will Iowa and LSU have their highly anticipated rematch, USC, with freshman sensation JuJu Watkins, will face UConn with its reemerging star guard Paige Bueckers in the Elite Eight. South Carolina and LSU could be on a collision course.
The only narrative should be competition, not a manufactured morality play of dark vs. light, black versus white.
Since last year’s confrontation with Reese, Clark, the projected No. 1 pick in the upcoming WNBA draft, has gone out of her way to praise the LSU star. She points out that all of the attention is great for a women’s game that is on fire. Clark is great for the game. Reese is great for the game. Mulkey and Staley are great for the game. What’s not great for the game is mindless commentary that draws on racist, misogynist tropes to make a cheap point.
Indeed, the same mentality that inspired the UCLA-as-angels column would probably cast Iowa and Clark as saints, and LSU as sinners on Monday. The inflammatory imagery has made Mulkey and her LSU Tigers sympathetic figures in the larger fight for equality and evenhandedness in pursuit of an elusive level playing field.
