Baylor University, which is a (air quotes) “Christian university,” continues to be a magnet for shit behavior. Baylor’s women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey continued to perpetuate that behavior with a display of disgusting ignorance following their loss to UConn in the Elite 8.
“After the games today and tomorrow, there’s four teams left, I think, on the men’s side and the women’s side,” Mulkey said, unprompted, during her postgame interview. “They need to dump the COVID testing. Wouldn’t it be a shame to keep COVID testing and then you got kids that test positive or something and they don’t get to play in the Final Four? So you just need to forget the sh— the COVID tests — and get the four teams playing in each Final Four and go battle it out.”
This is going right back to the, “If we don’t test, then there won’t be as many cases!” bullshit we were accustomed to hearing from a certain previous presidency, which is as dense and idiotic as it gets. Mularkey, umm, I mean Mulkey tested positive for COVID in January from a close-contact around Christmas, which led to the basketball program restricting activities and cancelling a game with UConn.
In both tournaments, there has been only one game that had to be cancelled due to COVID – the first round matchup in the men’s tournament between University of Oregon and VCU, due to the Rams having three positive tests just days before the game was scheduled to be played.
Not only is suggesting that a basketball game is more important than the safety and health of the student athletes and their loved ones wildly irresponsible, but the risk is heightened by the fact that the women’s basketball tournament is being played in Texas, which has lifted all mask requirements.
According to an article in USA Today:
“The Rivercenter mall, attached to the hotel where NCAA Tournament teams are staying, has no signs requiring or even recommending that visitors wear masks, and few people do. Ditto for the Tower of Americas, a tourist attraction down the street from the Alamodome. The River Walk is packed with tourists, and social distancing is non-existent. Many hotels are still requiring masks to be worn indoors, but that is trusting guests to comply, and anecdotal evidence shows that is hit or miss.”
But sure, Coach Mulkey, it’s all perfectly fine. It’s not like COVID-19 can lead to myocarditis, which could potentially ruin the careers of any of your student athletes, let alone lead to serious health complications like, oh, I don’t know, death. According to the Myocarditis Foundation, “in young adults up to 20% of sudden death cases have been reported to be due to myocarditis.“
This isn’t the first time Mulkey has put her foot in her mouth. She has a long line of appalling and troubling ideologies that don’t belong in today’s world.
In 2017, in the wake of several Baylor football players being accused of sexual assault, and later found guilty, Mulkey told fans in a post-game speech “If somebody around you and they ever say ‘I will never send my daughter to Baylor,’ you knock them right in the face.
Before that, in 2013, former Baylor women’s basketball star Brittney Griner, who is now openly gay, talked about the culture that Mulkey created at Baylor surrounding sexual orrientation.
“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.” Griner continued “It was more of an unwritten law [to not discuss your sexuality] ... it was just kind of, like, one of those things, you know, just don’t do it. They kind of tried to make it, like, ‘Why put your business out on the street like that?’”
Griner also said in her interview that she told Coach Mulkey during the recruiting process that she was gay, and that she hoped that wouldn’t be a problem. In 2012, at the ESPYs, Mulkey was asked if she has ever had a gay player on her team.
“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,” Mulkey responded.
Outsports went on to ask “One of the things we’ve been exploring is what is a champion, that being a champion isn’t just winning a title, it’s who you are inside and how you treat people. What’s your philosophy on that?”
“I think you have to win as a coach or you get fired. So it is about winning when you become a coach. But it’s also about teaching life’s lessons. It’s being a good example when you stand before a team, to make sure you’re prepared, that you’re knowledgeable, and that you lead a good example.”
Forcing your student athletes into the closet instead of celebrating their individuality is a hell of a way to “lead a good example,” coach. Mulkey has demonstrated dense ignorance repeatedly over the years, with her comments about COVID testing only the latest notch in her belt.