....the head coach of the NCAA Women's National Basketball Champs...The Baylor Bears...first thing my friend said to her was..."Hey Kim...saw ya at the White House with *ush a few weeks ago!" She just laughed it off sayin' how since they're practically neighbors they're real tight *wink wink*....she's a Louisiana Tech Alumnist and Lady Techster....and was also the ex-assistant coach there...they didn't make her a good enough offer to stay and become the head coach at La. Tech sooooo...she goes to Baylor and takes 'em all the way to the very top...sigh....anyway she's still a good friend of my roommate's Dad who is a die-hard Lady Techster supporter himself and she decided to stop by while she was in town....t'was a trip...Li'l Kimberley has done quite well for herself over in Wacko Waco! :D
*snip*
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21861-2005Apr2.htmlMulkey-Robertson is the only woman who has appeared in the Final Four as a player and a coach: In her own day she was an undersized but brilliantly heady and hungry point guard who took the Lady Techsters to a 130-6 mark and four Final Fours, winning the NCAA championship in 1982. She played just as she coaches -- like she's never been given a crust of bread.
"Like someone who had to fight for everything she ever got," says Pat Summitt, whose Tennessee teams never managed to beat her.
Summitt held Mulkey in such regard as a player that she made her the point guard on the 1984 Olympic team that went to Los Angeles and won a gold medal. Before the L.A. Games, Summitt took the squad to Colorado Springs and put it through punishing workouts at high-altitude, full-court sprints. Mulkey was one player who never complained. She took every bit of punishment Summitt served up, and when other players got tired, she set her jaw and told them it was how they were going to win the medal. One day as the team was gathered at midcourt, Mulkey said to her USA teammates: "This is what you have to do. This is how to get it done."
Mulkey-Robertson returned to La. Tech as an assistant under Leon Barmore, and over the next 15 years, the team made seven appearances in the Final Four and had 10 30-win seasons. Along the way she married her college boyfriend, Randy Robertson, after he told her, "I'm tired of holding your hand," and they had two children. When Barmore retired in 2000, everyone assumed Mulkey-Robertson was his natural successor. After all, she had spent 19 years of her life on the campus, and she had never left the state. How could they not do everything to keep her?
"That's kind of what I was wondering," she says.
But Tech offered her just a three-year contract. The standard in the business is five. When Mulkey-Robertson refused to sign, the school grudgingly offered her a four-year deal "and felt they were doing me a favor," she says. Mulkey-Robertson was deeply offended. Over the years she had turned down three head coaching jobs, for considerable raises, to stay at Tech.
As it happened, Baylor was looking for a new head coach. Mulkey picked up the phone. "I was hurt and I left," she says.
Baylor had only one 20-win season in the previous 20 years before Mulkey-Robertson's arrival. Since then, they have yet to win fewer than 20, and this year's Final Four appearance is the result of a firestorm of emotional coaching. Mulkey-Robertson is genuinely unaware of how animated she is in the sideline. When the Lady Bears defeated North Carolina last week to reach the Final Four, she wept openly, and then was aghast to see her histrionics on tape.
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