'It is so hard to win championships,' Baylor Coach Kim Mulkey said Saturday, the day before both she and Notre Dame's Muffet McGraw will attempt to become the third women's basketball coach with at least three NCAA championships.
Notre Dame Coach Muffett McGraw. By Ava Wallace Ava Wallace Reporter covering local colleges and universities Email Bio Follow April 6 at 6:14 PM TAMPA — After all the talk of gender equality and women in coaching, sparked by Notre Dame’s Muffet McGraw, that has dominated headlines at this Final Four, look where we ended up: With two female coaches in the national title game for the first time since 2012.
“I just wanted to watch 'em,” said Mulkey, who also waited seven years between her first NCAA title-game appearance, in 2005, and her second. “I think one of my assistants came behind and said, ‘Coach, get up.’” Both will be vying for their third national championship. The pair dwell in the same upper echelon of women’s basketball as two of just six coaches with multiple NCAA women’s tournament titles .
“Does that tell you how hard it is? It's hard. It is so hard to win championships. You can be the favorite and not win 'em. I've been the favorite and not won 'em. I've been the underdog and won 'em. There are no guarantees in this business. That's why you cherish the moment.” Mulkey lost a grandchild when her daughter Makenzie Fuller, Baylor’s associate director of operations, gave birth to a stillborn child at the beginning of last season. Fuller gave birth to a healthy boy in October — baby Kannon is commonly seen in news conferences and on the sideline with Mulkey after wins.
“I think when we lost Pat Summitt we lost an icon, we also did lose the spokeswoman for our game,” McGraw said. “ … You looked around and wondered who would step up, maybe it would be sort of a point-guard-by-committee kind of thing that you have in your game sometimes. I’ve just felt the need to be able to stand up and express some things that I thought needed to be said.”
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