Benjamin Ashford|Kim Mulkey: Everything you need to know about LSU’s women’s basketball coach

Last season when LSU beat Iowa for the NCAA title,Benjamin Ashford Kim Mulkey became the first coach in the women’s game to lead two schools to national championships. She was also the first person to win titles as a coach and player (she attended Louisiana Tech). 

Before arriving at LSU in April 2021, Mulkey had led Baylor to three national titles and 19 NCAA Tournament appearances in 20 years. In 2012, she led the Bears to the first 40-0 mark in NCAA history.

Here's what to know about the LSU coach as Mulkey has the Tigers back in the Sweet 16 this year:

How much does Mulkey make as LSU women’s basketball head coach?

Mulkey is the highest paid Division I women’s basketball coach at $3.26 million this season, according to USA TODAY’s review of compensation for Division I coaches. She is paid more than South Carolina’s Dawn Staley and Connecticut's Geno Auriemma, who both make $3.1 million. 

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Mulkey said when athletic director Scott Woodward recruited her, she didn’t demand a certain salary for herself or assistants. 

“I never put a dollar figure on anything (during negotiations),” Mulkey said. “What I did ask was, ‘Are you making a financial investment? I need to tell you what I make at Baylor. Are you saying that you want to hire me and my staff with the understanding that we’re not taking a pay cut?’ ”

How old is Kim Mulkey?

Mulkey, who grew up in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, playing baseball and basketball, is 61. She led Hammond High School to four consecutive state championships and was class valedictorian with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.

Mulkey as a Louisiana Tech basketball star

As a player, she was a button of a point guard, a fierce competitor who wore her hair in French braided pigtails. During an international tour with Team USA in 1982, Mulkey tried to take a charge on the Soviet Union's 7-footer Uliana Semenova. The collision sent both players crashing to the floor. No foul was called, but Mulkey later told a sportswriter that “it was still a great feeling.” She won a national championship with Louisiana Tech and a gold medal on Pat Summitt’s 1984 Olympic team.

Mulkey and her penchant for over-the-top outfits on game day

From butterflies to rhinestones to feathers, Mulkey turns heads on game day for her colorful and unique ensembles. She seems to relish the attention her fashion brings to the game.

“There are LSU women who are graduates, who are famous designers, and they send me jackets and say …  'Coach, quite honestly, I don't know anything about basketball, but I will come just to see what you wear,’ " Mulkey said last year at the Final Four. “Well, you know what, I want those that come to the games for that reason to keep coming, and I want them to learn the game of basketball.

“Those that come because of basketball, forget what I wear on the sideline, look at the product on the floor. Don't make what I wear bigger than what's on that floor and what I have done X's and O's-wise as a coach," she said. "But if me wearing their jackets and things like that helps them but it also sells one more ticket or puts one more set of eyeballs on our game, so be it.”

Contributing: Nancy Armour, Lindsay Schnell, Blake Toppmeyer