Kim Mulkey Sparks Controversy Over Asking Brittney Griner to Keep Quiet About Her Sexual Orientation: Outcry From WNBA Fans

Baylor coach Kim Mulkey and Brittney Griner discuss dunking, during a news conference in Des Moines, Iowa, Sunday, March 25, 2012, the day before the team’s NCAA women’s college basketball tournament regional final against Tennessee.

Brittney Griner will release her new book ‘In My Skin’ on April 8, and in her book she details her fallout with head coach Kim Mulkey and the conflicts that arose between her and the university.

‘I would love to be an ambassador for Baylor, to show my school pride, but it’s hard to do that it’s hard to stand up and say, ‘Baylor is the best!’ – when the administration has a written policy against homosexuality.

I’ve spent too much of my life being made to feel like there’s something wrong with me. And not matter how much support I felt as a basketball player at Baylor, it still doesn’t erase all the pain I felt there.’ “Cracks existed beneath the surface. And the game against Louisville, with the pressure cranked up, blew those cracks wide open, she wrote.

‘I didn’t deliver the way I usually did, and Kim got outcoached. We both/ underperformed. We had created something magical for almost four years, and that night we watched, almost helplessly at times, as it melted away. We were left staring at all our warts and flaws, all the things about each other that drove us crazy. And we didn’t have a national championship, the piece of shiny jewelry, to distract us from that reality.

The tension between Griner and Baylor increased tenfold after Sports Illustrated ran an article citing Griner saying that Mulkey told her to keep her sexuality quiet so Baylor’s recruiting wouldn’t be hurt from any potential public backlash.As mentioned in her book, Baylor has a section in it’s student handbook regarding homosexuality.

‘Temptations to deviate from this norm include both heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexual behavior,’ the handbook reads.

‘It is thus expected that Baylor students will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teachingGriner then told ESPN The Mag that Mulkey knew about her sexual orientation, which further muddied the waters while distancing the coach and former college superstar.’I told Coach [Mulkey] when she was recruiting me. I was like, ‘I’m gay. I hope that’s not a problem,’ and she told me that it wasn’t,’ Griner said to ESPN The Mag last May.’I mean, my teammates knew, obviously they all knew. Everybody knew about it.’

After the Griner interviews surfaced, former Baylor players came to Mulkey’s aid defending their former head coach.

Jhasmin Player told SB Nation at the time that after she read the Griner interviews, she became angry.”… My anger and frustration has turned into down right… pain.” Pain knowing a woman who has done nothing but try her hardest to love and protect her ‘cubs’ from the media, from the public, from the fans, from the lovers, from the haters, and to end up being hurt by the accusations by a former playerWhat an awful person”One Twitter user pointed out the relationship between the two women during their time at the college and expressed disappointment that Ms Mulkey was not more invested in Griner’s situation. “Kim Mulkey coached Brittney Griner for 4 years. Griner led one of her teams to an undefeated season and national championship,” the user wrote.

“And Mulkey can’t even bring herself to offer sympathy to Griner’s wife or hope that Griner is safe and will be released soon. What an awful person.”