Crazy as it sounds, I could end up rooting for Angel Reese over Caitlin Clark on Monday night.
I’m no fan of the Louisiana State University women’s basketball player who will star opposite the Iowa sensation in the most fascinating women’s basketball game ever played.
“Bayou Barbie” versus “Show White” for the right to advance to the Final Four is the most culturally relevant basketball collision in 45 years, since Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Larry “The Hick from French Lick” Bird met in the men’s NCAA title game.
In 1979, I rooted for Magic. As an 11-year-old boy, no athlete captured my imagination the way the 6-foot-9 point guard did with his charismatic smile and no-look passes. I was obsessed with Magic and the fast-paced style of play he popularized.
Eighteen years later, Tiger Woods’ golf ascension sparked a similar sports obsession, only greater. I never cared for golf before Tiger began winning tournaments. Woods transformed me. He made me care about Ernie Els, Jim Juryk, David Duval, Mark O’Meara, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, and so many others. He forced me to care about the history of golf, and I learned to appreciate Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Greg Norman.
Caitlin Clark has had the exact same impact on me as Magic and Tiger. I’m obsessed with her. She’s compelled me to learn more and more about the women’s game. Southern California’s JuJu Watkins is my second-favorite player.
I love Caitlin Clark. But I’ve come to expect young athletes to fold to the woke agenda.
Here’s the difference. There was never a moment when Magic Johnson took the court or Tiger Woods strolled on a golf course that I wasn’t clearly rooting for them.
I could be rooting for Angel Reese now.
It’s crazy. Reese is arguably the most overrated athlete of my lifetime. She’s more overrated than boxer Gerry Cooney, who fought Larry Holmes for the heavyweight crown in 1982. All that Angel Reese really brings to the matchup is her in-your-face, hey-look-at-me attitude. Her claim to fame is taunting Caitlin Clark. That’s it. She’s not that skilled. She’s not Larry Bird or Magic Johnson. She’s Greg Kelser, the Michigan State wingman who benefited from Magic’s transcendent playmaking ability. Reese is a solid post player. She knocks down five to eight put-backs per game and grabs 10 to 12 rebounds. Solid work.
She’s not a star. She’s not a costar.
So, why might I be rooting for her tonight?
Because LSU coach Kim Mulkey is the real star of women’s college hoops. Mulkey is the real villain, the force who threatens the left wing’s narrative on all of sports.
Caitlin is the most interesting and electrifying athlete in all of sports. Mulkey is the most dangerous person in sports. She’s the disruptor the left-wing establishment wants to destroy.
The left hates Mulkey because she’s the antithesis of the left’s chosen savior, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley.
The discrimination, vitriol, and unfairness that Staley pretends to receive, the mainstream media actually directs toward Mulkey.
Over the weekend, as the Lady Tigers prepared for their Sweet 16 matchup against UCLA, the Washington Post published an 8,000-word takedown of Mulkey. The much-anticipated piece framed Mulkey as paranoid, vindictive, isolated, mean-spirited, and unloving.
A week prior, Mulkey and her lawyers preemptively threatened a lawsuit over the article, which I’m sure forced Post editors to tone down the attack. But the gist of the attack remained: While a coach at Baylor, a religious university, Mulkey refused to worship the LGBTQ Alphabet Mafia. She advised Brittney Griner and other homosexual players to keep their private lives private.
Mulkey wasn’t a fan of tattoos and constantly changing hair colors. She preferred her players to present themselves as women at all times and not as androgynous hoopers.
Mulkey, without saying it, clearly believes in two genders. She patrols the sidelines in flamboyant, highly feminine outfits because she wants to make a statement that there is just as much strength in traditional femininity as in the hypermasculine appearance of Griner and others.
For all of this and more, Mulkey is demonized. How dare she not virtue signal support for Griner when she was incarcerated in Russia for her immature choice to carry illegal drugs into a foreign country? How dare she prefer a locker room environment free of the complications of romantic relationships between teammates?
A writer for the Los Angeles Times took the attack on Mulkey to new levels on Friday. He said LSU’s game with UCLA was a battle of good versus evil. He labeled the Tigers the “dirty debutantes.” That label is attached to a pornographic video series. The writer called LSU dirty whores.
Their crime? Playing for Mulkey, a heterosexual Christian woman who won’t bow to the secular woke.
It’s comical. Mulkey takes the kind of heat and criticism the secular woke pretends Staley gets. Staley, who dresses like a teenage boy, is worshiped. She manufactures discrimination and victimhood.
A Duke volleyball player falsely claimed BYU students serenaded her with racial slurs. Without any corroborating evidence, Staley canceled a basketball game at BYU over safety concerns. When an investigation debunked the story, Staley never apologized.
Last year, during the NCAA tournament, Staley smeared Iowa coach Lisa Bluder as racist. Bluder said in a press conference that rebounding against South Carolina was like getting into a “bar fight.” Staley climbed on a cross and acted like Bluder led a pregame Klan rally.
“We’re not bar fighters. We’re not thugs. We’re not monkeys,” Staley whined. “We’re not street fighters. This team exemplifies how you need to approach basketball on the court and off the court. And I do think that that’s sometimes brought into the game, and it hurts.”
Staley is why I might be rooting for Angel Reese on Monday night. Reese and Clark are going to disappear into the abyss of the WNBA. For the next decade, the cold war between Staley and Mulkey is going to define women’s college basketball.
I love Caitlin Clark. But I’ve come to expect young athletes to fold to the woke agenda. There is too much pressure and too much financial incentive for them to stand strong on their beliefs.
Kim Mulkey won’t fold. She’s not perfect, but she’s battle tested.
I think Mulkey and the Tigers have a better chance at beating South Carolina than Iowa.
Opinion
