New Era in Women's Hoops Begins at Baylor
8/22/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Aug. 22, 2000
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Dave Campbell appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
Showing an INSIDER representative around the new offices of the Lady Bear basketball coaching staff in the Ferrell Center last week, Kim Mulkey-Robertson started her conversation with an apology. The reception area offered only a desk and a couple of chairs at the moment. "This is going to look a lot better after the new furniture arrives," she said.
Like the new surroundings, Baylor Lady Bear basketball is a work in progress. The offices are new, the location is new, the coaching staff is new, and while this coming season's Lady Bear team is not going to be completely new, neither is it likely to look like the edition that only won two games in conference play last season, only seven for the entire campaign, and finished way down there where the sun never shines.
Looking for a team that would have better chemistry if not better talent than the previous season's underachievers, then-Baylor coach Sonja Hogg saw her 1999-2000 Lady Bears get ambushed on their own floor by the Lady Aggies (62-59) in the opening game of their conference season, and never really recover.
After losing 11 league games in a row, they rallied briefly to defeat visiting Oklahoma State, and then in their final home game they somehow, someway, pushed the right buttons at the right time to defeat Colorado in overtime, 91-90, to give Sonja something for her memory book.
But several weeks before that, Hogg had decided she had had enough of the rigors and pressures of coaching. Her elderly father was in failing health and she had other obligations to consider. Result: She opted to stay in the Baylor family but move to the Baylor Development Office. And that decision opened the door for the early April development that brought Baylor partisans bounding from their seats in surprise and delight. Kim Mulkey-Robertson, long regarded as one of the fountainheads of excellence of big-winning Louisiana Tech women's basketball, had accepted a Baylor offer to take over the reins of the Lady Bears.
Yes, Kim had turned down a number of opportunities to take over the women's basketball programs at other major institutions. Yes, Kim was Louisiana bred, Louisiana raised, and Louisiana honored. She had become a sports icon in that state and Louisiana Tech was home. No question, she was going to be the next Louisiana Tech women's basketball coach.
But believe it, there she is these days, making her home with husband (and former La. Tech quarterback) Randy Robertson and their two children, not in Ruston, La. but in Waco, and taking over a Baylor women's hoops program that promises to provide her with any number of early challenges.
Example: The Lady Bears last year lost 20 games and won only seven. In a coaching career (11 years as an assistant at La. Tech and four as the Associate Head Coach) that goes back to 1985, and a college playing career that goes back to 1980, Kim was never involved with a team that lost more than 12 games or failed to win at least 18. And 14 times she was a part of teams that won at least 30 games. Since moving to the NCAA-sponsored brand of women's basketball, Baylor has won as many as 20 games only once.
"The worst season I was ever involved with, we were 18 and 12 in 1990-91," Kim said. And that, she said, was hard to take. "I'm impatient," she admitted. So she is trying to prepare herself "for many sleepless nights, but that's the competitor in you," she said.
This has been an interesting summer for Mulkey-Robertson. On June 10 in Knoxville, Tenn., she was enshrined in the National Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. "What a great weekend. There were a lot of memories in Knoxville," she told the INSIDER. It is a matter of considerable significance that Kim was chosen to be a part of the second class to be enshrined. But that was no surprise. She is a former All-American and Olympic gold medalist who as either a player or coach has been associated with 11 Final Four squads and three national championship games. She has either played or coached in six national championship games.
The Knoxville enshrinement was perhaps the culmination of Hall of Fame experiences for Kim, who now has been enshrined in the National High School Hall of Fame, the Louisiana High School Hall of Fame, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and the Louisiana Tech Athletics Hall of Fame.
Now if she can only work her magic on the Baylor Lady Bears, hey, Kim, we've got Halls of Fame in Texas, too.
But such things are the last thing on her mind at the moment. In the words of poet Robert Frost, she has miles to go and promises to keep before she sleeps. But Kim and her staff -- Bill Brock, Johnny Derrick and Jennifer Roberts -- certainly are wasting no time. "July is our month for (player) evaluation, and we went to lots of places. We traveled the country far and wide," she said.
How did they do? "It's too early to tell," she played her cards cautiously. "But we really got a great reception. If we can recruit smarter as a staff. . ."
Never fear, Baylor fans. They're going to recruit smart.
Meanwhile, all of her returning players were in summer school and working hard under the direction of basketball's strength and conditioning coach Dave Goodfellow. "They were able to work as a group, and, boy, did they work," she said. "If we can get stronger, get in better shape, and get better at guarding somebody. . . I have to hope that what we lack in talent, that those three areas maybe can help us win a few games that we're not supposed to win."
The players will not be allowed to work as a team under the coaches' direct supervision until Oct. 14. But the players can do much work on their own, and continue working at Goodfellow's direction.
Kim has been impressed by what she has seen among several of her players. "I see a hunger in Danielle Crockrom's eyes, an excitement. I think she sees this as maybe a new start for her," Kim said of the 6-2 junior post and power forward who was probably the most highly sought of the Lady Bears coming out of high school. "Danielle has talent. I just don't know if she knows how hard she has to work to be able to play at the next level. But there's a spark there right now.
"I see leadership qualities in Nicole Collins, too," she said. "She's very competitive. She really wants to help turn this program around. I like her enthusiasm. I like her work ethic. And she has talent to go with all that."
And some people, she added, "are saying that Monica Arnold is looking as good as she has in the four years she's been here." Arnold has lost more than a few pounds working with Goodfellow, and it shows. Arnold is a 6-2 post, Collins a 5-3 point guard. And another player of considerable reputation is 5-11 sophomore Stasha Richards, a guard and forward who had some big moments as a true freshman last season, but just not enough of them.
Also returning are 6-1 Hilary Akromis, 5-10 Brittany Bruns, 6-3 Michelle Neely and 5-9 Eboni Hammond, but perhaps more attention by Baylor fans will be directed toward some of the newcomers: juco transfers Sheila Lambert (5-7 guard), Carla Mathisen (5-8 guard) and Brooke McCormack (6-2 post), and high school signees Chanelle Fox (5-11 guard), Kelly Sords (6-3 post), Jessika Stratton (5-9 guard) and Heather Burrow (6-0 guard).
"But five of our players have had injuries of one kind or another. Stratton has had two knee surgeries. Fox has a knee strain. Richards had bone spur surgery a couple of weeks ago and I don't know about her. And two of the youngsters, Hammond and Burrow, have lower back stress fractures. So we have some on the mend and I don't know when they'll be ready," Kim said.
That being the case, she has to thank her lucky stars once again that she was able to sign three standouts from Grayson County's outstanding junior college team which was coached by current Lady Bear staff member Bill Brock.
"Brooke McCormack brings a big body to the floor and she has played at the national level in junior college ranks, and that will help her," she said. "Carla Mathisen is an excellent three-point shooter. And Sheila Lambert, well, she's one of the most unselfish players I've ever been around. She's definitely an 'A' player, the type who works hard to make everybody around her better. And she can shoot," said Mulkey-Robertson. "She's so good at penetrating, shooting, dishing off. She just has innate ability with the ball."
Lambert, a natural point guard but at home at either guard position, won junior college All-America honors and also was named a PARADE All-American. She was recruited by colleges from coast to coast.
Having apparently hit it rich with those three Grayson County juco transfers, will she now look strongly at junior college ranks next year as she tries to force-feed the rebuilding process? "I don't want to load up with jucos. I don't want to get too many," Kim replied. "But I'm not adverse to juco transfers. We recruited some junior college players at Louisiana Tech. We had numerous juco kids through the years."
But she made it plain she will not neglect the high school ranks, and in that regard she is eager to see what Sords and Fox can contribute. "Sords brings a big body to the floor and she's fundamentally sound. She played in a great high school program (Austin Westlake) under a great high school coach. And she has the size to compete in the Big 12," Kim said.
As for Fox, from Spring Westfield, "I believe she's athletic enough to be a good defender. I see her as a perimeter player." And Stratton, a Colorado Springs product, also won high honors in that state.
"I need to figure out who my top eight or nine players are," Kim said. "Everybody is starting from ground zero. Everybody has an equal chance. But if they want to play, they'd better grab my attention."
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Dave Campbell appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
