LIKE MAMA, LIKE DAUGHTER
3/9/2019 11:08:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Brown and Her Mom Both Played Under Mulkey.
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
With the eyes of 40 or more college scouts glued to the court, watching Kalani Brown and others at the Deep South Classic in Raleigh, N.C., her AAU coach yanked Brown off the floor when the 6-foot-7 center gave up back-to-back baskets.
"She's not going to embarrass herself and she's not going to embarrass me," the coach said. "I don't care if there's 50 recruiters sitting on that baseline, if you're not going to give me the effort that needs to be on this floor and you're not going to play hard, you just sit right here by me."
That coach?
Dee Brown, Kalani's mom.
"Oh, her mom is tougher on her than anybody," said Baylor coach Kim Mulkey, an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech when Dejuna Jackson was a 6-3 post for the Lady Techsters from 1991-93. "I don't know if it's a South Louisiana cultural thing, but her mom was real with her. Her mom pushed her. She should get a lot of credit for Kalani's development, because she never let up on her. A lot of parents coddle their kids, and their kids can do no wrong. Dejuna is not like that."
No, what she's like is Kim Mulkey. Kalani gets a déjà vu feeling when she hears the exact same words coming out of Mulkey's mouth that she heard when she was playing AAU ball and at Salmen High School in Slidell, La., where her mom was the assistant coach.
"They're both very passionate and they both say what they want to say and don't hold anything back," said Brown, a two-time All-American who is averaging 15.4 points and 8.1 rebounds going into Saturday's 1:30 p.m. quarterfinal at the Big 12 tournament in Oklahoma City between the top-ranked Lady Bears (28-1) and No. 9 seed Texas Tech (14-16).
Her freshman year at Baylor, Brown remembers doing a specific defensive drill and thinking, "Wait, I've done this before and I know these words already."
"Just certain things, certain plays," she said. "My mom has taken a lot from Kim. You can tell."
Dee Brown, who considers Mulkey a coaching mentor, said she has modeled her coaching style after the fiery former Louisiana Tech assistant.
"We both have that passionate, driven, fiery, no-nonsense kind of thing," she said. "People seem to think we sub a lot quicker than other coaches. But, I think it's just paying attention, knowing where you're supposed to be and giving us a reason not to take you off the floor. That's what I tell my players."
While the former Dejuna Jackson "didn't have the skill set Kalani does," Mulkey remembers her as a post player with size, "a good communicator, played very physical and active. . . . She understood the game. She just worked hard every day in practice."
Mulkey also remembers driving eight hours from Ruston to Slidell to pick up Dejuna and her mom for an official visit and then turning around and driving them back home. "You don't do that nowadays. So, we had a lot of time to visit and talk about things and be real," she said.
Dee left college before her senior year, when the Lady Techsters lost to North Carolina in the 1994 national championship game, to marry fellow Louisiana Tech star P.J. Brown. A 15-year NBA journeyman, P.J. won an NBA title with the Boston Celtics in 2008.
So, when Mulkey returned to Slidell to recruit Kalani, she informed Dee that "You owe me another year, so I'll take four from your daughter." A McDonald's All-American and the top-ranked center in the 2015 recruiting class, Brown held scholarship offers from schools across the country.
"It's not like it was a given that she was coming to Baylor," Mulkey said. "We had to work our rear end off to get her. The only difference between our program and others was Dejuna knew me a little bitter, probably, than the other coaches. But, it wasn't a given. We had to work."
While she ultimately left that decision to Kalani, Dee said the only thing she told her daughter was that she would send her to Baylor, "because I know how she coaches, I know how she loves kids, I know the family atmosphere."
"Dejuna knows what I stand for. She knows family is the most important thing to me, my personal family," Mulkey said. "And she knew her daughter would be exposed to a family atmosphere. She knew this lady can be tough as nails, but she's a softy when it comes to kids and her family."
As much as playing for her mom in a way prepared Kalani for what was to come at Baylor, she said, "You can hear about it all day. But, until you go through it . . . you can't really be prepared for Kim."
That became painfully clear during Kalani's freshman year. Although she was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team, averaging 9.3 points and 4.3 rebounds, "that freshman year was crazy. I might have said I was going to transfer like 400 times."
One of those moments came in the aftermath of a 52-45 loss at Oklahoma State in Baylor's Big 12 opener, when Brown had two points and zero rebounds in 11 minutes off the bench.
Mulkey didn't tear into the team right after the game, but she was waiting for the players when they came to the locker room for practice the next day. Pictures of the Cowgirls celebrating and newspaper clippings trumping the upset victory were plastered all over the place, including the bathroom stalls.
On Brown's locker, though, was the word SCARED in bold letters.
"I never let her see me cry in front of her, but I called my mom and I was craying," Kalani said. "I told her I wanted to leave. And all she said was, 'Mmm, hmm. Mmm, hmm.' And then she was like, 'You're not going anywhere. It's OK. But, you did play scared.' Sometimes, I don't' even want to call my mom after a bad game, because I know I just heard from Kim and now I have to hear from my mom, too. It's the same voice."
In a day and age when players transfer at the drop of a hat, Kalani "sat there and I waited my turn, and it paid off."
"It's hard to see it as a freshman, because you're coming off playing the whole game and getting all these McDonald's All-America accolades," she said. "And I came in here with five post players. There were five of us my freshman year, so you had to get your minutes when you could fit them in. I was averaging like six to 10 minutes a game. So, that was a game-changer."
What Dee didn't tell her daughter at the time was that she called home during her freshman year at Louisiana Tech and said, "I want to come home. I don't know if this is for me."
"And my mom told me, 'You chose to go 5 ½ hours away to Louisiana Tech, and you're going to stay there,''' Dee said. "I went through that with Kalani her freshman year. She was like, 'I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I can't seem to do anything right in her eyes.' It's tough. Anything that's going to be good in your life, that's worth it, is tough."
Brown has blossomed into one of the top players in the country over the last three years and will undoubtedly be a top-five pick in April's WNBA Draft. Mechelle Voepel of espnW.com has her projected to go fourth overall to the Chicago Sky.
"The first misconception people have of Kalani Brown is she's just a back-to-the-basket post player," Mulkey said. "That kid can shoot a face-up shot. She just doesn't have to in our system. I just think her mere physical presence, she can bang in there with anyone in the league. That kid's ceiling is going to go even higher because she won't be double- and triple-teamed like she is at this level."
Unquestionably, the WNBA is something on Brown's mind, but she won't let it "consume me and take over and be like, 'I'm going to the league, so I just need to get my numbers and go.'''
No, she has some unfinished business left to do. Stopped short of the Final Four in each of her three previous seasons at Baylor, she is hungrier than ever to climb that mountain and get the Lady Bears back there for the first time since the Lady Bears won it all in 2012.
"You're like knocking on the door every year. And when you get stopped, it drives you crazy," she said. "No one has ever been like, 'We've got to get to a Final Four,' it's never been burdened on me. But, I've kind of burdened myself. I know she's expecting me to try to lead the team to a Final Four. But, she doesn't have to say it. I already know it."
That was the message her mom gave Kalani before this season started: "Moses, you have to lead your people!"
"I told her that this year, you've got a bunch of freshmen that haven't been on the stage that you've been on," Dee said. "You've got to lead your people. And I've seen her talking to them a little more this year and trying to take on that leadership role. That's been a big growth thing for me. She's always been that gentle giant, playing up with older people. So, it's been fun to watch her grow that way and lead now that she's actually one of the older ones."
That same "gentle giant" personality is what keeps Kalani from getting frustrated when she has two and three players hanging all over her when the ball is thrown into the post. But, there are times, Mulkey said, "when I want her to be just a little meaner and grittier when she's getting hacked or pushed or they impede where she wants to be."
"She is the kindest, sweetest child you'll ever want to be around. It doesn't go with her body. I've always tried to motivate her in a way to just make her a little bit mad at me. And maybe that will bring out that extra grit in her. But, she has the perfect demeanor for not allowing those double- and triple-teams to frustrate her and take her out of the game."
Dee said it's been a "blessing" for Kalani to play for the same coach that she played for nearly 30 years ago.
"I wouldn't trade it. If it was 2015 again, and she decided to do the same thing, I would stand by it again."
Baylor Bear Foundation
With the eyes of 40 or more college scouts glued to the court, watching Kalani Brown and others at the Deep South Classic in Raleigh, N.C., her AAU coach yanked Brown off the floor when the 6-foot-7 center gave up back-to-back baskets.
"She's not going to embarrass herself and she's not going to embarrass me," the coach said. "I don't care if there's 50 recruiters sitting on that baseline, if you're not going to give me the effort that needs to be on this floor and you're not going to play hard, you just sit right here by me."
That coach?
Dee Brown, Kalani's mom.
"Oh, her mom is tougher on her than anybody," said Baylor coach Kim Mulkey, an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech when Dejuna Jackson was a 6-3 post for the Lady Techsters from 1991-93. "I don't know if it's a South Louisiana cultural thing, but her mom was real with her. Her mom pushed her. She should get a lot of credit for Kalani's development, because she never let up on her. A lot of parents coddle their kids, and their kids can do no wrong. Dejuna is not like that."
No, what she's like is Kim Mulkey. Kalani gets a déjà vu feeling when she hears the exact same words coming out of Mulkey's mouth that she heard when she was playing AAU ball and at Salmen High School in Slidell, La., where her mom was the assistant coach.
"They're both very passionate and they both say what they want to say and don't hold anything back," said Brown, a two-time All-American who is averaging 15.4 points and 8.1 rebounds going into Saturday's 1:30 p.m. quarterfinal at the Big 12 tournament in Oklahoma City between the top-ranked Lady Bears (28-1) and No. 9 seed Texas Tech (14-16).
Her freshman year at Baylor, Brown remembers doing a specific defensive drill and thinking, "Wait, I've done this before and I know these words already."
"Just certain things, certain plays," she said. "My mom has taken a lot from Kim. You can tell."
Dee Brown, who considers Mulkey a coaching mentor, said she has modeled her coaching style after the fiery former Louisiana Tech assistant. "We both have that passionate, driven, fiery, no-nonsense kind of thing," she said. "People seem to think we sub a lot quicker than other coaches. But, I think it's just paying attention, knowing where you're supposed to be and giving us a reason not to take you off the floor. That's what I tell my players."
While the former Dejuna Jackson "didn't have the skill set Kalani does," Mulkey remembers her as a post player with size, "a good communicator, played very physical and active. . . . She understood the game. She just worked hard every day in practice."
Mulkey also remembers driving eight hours from Ruston to Slidell to pick up Dejuna and her mom for an official visit and then turning around and driving them back home. "You don't do that nowadays. So, we had a lot of time to visit and talk about things and be real," she said.
Dee left college before her senior year, when the Lady Techsters lost to North Carolina in the 1994 national championship game, to marry fellow Louisiana Tech star P.J. Brown. A 15-year NBA journeyman, P.J. won an NBA title with the Boston Celtics in 2008.
So, when Mulkey returned to Slidell to recruit Kalani, she informed Dee that "You owe me another year, so I'll take four from your daughter." A McDonald's All-American and the top-ranked center in the 2015 recruiting class, Brown held scholarship offers from schools across the country.
"It's not like it was a given that she was coming to Baylor," Mulkey said. "We had to work our rear end off to get her. The only difference between our program and others was Dejuna knew me a little bitter, probably, than the other coaches. But, it wasn't a given. We had to work."
While she ultimately left that decision to Kalani, Dee said the only thing she told her daughter was that she would send her to Baylor, "because I know how she coaches, I know how she loves kids, I know the family atmosphere."
"Dejuna knows what I stand for. She knows family is the most important thing to me, my personal family," Mulkey said. "And she knew her daughter would be exposed to a family atmosphere. She knew this lady can be tough as nails, but she's a softy when it comes to kids and her family."
As much as playing for her mom in a way prepared Kalani for what was to come at Baylor, she said, "You can hear about it all day. But, until you go through it . . . you can't really be prepared for Kim."
That became painfully clear during Kalani's freshman year. Although she was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team, averaging 9.3 points and 4.3 rebounds, "that freshman year was crazy. I might have said I was going to transfer like 400 times."
One of those moments came in the aftermath of a 52-45 loss at Oklahoma State in Baylor's Big 12 opener, when Brown had two points and zero rebounds in 11 minutes off the bench.
Mulkey didn't tear into the team right after the game, but she was waiting for the players when they came to the locker room for practice the next day. Pictures of the Cowgirls celebrating and newspaper clippings trumping the upset victory were plastered all over the place, including the bathroom stalls.
On Brown's locker, though, was the word SCARED in bold letters.
"I never let her see me cry in front of her, but I called my mom and I was craying," Kalani said. "I told her I wanted to leave. And all she said was, 'Mmm, hmm. Mmm, hmm.' And then she was like, 'You're not going anywhere. It's OK. But, you did play scared.' Sometimes, I don't' even want to call my mom after a bad game, because I know I just heard from Kim and now I have to hear from my mom, too. It's the same voice."
In a day and age when players transfer at the drop of a hat, Kalani "sat there and I waited my turn, and it paid off.""It's hard to see it as a freshman, because you're coming off playing the whole game and getting all these McDonald's All-America accolades," she said. "And I came in here with five post players. There were five of us my freshman year, so you had to get your minutes when you could fit them in. I was averaging like six to 10 minutes a game. So, that was a game-changer."
What Dee didn't tell her daughter at the time was that she called home during her freshman year at Louisiana Tech and said, "I want to come home. I don't know if this is for me."
"And my mom told me, 'You chose to go 5 ½ hours away to Louisiana Tech, and you're going to stay there,''' Dee said. "I went through that with Kalani her freshman year. She was like, 'I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I can't seem to do anything right in her eyes.' It's tough. Anything that's going to be good in your life, that's worth it, is tough."
Brown has blossomed into one of the top players in the country over the last three years and will undoubtedly be a top-five pick in April's WNBA Draft. Mechelle Voepel of espnW.com has her projected to go fourth overall to the Chicago Sky.
"The first misconception people have of Kalani Brown is she's just a back-to-the-basket post player," Mulkey said. "That kid can shoot a face-up shot. She just doesn't have to in our system. I just think her mere physical presence, she can bang in there with anyone in the league. That kid's ceiling is going to go even higher because she won't be double- and triple-teamed like she is at this level."
Unquestionably, the WNBA is something on Brown's mind, but she won't let it "consume me and take over and be like, 'I'm going to the league, so I just need to get my numbers and go.'''
No, she has some unfinished business left to do. Stopped short of the Final Four in each of her three previous seasons at Baylor, she is hungrier than ever to climb that mountain and get the Lady Bears back there for the first time since the Lady Bears won it all in 2012."You're like knocking on the door every year. And when you get stopped, it drives you crazy," she said. "No one has ever been like, 'We've got to get to a Final Four,' it's never been burdened on me. But, I've kind of burdened myself. I know she's expecting me to try to lead the team to a Final Four. But, she doesn't have to say it. I already know it."
That was the message her mom gave Kalani before this season started: "Moses, you have to lead your people!"
"I told her that this year, you've got a bunch of freshmen that haven't been on the stage that you've been on," Dee said. "You've got to lead your people. And I've seen her talking to them a little more this year and trying to take on that leadership role. That's been a big growth thing for me. She's always been that gentle giant, playing up with older people. So, it's been fun to watch her grow that way and lead now that she's actually one of the older ones."
That same "gentle giant" personality is what keeps Kalani from getting frustrated when she has two and three players hanging all over her when the ball is thrown into the post. But, there are times, Mulkey said, "when I want her to be just a little meaner and grittier when she's getting hacked or pushed or they impede where she wants to be."
"She is the kindest, sweetest child you'll ever want to be around. It doesn't go with her body. I've always tried to motivate her in a way to just make her a little bit mad at me. And maybe that will bring out that extra grit in her. But, she has the perfect demeanor for not allowing those double- and triple-teams to frustrate her and take her out of the game."
Dee said it's been a "blessing" for Kalani to play for the same coach that she played for nearly 30 years ago.
"I wouldn't trade it. If it was 2015 again, and she decided to do the same thing, I would stand by it again."
Players Mentioned
C
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