Milaysia Fulwiley is the gay athlete Kim Mulkey can embrace at LSU

Kim Mulkey is one of the best coaches in women’s college basketball, having won National Championships at both Baylor and LSU. Yet her handling of one of her biggest stars — Brittney Griner — being gay while at Baylor left a lot to be desired.

Now Mulkey has recruited another rising star — Milaysia Fulwiley — to be on her LSU Tigers team. This player is, like Griner, gay, but this time her prized recruit is totally out.

Milaysia Fulwiley comes from SEC rival South Carolina, having won a National Championship with coach Dawn Staley and her crew, and been to another title game. Fulwiley is, by all accounts, one of the most exciting players in the country headed into this season.

At South Carolina she had ups and downs, and Staley commented on that publicly. Fulwiley made the SEC All-Freshman Team and was the SEC Tournament MVP in 2024.

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Yet last season she seemed to struggle at times in Staley’s system. Mulkey undoubtedly saw the young rising star’s potential and snatched her up.

Fulwiley has also been very out about her relationship with fellow South Carolina athlete star JaMeesia Ford.

Kim Mulkey has a past with gay players

The history of Kim Mulkey with LGBTQ players doesn’t stop at Griner. Over a decade ago, after Brittney Griner came out publicly, Outsports ran an op-ed from former Baylor women’s basketball player Emily Nkosi.

Nkosi thought Mulkey had been “unfairly singled out as homophobic” because, based on her experience, the entire culture at Baylor was a problem.

“She did not express opinions that were different from the dominant belief system held in that community,” Nkosi wrote at the time.

Yet Griner was clear that Mulkey wasn’t supportive of her being out. That was obviously a problem for Griner.

Has Mulkey changed her tune? Was Nkosi right, that Mulkey was a symptom of the community she was in, and LSU in 2025 is just that much more accepting than Baylor in 2013? And the most successful coach on campus cares about that?

Either way, Milaysia Fulwiley is now potentially a star player — moving to point guard — for the LSU Tigers and Kim Mulkey.

And… we still can’t get over these Kim Mulkey impersonations…

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