Love Them or Hate Them, LSU Deserves Your Respect

On Ben Bolch and the impossible standard LSU is being held to

I would imagine most people on this site and other LSU communities like this one are fans of Kim Mulkey and her women’s basketball team.

I would also imagine that there are many more people who don’t have ties to LSU and they don’t like Mulkey or her team, and that’s perfectly fine. But for that vast majority that don’t bleed purple and gold all I’m asking is this one thing: can you do these women the decency of respecting them?

Take Ben Bolch’s deranged “commentary” published in the LA Times, a publication that is the largest daily newspaper in the country with about 40 million visits a month. The headline of Bolch’s piece reads:

“UCLA-LSU is America’s sweethearts vs. its basketball villains.”

That’s pretty weird, right? And maybe just a tad bit coded? Somehow the “think piece” —and I’m using the term ironically because there clearly was not a lot of thought put into it—started with this:

“This isn’t just a basketball game, it’s a reckoning. Picking sides goes well beyond school allegiance.”

A reckoning? That’s a little dramatic, no? Now I could excuse the, let’s say, grandiose choice of words, but what I can’t let slide was what was written after that by Bolch. The second paragraph read:

“Do you prefer America’s sweethearts or its dirty debutantes? Milk and cookies or Louisiana hot sauce?”

Do yourself a favor and Google “dirty debutantes” if you’re not familiar with the term. A word of advice though: do it someplace private and maybe do it on Incognito mode because the first couple of results link to pornographic websites.

If you read the column now, you won’t see the paragraph that likens Angel Reece, Flau’Jae Johnson and the other LSU women’s basketball players to porn stars anymore. Instead you’ll see an editorial update timestamped at 10:10 P.M., March 30, 2024 that reads “a previous version of this commentary did not meet Times editorial standards. It has been updated.”

That’s all well and good, but spare me the whole “it didn’t meet Times editorial standards” spiel because the original column, obviously, DID meet the LA Times standards otherwise it wouldn’t have been published in the first case. The LA Times can scrub and edit and make all the too little too late statements it wants, but the Internet is written in pen, not pencil, and the receipts of that original story will live on forever.

UCLA head coach Cori Close retweeted the piece but offered up a notes app apology. Don’t give her too much credit because in the apology she said “I reposted that article only after reading the headline, not the contents of the column.” Again, I’ll point out that the headline insults LSU by calling them “villains” and her own team by painting them as “sweethearts.”

Kim Mulkey, rightfully so, was furious at the LA Times piece. Days after threatening legal action if a Washington Post story defamed her, Mulkey redirected her ire at Bolch.

“You can criticize coaches all you want, that’s our business … but the one thing I am not gonna let you do, I am not gonna let you to attack young people,” Mulkey said among other things.

“Are you kidding me?,” Mulkey also said. “I am not going to let you talk about 18- to 21-year-old kids in that tone. It was even sexist of this reporter to say UCLA was ‘milk and cookies.’”

My question is simply this: why? Why is LSU and only LSU being attacked this way? Why is it okay for Caitlin Clark to do the You Can’t See Me to Hailey Van Lith or slam a ball off of her head or yell “stand the fuck up” to her home fans? Why isn’t JuJu Watkins called a dirty debutante? Why can Cameron Brink say “fuck you” to a ref after fouling out?

Sports Hate is one thing. For example I Sports Hate Alabama and the Atlanta Falcons. But what this LSU women’s basketball team is subjected to goes beyond the pale, and friend of the site GeauxSoHard (aka Will) answered why they’re hated perfectly.

If you’re not a fan of Mulkey or her team that’s fine, I’m not asking you to like them. In fact I can understand why someone wouldn’t like this team because they are a little brash and they do talk shit with the best of them. Mulkey herself said if you don’t like how they play she and her players are “good with that.”

But love them or hate them, these women deserve to be respected.