N.C.A.A. Women's Final Four - Baylor Coach Mulkey Has Fire and Glow - NYTimes.com DENVER - Before Baylor left Waco, Tex., for the women's Final Four, Coach Kim Mulkey announced that she had Bell's palsy, a treatable nerve disorder that causes weakness or paralysis of the facial muscles. While her smile might droop, Mulkey told reporters Thursday, her case was not severe and "it's not going to keep me from hollering." Fiery, candid, intensely driven, Mulkey is the only woman to win an N.C.A.A. basketball championship as a player, as an assistant and as a head coach. Baylor (38-0) faces Stanford in a semifinal Sunday, seeking to become the first N.C.A.A. team to win 40 games in a season. A month shy of 50, and earning more than $1 million a year, Mulkey represents the sporting possibilities available to women since the passage 40 years ago of the gender-equity legislation known as Title IX: scholarships, championships, Olympic gold medals, financial security and the self-assurance to be forceful and brash and daring without being apologetic. In 2000-1, her first season at Baylor, Mulkey celebrated a last-second victory by running around the court, arms raised, as if she had won an Olympic sprint. By 2005, she had won an N.C.A.A. title. Unfailingly, her teams reflect her toughness by playing stifling defense and by embracing the pressure of expectation. No opponent has made half its shots in a game against Baylor in six years. On the sideline, Mulkey conducts her team with an operatic sensibility and exacting demand. She insists that defenders yell "pick" because it is infinitesimally quicker to say than "screen." She has been known to toss her jacket during games, to fling her watch to her spokeswoman seated at the scorer's table. Connecticut Coach Geno Auriemma jokes that Mulkey disagrees with every referee's call, even those in her favor. And her wardrobe can be as bold as her personality. Entire pages on fan message boards have been devoted to Mulkey's sartorial choices. At their most adventuresome, the outfits have included sequined blouses, powder-blue suits, fuchsia leather jackets and red leather pants. Mulkey wore pants with a snakeskin print for a game at UConn last season that on a less confident person might have suggested the wearer had been half-swallowed by an anaconda. "She stepped into a world that heretofore was the domain of just men," Auriemma said. Men were allowed to act crazy on the sideline. Men were allowed to be cocky. Men were allowed to wear crazy outfits and be histrionic and do all the things that Kim does. It would be unladylike to do that. Well, those times have sailed on. "Kim, in her own way, does represent that: "This is my game; I'm in complete control of my situation. This is who I am. This is how I was as a player. This is how I'm going to be as a coach," And I commend her for that. A lot of people might not agree with what she does, but her passion is undeniable. Away from the court, Mulkey dials back on the wardrobe and the fierceness. She is a devoted fan of country music, whose lyrics she tries to work into lessons for her team. "You can always count on her saying, "Do you know that country song?" " Brittney Griner, Baylor's 6-foot-8 center, said, laughing. No, Coach, we never know these country songs. On the bench, a chip seems to sit permanently on Mulkey's shoulder, like an epaulet on one of her jackets, Auriemma suggested. He believes it comes from her days as a hard-nosed, pigtailed player. A 5-4 point guard, Mulkey arrived at Louisiana Tech in a Corvette as a freshman and won national championships in 1981 and 1982. At Tech, a certain flamboyance was not only tolerated but cultivated. Sonja Hogg, then the team's coach, dressed in suede and leather and became a legend for recruiting in a white fur coat and driving a white Cadillac. In 1984, Mulkey won an Olympic gold medal, playing for the most insistent of coaches, Pat Summitt. She won another N.C.A.A. title in 1988 as an assistant at Louisiana Tech to Leon Barmore. He was so intense and uncompromising that he sometimes nearly passed out on the bench. Mulkey, too, coaches as if hot sauce runs through her blood.