Kim Mulkey did not allow for Brittney Griner’s jersey number to be retired at Baylor. Nicki Collen, her successor, encouraged the retirement and finally made it happen!
Griner returned to Waco for the first time in about 10 years this weekend to have her jersey retired. No women’s college basketball player will ever wear No. 42 for the Bears again!
It was a special moment for the team, the university and the two-time All-American.
It was also long overdue.
Brittney Griner’s jersey could not be retired until Kim Mulkey left.
Mulkey won three national championships during her 21 years in Waco. Griner was the primary catalyst to her team’s success in 2011/12, when Baylor went 40-0.
Dominant would be an understatement!
However, she never graduated. Mulkey required a player to have graduated in order for her jersey to hang in the rafters. Non-basketball differences between the two also played a role.
Although Brittney Griner did not graduate before being drafted No. 1 overall in the 2013 WNBA Draft, she did return to school and completed a bachelor of science degree in 2019. Kim Mulkey was still with the program at the time, but there was no hope for reconciliation between them.
Her jersey was not retired. Mulkey left for LSU in 2021. Collen took over.
The former Atlanta Dream head coach has been very vocal about wanting to retire the No. 42 jersey since being hired and a ceremony was initially set to take place during the 2021/22 season. However, Griner was detained in Russia in February of 2022 and was not released until the following December.
I have been saying this since I arrived at Baylor that she deserves to have her jersey retired and I wanted to make sure that happened when the timing was right. With the opening of Foster Pavilion, and the WNBA offseason fitting into our season, this seemed like the right time to honor Brittney and welcome her back home.
She is one of the best basketball players in Baylor’s history, and we’re thrilled that the time has come to celebrate Brittney and all of her accomplishments.
— Nicki Collen
Now that she is back in the United States and back to playing in the WNBA, Baylor is thrilled to put her jersey where it belongs!