Kim Mulkey and Dawn Staley first crossed paths over 35 years ago. Here’s the story.

Louisiana Tech must have had a bee problem.

The Virginia women’s basketball team and its coach Debbie Ryan discovered that not long after leaving a dingy Ruston motel, hopping on a team bus and riding to Thomas Assembly Center for a shoot-around.

“We went to shoot there, and there were bees everywhere,” Ryan said, “and I’m like, what on earth?”

That was December 1988. Virginia — a young, energetic team ranked No. 7 in the country — was on the road and ready to face No. 3 Louisiana Tech — then a large, physical squad that was enjoying its status as a perennial power in women’s college basketball.

Before the game, there was a buzz. Just not the kind that Ryan expected to greet her team, led by two promising freshman guards: one from New York named Tammi Reiss and one from Philadelphia named Dawn Staley.

To win, the Cavaliers needed both to play well. Louisiana Tech was a talented, well-coached bunch, steered by future Hall-of-Famer Leon Barmore and his protege, a 26-year-old assistant named Kim Mulkey.

“The arena, their fans,” Reiss said. “You could tell they were a blue blood, and we were an up-and-comer.”

Virginia battled to an early 26-24 lead, according to a Shreveport Times game story. But after hitting a 3-pointer, the Lady Techsters pulled in front, took a 13-point lead into halftime and eventually won with ease, 88-66.

Mulkey watched from one sideline as an 18-year-old Staley scored a team-high 19 points on 6-of-15 shooting. She and Reiss, in the first true test of their collegiate careers, were two of four Cavaliers to log at least 25 minutes of action.

“I played point guard, so I’m watching Dawn Staley and Tammi Reiss, and I’m just thinking, wow, those are two bad women in their backcourt,” said Mulkey, stretching out the vowel in bad. “I used to love to watch them.”

Virginia finished that season 21-10. Eventually, Staley and Reiss would lead the program to three Final Fours. But on that Saturday night in 1988, the Cavaliers weren’t quite ready to win on the road in a hostile environment such as Louisiana Tech, which Mulkey had led to an NCAA national championship six years prior.

“You can walk into the gym, and it takes you out right away,” Reiss said. “It’s like going to UConn, or better yet, going to South Carolina or LSU.”

More than 35 years later, Mulkey and Staley will cross paths again Thursday, this time as decorated head coaches who have elevated their respective programs into national powers. Staley’s No. 1 South Carolina team is visiting the Pete Maravich Assembly Center for a 7 p.m. date on ESPN with Mulkey’s No. 9 LSU squad, the reigning national champions.

Both coaches were once diminutive, fiery point guards. And both are now national championship-winning coaches whose outsized personalities draw attention to their individual programs and to the women’s game.

Their meetings are now rivalry games. Thursday will mark Mulkey and Staley’s seventh meeting as head coaches. But if you count their first encounter in 1988, it’ll be clash No. 8 between the two.

Staley, who started her career in college hoops three decades ago as a shy, soft-spoken freshman point guard, has the edge with wins in four of their first seven matchups.

LSU head coach Kim Mulkey, left, and South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley embrace following South Carolina’s 66-60 win over LSU, Thursday, January 6, 2022, at the PMAC on the campus of LSU in Baton Rouge, La.

STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK

Staley didn’t always relish the spotlight. She was once so nervous for an interview early in her career that she vomited beforehand, Reiss said. After losing to Louisiana Tech, she was quoted only briefly in papers the next day, with a quick summation of the second loss of her career.

“Playing against someone that big and that good,” Staley told the Shreveport Times, “they can take you out of a game.”

At the time, Staley was uncomfortable in her new surroundings, Ryan said. She was a north Philadelphia girl, transplanted south into Charlottesville, Virginia, unsure if the school — or the culture or team — was the right fit for her.

So Staley walled herself off from outsiders. But that competitive fire kindled underneath.

“But that freshman year — boy, if you didn’t know Dawn Staley, she wasn’t speaking to you,” Reiss said. “She looked at you: One word answer. She ran from the spotlight. She did not like it. She just wanted to play basketball.”

Ryan stoked that fire when the Virginia team scrimmaged in practices. She’d load Staley’s team with reserves and walk-ons and pit it against the rest of the starters, challenging her young star to drag her squad to victory. And she did, Ryan said, every time.

As Staley gained experience and Virginia started to pile up wins, she gradually shed the hard exterior, gradually revealing the gregarious side she flashes so often today.

“Dawn was a very quiet person, especially around authority,” Ryan said. “But when she felt strongly about something, that’s when she came out of her personality and wasn’t quiet. And whatever came out, came out, and you had to listen because she hardly said anything.”

For several weeks after Virginia lost the 1991 national championship game 70-67 to Tennessee in overtime, Reiss would find Staley (her roommate) sitting on the couch in their living room, sifting through game film on VHS tapes, excitedly showing her the mistakes they made and moments that cost them the win. Even then, she thought like a coach.

“There was no one that wanted to win more than Dawn Staley. Nobody,” Reiss said. “It’s no wonder why she’s where she’s at right now because her competitive nature is just on a whole another level. And I say that about Kim Mulkey, too.”

Growing up, Reiss would watch Mulkey lead her Louisiana Tech teams to national championships. She admired the daring passes Mulkey threw, the loose balls she sought, the charges she took and the competitive fire she displayed.

Ryan never coached against Mulkey the player. But while watching from afar, she noticed those same qualities, the ones that lived within Staley, whom she recruited to Virginia four years after Mulkey graduated from Louisiana Tech.

“Kim as a player was just so fiery,” Ryan said. “I mean, just had endless energy and was fiery, strong, demanded a lot of her teammates, demanded a lot of the program that she played for.

“The intensity of both was probably the same. It’s just that Kim was more outward. Dawn was more inward.”

Like the first time Mulkey and Staley crossed paths 35 years ago, their next meeting is a top-10 matchup. This one, between LSU and South Carolina, is carrying a considerable amount of buzz: ESPN’s College GameDay is in town, LSU is expecting a sellout crowd and tickets on the secondary market are hitting five-figure prices. 

But for the two coaches who will roam opposite sidelines Thursday night, not much has changed. 

“When you really look at Dawn and Kim, they’re no different,” Reiss said. “Their personalities may be a little different. When it comes down to it and you rip them open, they got hearts of lions with a competitive fire. That’s why they’re the best.

“It’s something that’s in you. It’s a fire. And they both have it.”