Inside the push to bring Seimone Augustus back to LSU: 'It was just a no-brainer' (2024)

The day the LSU women’s basketball team reintroduced Seimone Augustus, officially minting her as the program’s newest assistant coach, Bob Starkey left his office chair to retrieve an item of memorabilia.

The LSU associate coach was looking for an old magazine. And he knew exactly where to find it: sitting on a table, tucked into a wire rack, hidden among other artifacts he had collected over the years.

Starkey lifted the 25-year-old copy of Sports Illustrated, revealing a teenaged Augustus. She was laughing. Her eyes angled upward. Her light brown hair fell neatly behind her ears. A box in the cover’s lower right corner read, “Is she the next Michael Jordan?”

“It was significant because we beat out Pat Summit,” Starkey said as he walked back to his desk.

When that magazine hit shelves, Augustus was starring for Capitol High, becoming one of the country’s top players, and Starkey was trying to convince her to sign with LSU, assisting the late coach Sue Gunter in a recruitment that altered the trajectory of her program.

“For her to choose LSU over UConn and Stanford and everybody else when we had never been to a Final Four,” Starkey said, “when we had never put more than 5,000 people in the building, I mean, she came here on a leap of faith, and I think that's what drew people to her more.”

'Let’s make Seimone tell us no'

How did coach Kim Mulkey hire Augustus?

In April, not long after she announced that longtime assistant Johnny Derrick was retiring, Mulkey met with her staff to discuss who they’d hire to fill the role he left behind. Starkey floated the idea of wooing Augustus, Mulkey said Thursday.

“Let’s make Seimone tell us no, and then we’ll see what else we got,” Starkey said.

Starkey then reached out to Augustus, who said she was “highly interested” in the position. So Mulkey then formally offered her the job and gave her time to think it over and weigh it against other coaching offers she had received.

In the meantime, Augustus entered the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in its April 27 induction ceremony and continued to help USA Basketball finalize the women’s team that will compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Augustus finalized her decision over two phone calls with Mulkey, one to iron out her potential responsibilities and another to officially accept the job.

By May 14, LSU had drafted a contract for Augustus. Under the preliminary offer sheet, which The Advocate obtained through a public records request, Augustus would become the fourth highest-paid coach on Mulkey’s staff, behind Starkey, Gary Redus and Daphne Mitchell.

Mulkey told ESPN 104.5 Monday that Augustus will work primarily with LSU’s guards. She’ll also assist recruiting efforts, but only when prospective freshmen visit campus. The NCAA allows programs to send only a limited number of assistant coaches on recruiting trips.

For Augustus, it’s a start. The LSU great has ambitions to become not only a hall-of-fame player, but also a hall-of-fame coach. She revealed that goal in an April interview with Andscape, then said Thursday that the opportunity felt like the “official beginning” of her coaching career.

“I'm trying to figure out my voice,” Augustus said. “If you know me, I don't talk loud. I just talk softly. I don't talk often. And so that's something that I always thought about when I thought about coaching. How is that gonna sound? What does this feel like? Who is coach Money?

“It's just an identity thing for myself and many other coaches. Everyone has had to find their way.”

'The most driven player I've ever coached'

LSU was clinging to a small lead over Stanford when Starkey barked out specific instructions for Augustus to follow.

It was 2006, and the Tigers were in San Antonio, trying to advance past Stanford and reach a third consecutive Final Four. On one of the game’s final possessions, Augustus was supposed to park in the strong-side corner to defend one of Stanford’s shooters— in case star guard Candice Wiggins decided to drive and kick out a pass.

But Augustus had other plans. Instead, she shuffled down, cut off Wiggins’ drive and drew a charge. LSU won 62-59. Augustus scored a game-high 26 points, to pair with three blocks and two steals.

“What would possess you to do something that I told you not to?” Starkey asked her after the game.

“Coach, I play against that kid in the AAU circuit every summer,” Augustus said. “I knew that she was not gonna pass that ball.”

Said Starkey: “She knew more than I did at an incredibly important part of the game, and that's the way her mind worked. That’s just one example.”

This isn’t Augustus’ first coaching gig. After stepping away from her playing careers in the WNBA and a league in Russia, she took a job with the Los Angeles Sparks. But first, Augustus called Starkey and asked him if she could shadow him for a week. At the time, he was coaching at Auburn.

That week, their conversations mirrored some of those they had when Augustus was playing in the WNBA. Once or twice a year, Starkey said, he would travel to a Minnesota Lynx road game and have dinner with Augustus so he could pick her brain on a variety of basketball topics, from pick-and-roll defense to recruiting.

Now the two will talk in a more formal capacity, reunited on the LSU women’s basketball team 18 years after Augustus collegiate career ended.

“She just wanted to follow me,” Starkey said. “She wanted to talk about being an assistant coach. That's her mindset. She's gonna learn what she's got to learn to be the best that she could be. She's the most driven player I've ever coached, and that carries over into this phase of her life as well.”

'I hope to be a head coach one day'

The question arose in Augustus’ re-introductory news conference: Would Augustus one day succeed Mulkey as LSU’s head coach?

Mulkey sidestepped the question, using it as a chance to stump for Starkey Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame candidacy. She said that, whenever she steps down, she won’t demand that administrators hire a hand-picked successor. Then, she told Augustus to answer the question.

“I hope to be a head coach one day,” Augustus said. “If it's here, so be it. If not, obviously you see the expansion of the W(NBA), it would be great to go back. But day by day— that's all.”

Part of Augustus’ new day-to-day will be working with Starkey, who keeps several Augustus mementos in his office. He has one of her Lynx jerseys framed on the wall. He has a small figurine of the Augustus statue standing outside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

Starkey only has those collector’s items because the young Augustus, the one beaming on that cover of Sports Illustrated, chose to sign with LSU in April 2002.

“A lot of what we're benefiting from now started when she chose LSU the first time,” Starkey said, “and I think it's cool that she's coming back to be a part of that.”