Kim Mulkey shares how tingling in middle finger led her to find heart issue, offseason procedure

It was just an ordinary, May day for LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey. Things were starting to slow down a bit after she led the Tigers to their first-ever national championship in early April, which meant she had some time to herself.

Throughout the special season, though, she noticed a tingling in her middle finger. Since she had some down time, she decided to call a former player — whose husband is a doctor — to see if she had carpel tunnel.

She did. But that diagnosis led her down a wild road that, eventually, resulted in a heart procedure.

“During the course of the year, I kept noticing the tip [of my left middle finger] was a little bit tingly,” Mulkey said on The Paul Finebaum Show during SEC women’s basketball media day on Thursday. “And I was bored one day in May and I said, ‘You know? I’m gonna call one of my former players, and I’m gonna get her husband to check this for carpel tunnel.’ So I rushed over there and yep, carpel tunnel. No big deal. On the way out, I said, ‘You know? I had surgery five years ago on my neck for [a] disc in the back. Go ahead and check that, too, and make sure there’s no screws or bolts loose.’ Great, it looks good.

“Two days later, the radiologist of the hospital calls and said, ‘You need to see a cardiologist. You have plaque in your corroded arteries.’ … It was just, honestly, it was really a God thing, I guess. Because I’m at home just bored. I have nothing to do. I said, well, let me just go do this. It led to having two stents put in.”

Kim Mulkey offers a message to ‘everybody over the age of 50’

That call came as a shock to Mulkey, who said she didn’t feel any symptoms whatsoever. She also had some plans for the early summer, both with her LSU players and her family. But because the heart issue wasn’t directly related to the middle finger — that was because of carpel tunnel — doctors said she could put the procedure off for a bit.

She also now has a message for anyone who might not feel entirely right.

“I delayed the procedure for a month because we had to go to the White House, we had to do something in New York City for Winged Foot Award and I wanted to take the grandkids to Disney,” Mulkey said. “So the doctor said, ‘Well, you didn’t come in here because you had symptoms. You came in because of the middle finger, which has nothing do with what is showing up on the stress test.’ So we delayed it. I come out of the procedure, and they said, ‘Coach, you had 95-99% blockage.’ I looked him and I said, ‘Does that mean I was going to have a heart attack?’ They said, eventually. I said, ‘Would I have died?’ And of course, no doctor wants to say yes or no.

“But it kind of just shook me because I’m doing the same thing that I’ve always done. I’m excited when I coach, I have no symptoms. So my message really is to tell everybody over the age of 50, whether you have symptoms or not, go get checked. What does it hurt? But yeah, that’s the story. It’s crazy.”

Throughout the process, Mulkey didn’t tell her players about what was happening. When they found out, according to Angel Reese, they knew their coach was going to be just fine.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Reese said. “We got a text from Jennifer [Roberts] just telling us what had happened and just sending our prayers to her and checking her out and making sure she was okay. But she’s strong. We knew she was going to be alright.”

Now, Kim Mulkey and LSU are preparing to defend their title. She also earned a new contract, agreeing to a 10-year contract worth $32 million last month.