Philly native Dawn Staley, coach of the South Carolina women’s basketball team, is poised to win her second consecutive national championship and third overall in her 15 years with the Gamecocks. Staley has already made history as the black coach with the most Division I basketball titles, and her success and sense of obligation have led her to become a prominent voice on racial and gender equity in the sport. Since the death of George Floyd, Staley has spoken out in support of her players who knelt during the national anthem and campaigned for a name change to the University of South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center, which honors a staunch opponent of integration. She also canceled a home-and-home series with BYU this past season after its fans were heard using racial slurs against Duke’s volleyball team.
Despite enduring racist slights on social media, Staley and her team remain focused and determined to succeed. Her influence has already led to an increase in the number of black female head coaches in Division I basketball. A quarter of the coaches who reached the women’s Sweet Sixteen this year were black, the most in a decade. As the Gamecocks head into the Final Four, playing a game against Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes, Staley feels pressure to win as a black coach and succeed for all of the little girls of all races out there who look up to her. As she told The New York Times, she thinks of her team the way people in Philly describe their teams as well as themselves – blue collar, gritty, nose to the ground. Let’s hope she can take care of business against her final two opponents and continue what is already one of this sport’s greatest legacies.
