Daybreak Staley swore again and again throughout her taking part in days she would by no means turn out to be a coach. Everybody seemingly may see it in her future, everybody however her.
In her position as an elite level guard she was all the time teaching.
Reluctantly, Staley finally accepted her destiny, turning into the top coach of the Temple ladies’s basketball staff.
Now, 22 years later, she is the primary Black coach to win two NCAA national championships. Aside from Staley, there has solely been 5 to ever win one within the historical past of males’s and ladies’s Division 1 basketball: John Thompson, Georgetown, 1984; Nolan Richardson, Arkansas, 1994; Tubby Smith, Kentucky, 1998; Carolyn Peck, Purdue, 1999; Kevin Ollie, UConn, 2014.
Staley’s success additionally has given her the platform to champion points off the court docket and he or she continues to talk out about gender fairness, range and alternatives for girls.
“I don’t seek it out,” Staley lately informed The Related Press. “If I get asked, I’m going to respond. Why? It’s the right thing to do.”
Whereas Staley is not on the lookout for notoriety, basketball analyst Debbie Antonelli stated she in inspiration and everybody listens to what she has to say.
“It is a voice that isn’t nearly South Carolina,” said Antonelli, who will be inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in June.
“Where you’re a young coach, you talk about yourself and your team,” Antonelli continued. “When you’re a veteran coach you become a servant to the game … she has accepted that.”
Not that it came easily.
Staley repeatedly told late Temple athletic director Dave O’Brien she did not want the coaching job until changing her mind in 2000.
Then, after eight seasons with the Owls, Staley worried her move to South Carolina might be “career suicide” if she couldn’t quickly make inroads against Southeastern Conference powers like Tennessee, Kentucky, LSU and Georgia.
It has turned out to be the best move she could have made.
In the past year, she guided the US national women’s team to Olympic gold last summer, beat UConn 64-49 in the NCAA title game and has a collection of coach of the year awards, including The Associated Press, Naismith and SEC. She is heading to Los Angeles with center Aliyah Boston for Friday’s Wooden Award ceremonies.
There is no doubt Staley is at the top of her game; lawmakers in South Carolina honored the Gamecocks on Wednesday and next Wednesday they’ll be the stars of a parade in downtown Columbia.
It all caps off a hectic a 12-month stretch during which Staley became a champion of the sport, and for it.
On the court, the Gamecocks made good on their yearlong goal of a national crown after falling to Stanford in the 2021 Final Four semis.
Staley barely had time to unpack before her duties as U.S. Olympic team coach kicked it with training camps, play at the AmeriCup to qualify for the FIBA World Cup in Australia this September — all before heading to Japan for the COVID-19 delayed Olympics.
She talked with the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers in June about their coaching vacancy, saying they treated her like “a real candidate” and not a token interview.
Staley led the U.S. team to the gold medal last August.
“When I got back, it was time get going with them,” Staley told the AP preparing for her run to the tile in Minneapolis, nodding at her players during a team dinner.
Before tipping off the season, though, Staley received a long-term contract from South Carolina worth $22.4 million. She made $2.9 million this season, one of the game’s highest salaries.
It wasn’t about the money, Staley said, “but it takes the money for this recognition to be eye-opening.”
Recognition that came with South Carolina starting the season No. 1 and never surrendering that ranking despite a pair of unexpected losses, including a 64-62 setback to Kentucky in the SEC Tournament championship game.
“We knew we had to keep our focus,” Staley said. “The big picture was still out there.”
South Carolina was never seriously challenged in its six NCAA Tournament games. The closest game was a 69-61 win over North Carolina in the Sweet 16 as AP Player of the Year Aliyah Boston scored all her team’s 13 fourth-quarter points to hold back the Tar Heels.
Staley is often challenged off the court.
But Staley has blended her coaching success with her views on how best to grow the game. She said she had several Zoom calls with other prominent coaches including Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer and UConn’s Geno Auriemma during the offseason about how to keep growing the game.
“They were informative,” Staley said. “I mostly listened.”
She also listens to her players, connecting with high schoolers with an easy style. During a Final Four awards ceremony, all the Gamecock players had their heads down looking at their phones. Nearby, Staley was also tapping away at her phone.
“That’s Dawn,” said longtime South Carolina assistant Lisa Boyer.
Added 21-year old guard Zia Cooke, “She’s like a mother figure at times and a best friend at other times.”
Then there are occasions when she is an activist.
Rebecca Lobo believes Staley is the strong female voice the game wants, ladies just like the late Pat Summit at Tennessee or Muffet McGraw, Notre Dame’s lately retired coach.
“She will not be afraid to speak about what she feels is true, what she feels is flawed,” stated Lobo, a teammate of Staley’s on the gold-medal profitable U.S. staff on the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. “Even if it might be 100 percent her personality, she is sliding into that very naturally.”
As Boyer, the South Carolina assistant says, that is simply Staley’s fashion.
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Extra AP protection of March Insanity: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top
