Dawn Staley turned South Carolina into a powerhouse with relationships and X’s and O’s

South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley had a lot to celebrate on her 54th birthday May 4. In nearly 25 years of coaching collegiate basketball Staley has earned three national titles in seven years and catapulted the Gamecocks from a middle-of-the-pack SEC team to a national powerhouse program for women’s basketball.

For Staley’s former players, her contributions were necessary for the Gamecocks program and women’s basketball. 

“Coach Staley has never changed in the years that I’ve known her, and I don’t see her changing at all,” Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson said. “That’s what I love about her and I think that’s what women’s basketball needs is just someone that is literally a true honest GOAT. [I go so hard for Coach Staley] because no one wants her here. No one believed she could get to his point and she’s sitting here shining. I think that is why she’s such a trailblazer for women’s basketball.”

She spent nearly a decade at Temple University building up her coaching résumé and seven more years building relationships with players, recruiting players from South Carolina, and getting players to buy into her system. Staley is reaping the rewards — national championships, Final Four appearances, No. 1 rankings, top-ranked recruiting classes, and increased game attendance in Columbia, South Carolina.

In the three years before Staley took over the program in 2008, the Gamecocks were at the bottom half of the SEC standings. South Carolina hadn’t finished top 5 in the SEC standings since the 2002-03 season and the highest program ranking in the 21st century was when the Gamecocks tied for second in 2001-02 and made it to the Elite Eight.

When Staley took over the South Carolina women’s basketball program, former players and hometown products Wilson, guards Asia Dozier, and Khadijah Sessions, recall spectators could walk in at any point in pregame and get close to a courtside seat at most of the home games.

“I remember it being the school that not a lot of SEC teams wanted to come to play because it was either a blowout or the crowd sucked,” Wilson said of her memories of South Carolina growing up. “It was so quiet. You could hear shoe squeaks, you could hear the play calls, you could talk to people from across the sections [and] I feel like they could hear your conversations. It was just very empty.

“I would only go to a women’s game when Pat Summitt would go coach because you’re like, ‘when am I gonna see Pat Summitt again?’ You went there when big dogs were in town, not necessarily to support the women’s team.”

Allen University coach Olivia Gaines remembers Staley mentioning winning champions and that’s what sealed the deal on her commitment. Former Gamecocks player Markeshia Grant, currently a personal development coach who works with South Carolina, said it was playing a game of spades with Staley and a vision of what the program could become that sold her on joining the early era of Staley’s program.

“Her mindset is that she wanted to win a national championship because she didn’t do it as a player even though she got the opportunity several times. She just never won it,” Grant said. “So that was her mindset coaching, and her mindset when she recruited us, like, ‘Hey, you may not be the team that wins the national championship, but you will be the team to help us win the national championship.’ So I was all for it.”

The first few years of Staley’s tenure were marked by gradual improvements in recruiting and increasing her program’s win totals. The team reached its first Sweet 16 under her in 2012.

When building up her roster, Staley used yearly team mottos based on what she believed each team could accomplish. Announcing a yearly theme has continued to set the program up for success. The Gamecocks’ theme of “Love” set the tone for South Carolina’s undefeated season and their 87-75 victory over Iowa in the national championship game April 7.

“I just feel like it evolves with where the program is at the moment,” Grant said. “We went from ‘We Rise’ to ‘We Believe’ to ‘The Time is Now. [The themes] are so simple, but so powerful. The past themes have always been like ‘Now,’ thought-provoking or really powerful in terms of the concept and the detail that went in [and] the planning that went in behind it. Last year, the team motto was ‘Dreams, Nets and Assets’ or ‘DNA.’ ”

“This year, Coach Staley said ‘Love’ [and] I recall her saying nothing beats love and I’m like ‘You’re right. Nothing does beat love.’ Hate can’t beat love. Racism can’t beat love. Winning with love, means winning with grace. It means winning despite everything that you face in terms of adversity. … That was this team.”

Players never questioned Staley’s basketball IQ and her ability to break down the fundamentals of the game to teach her players X’s and O’s. Even though some believe she hasn’t been publicly acknowledged for her knowledge of the game, most of her players believe the relationship she builds with her players sets her apart from other coaches.

“She builds relationships with her kids and that was really, really important for me, because I needed her,” Gaines said. “She was in my corner. She never made me feel like I was alone, and she told me it would be tough, but fighting through adversity is gonna make you stronger.

“She checks all the boxes of being a good coach. X’s and O’s are very important. I think she does a good job with it, but I also like the relationships that she builds with people. She is probably the most humble person. It is nothing for Coach [Lisa] Boyer or anybody to draw up a play because she believes in her staff, but Coach Staley has drawn up stuff to win basketball games as well. Sometimes it goes under the radar, which is fine, but it kind of speaks for itself. She’s won several SEC championships. She’s won three national championships now. She can do it. She’s done it. She’s winning.”

Dozier described Staley as a tough coach who demanded discipline and sacrifice, and that she always gave the team honesty and love in return. Dozier, who was an assistant coach for North Carolina A&T last season, recalled how Staley’s jovial antics with the team – from doing the popular dunk challenge from several years ago during a summer camp to her latest Beyoncé appreciation post – embody the person and coach the Hall of Famer is.

“It’s the balance with the players,” Dozier said. “I laugh because I used to crack jokes with Coach Staley all the time. I felt like she did a good job of keeping us level, always taking the game seriously [but] not too serious to the point where it wasn’t fun for us. She’d be chewing you out one second and then the next minute she’s like giving you a wet willy.”

Sessions, who is now an assistant coach on South Carolina’s coaching staff, remembers the early grind of learning under Staley before the program attracted some of the nation’s top recruits.

“She was tough, man. She’s from Philly. She gave it to us, but that kind of molded her program and that’s why she has the success and the players that she has now,” Sessions said.

“We never had the top players here. We just started getting top players really after A’ja Wilson. 

“We weren’t the No. 1 in the country. We weren’t No. 2, [or] No. 3. We were just four-star kids coming together believing in each other, believing in Coach Staley’s system and sticking to it.”

Connecticut Sun guard Tiffany Mitchell grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, an hour and a half away from Columbia, South Carolina. She saw the promise in the program and committed in her junior year of high school in 2011.

“You’re gonna have to work your way if you’re going to play,” Mitchell said. “You’re going to work for everything. Nothing is given to you once you leave high school, but being the person and player that I am, I love the challenge.”

Wilson committed in 2014. Indiana Fever center Aliyah Boston followed with her commitment in 2018. Now, the Gamecocks roster bolsters talented rising sophomore MiLaysia Fulwiley and rising junior Ashlyn Watkins while adding top talent, five-star incoming freshman Joyce Edwards, who won co-MVP honors at the 2024 McDonald’s All American game in April.

“I really just went to South Carolina because it’s never been done here before,” Wilson said. “They got an amazing coach who’s done everything that I want to do. Why not? I feel like that was the biggest turning point, a young girl decided to stay home and build around a program that was up-and-coming, and then the rest is history.”

“I always say Coach Staley could be anywhere in the United States and I probably would have gone to be coached by her. But it just kind of was a blessing that she was at South Carolina, and I was from there.”

Sessions has seen the Gamecocks’ home venue, Colonial Life Arena, go from a few seats occupied to sold out during most home games regardless of who the Gamecocks are playing.

“I think we got a good crowd because they’re not used to it but coming from 5,000 to 8,000 to 18,000 your senior year, it’s still a feeling that I pretty much can’t describe,” Sessions said. “When I walked out of one of those games, I was like, ‘Wow. I’m coaching in it. I played it.’ ”

“[Staley] really made us dial into the community and I think that’s what pulled the heartstrings of our fan base. A lot of people now are really bought into the girls team because they feel like they’re connected to them. They feel like they are cool with them. That’s what brings and builds the culture now to where you have people fighting over seats,” Wilson said.

Wilson said people doubted her decision-making when she committed to Staley and the Gamecocks. Many told her the program would never be able to win a national championship. Wilson believes the win in 2017 marked a shift in the SEC where South Carolina went from the school in the middle of the conference to a program everyone wanted to beat.

“It was a moment where I was like, I can’t even put into words because I feel like every championship we win at South Carolina and as Coach Staley wins, it’s always like they [said] you couldn’t do it, they didn’t want you to do it, and yet here you are doing it,” Wilson said. “That moment will forever be stapled in my mind because no one wanted us to do it. No one wanted us to win. OK, but here we are.

“So it’s like another thing that no one will ever be able to take away from us. I think that feeling is so powerful to this day, because you can see how it started to what we see now.”

South Carolina won its first national championship in 2017. Dozens of former players were in Dallas to witness Staley’s first title.

“[Dawn] was really big on making sure all the former players were a part of the celebration,” Grant, who attended the game, said. “Literally, she got off the stage and went and got all the former players out of the crowd. Every single former player that was there, she made sure that we were on the floor to celebrate. It was just a full-circle moment and I was so proud that we were able to experience our first national championship.”

For Atlanta Dream guard Allisha Gray, who transferred into the program and played with the Gamecocks her senior year from 2016-17, it was a turning point that would position the Gamecocks for future titles.

“A sense of relief like we finally got over the hump,” Gray said of 2017. “From 2017, the program just took off. Winning national championships is almost like the norm for South Carolina every season, competing in the Final Four competing [and] competing for national championships so it’s almost that’s the standard now. The momentum started 2017 and it hasn’t stopped since then.”

Staley sent replica trophies to all her former players inscribed with the words “Because of you,” acknowledging the contributions they made to the program. 

“She’s just a stand-up person and she cares about you outside of what [you] could do for her on the basketball court, which you got to respect,” Sessions said. “Once you win, she doesn’t like celebrating by herself. She knows that it took everybody that came to South Carolina under her to get her where she is today. She doesn’t make you feel any less than that. She makes you feel why you committed to her still to this day. So that’s what’s so special because she hasn’t changed.”

Staley is affectionately known as “Louis Vuitton Dawn.” As the program has grown, so has her wardrobe.

“It wasn’t always Louis Vuitton, but it was always something. Probably half the time she had it on I couldn’t tell you, to be honest,” Dozier said. “Back then there weren’t tunnel walks and being dressed and all that before games. We were there in our sweatsuits and stuff, but she definitely used to dress down. We always had our little ‘ah’ moments before the game.”

“Coach Staley has been getting paid more and more every year so the bags are changing, so she’s changing. I don’t blame her. I would do the same thing if I was a millionaire. She worked hard to wear that. She definitely was sharp when we played, but she definitely wasn’t in the Louis Vuitton and stuff,” Sessions said.

Staley’s first title win made her the second Black coach to win a national title. After her second title win in 2022, she became the first Black coach to win multiple championships. With her most recent title, Staley journeys further in a league of her own as the first Black woman to win three national titles and complete an undefeated season. Staley is one of five Division I women’s basketball coaches to win three national championships. 

“Her being one of [five] coaches with three or more national championships and her being the only Black woman up there I think that’s a huge part of her legacy. For her to be able to do what she did as a player and then turn around and be just as successful as a coach,” Dozier said. “Coaching is deeper than [wins and losses]. It’s overall influence — your players, program building, culture building, inspiration — all of those aspects of coaching that really define how successful you are. Coach Staley is breaking barriers.”

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Many of Staley’s former players have become coaches. Former Temple player and WNBA champion Candice Dupree is the women’s basketball coach at Tennessee State University. Dozier and Gaines are coaches at historically Black colleges and universities.

“She’s going to continue to inspire other people and the people who come after her. I [am] a part of her legacy. If I go on and coach in the national championship, that will also be part of Coach Staley’s legacy because of how she has allowed me to grow in my profession,” Dozier said. “So it’ll go a lot deeper and a lot farther than just South Carolina and how many championships they win. She’s touched so many lives in her time as a coach that her legacy is gonna be for generations and years to come, even when she’s done coaching.”

Wilson, along with the players that came before her, helped establish a high standard and culture of winning at South Carolina. She is adamant that future players adopt the high standards of South Carolina basketball so the legacy can continue.

“This is the standard that you have to uphold to be coached by Coach Staley. Nothing more, nothing less. Do your job, and then you will be a great [player],” Wilson said. “I think that is kind of what we all instilled in ourselves to lay the foundation now for Aliyah [Boston], Joyce [Edwards] and everyone else that’s upcoming.”

With two titles in three years, many players believe this is just the beginning of what Staley’s dynasty at South Carolina.

“I only see more success in her future, more championships, more records being broken, more players in the pros,” Mitchell said. “All of that is in front of her because of the work that she’s put in behind closed doors that we probably don’t see. I definitely feel like there’s nothing but greatness in front of the program.”