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Dawn Staley left Temple University in his native Philadelphia after the 2007-08 season and was appointed head coach of the South Carolina Women’s Basketball team.
In addition to a decade and a half since, Staley has taken the Gamecocks program to unprecedented heights, leading the South Carolina to three national titles during her mandate.
In his new book, “Uncommon Favor”, Staley revealed that another school in the dry expressed his interest in 2005.
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Dawn Staley of Southern Carolina Gamecocks against Iowa Hawkeyes during the National Championship match at Rocket MortgenGe Fieldhouse on April 7, 2024, in Cleveland. (Photos Ben Salomon / NCAA via Getty Images)
“Alabama came after me first in 2005,” said Staley.
She trained at Temple when she was approached by Alabama. The OWLs finished the 2004-05 season with a record of 28-4 and qualified for the second round of the NCAA tournament.
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While Staley landed in the same conference as The Crimson Tide, she thought that South Carolina was the best for her family and her career.
“I visited the campus. I liked the sports director. But I don’t see myself living in Alabama,” she noted.
Caroline southern Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley reacts against the Texas Longhorns in a final match of four in Amalie Arena on April 4, 2025, in Tampa, Florida. (Photos Ben Salomon / NCAA via Getty Images)
Although Staley did not care about the idea of moving to Alabama, she said that the Southern Carolina move meant that she would always join a league in which several coaches had built legendary careers.
“I was attracted by the fact that the USC was part of the dry and its light heritage in women’s basketball,” wrote Staley. “Pat Summitt was in this league, Andy Landers, Melanie Balcomb, all these legendary coaches. I was trying to refine my skills, rose to compete with the best. The icing at the top was that my parents were from South Carolina.”
Staley was also impatient of a meeting with her mother, Estelle, and her brothers and sisters.
The head coach of the University of South Carolina, Dawn Staley, celebrates the victory of the regional of Albany and heads for the Final Four after having cut a piece of the net at the MVP Arena in Albany, NY, on March 31, 2024. (Tracy Glantz / The State / Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
According to all accounts, Staley has become a beloved figure in Columbia, the capital of South Carolina and the Maison des Gamecocks. The city recently unveiled a statue on the campus in honor of Staley.
Staley thought about a state kissing him given his complicated story with his family. Estelle left Southern Carolina decades due to racism and discrimination.
Staley described back home as a “full circle moment”.
“Time is a funny thing, isn’t it? That I find myself prospering in the very state that led my mother to exile is an irony that I never forget,” wrote Staley. “That she was able to return home, her place of belonging, when I came to work in South Carolina was a moment in a complete circle made possible by social progress, the movement of civil rights, a myriad of seismic and small changes, but also, in large part, by faith.”
