On Wednesday, Oct. 12, Coach Dawn Staley accepted the Billie Jean King Leadership Award at the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Annual Salute to Women in Sports Event. The award is named after the former number one American Tennis player in the world, Billie Jean King, who helped found the Women’s Tennis Association and the Women’s Sports Foundation.
Staley is the South Carolina Gamecocks’ head Women’s Basketball coach for 14 seasons, including two National Championship years 2017 and 2022, along with four NCAA Final Fours in the last seven tournaments.
She also recently led the U.S. women’s basketball team to its seventh straight gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. During her playing career, Staley was a six-time WNBA All-Star and won three Olympic gold medals.
Turning around underachieving programs at Temple and South Carolina, Coach Staley gained some of the highest attendance at games in recent NCAA women’s basketball.
Following her first National Championship in 2017, Staley handed pieces of the NCAA title net to coaches of color around the conference.
“It started with Carolyn Peck (1999 NCAA-winning Purdue coach) giving me her piece of the net a few years ahead of our 2017 National Championship. Someone had done that for her, and she wanted to pay it forward. When we won in 2017, I wanted to keep that tradition alive. I knew what that tangible piece of the net did for me, giving me a constant reminder of what we were working toward, and kept me focused. We tried to get everyone, but we definitely got notes from those we missed, and got pieces out to them, too,” Staley told Bally Sports.
During her 2022 NCAA Championship press conference, Staley stated that she planned to give pieces of the title net to black journalists to continue to celebrate and encourage diversity.
Now among the highest-paid coaches in women’s basketball, Staley is entering her 15th season leading the Gamecocks.
