It’s no secret that Dawn Staley has changed the culture of women’s basketball in South Carolina.
During her 11 years as head coach, the Gamecock women’s basketball team has won a National Championship, along with winning four consecutive SEC championships and having six players drafted into the WNBA.
Though it seems impossible to imagine Colonial Life Arena practically empty during basketball season, Staley remembers a time when few more than friends and family of the student-athletes showed up to women’s basketball games.
“I really didn’t care how many people were in the stands at that moment,” Staley said in an interview with Carolina News and Reporter. “I was more concerned with turning the program around.”
Staley’s coaching career began in 2000 when she became the head coach of the Temple University women’s basketball team. Within eight years, the Owls made six NCAA tournament appearances but never made it past the second round. In 2008, Staley seized the opportunity to take over the South Carolina women’s basketball program.
“I didn’t really outgrow Temple,” Staley said. “But for what I was trying to do in the coaching ranks, I just thought that South Carolina would give me the right ingredients to win a national championship.”
Staley's journey to winning a national championship took a bit longer than she expected.
Staley said that the first two years of her career felt like “professional suicide” because she wasn’t able to recruit the current players on the team.
The Gamecocks were playing under .500 and did not make any NCAA nor WNIT appearances during Staley’s first two years.
“I don’t think the players at the time realized that this was a full-time thing,” Staley said. “But as we got kids in here who wanted a great balance of wanting a pro career and loving basketball, things started turning around.”
The turning point for the Gamecocks was the 2011-2012 season, when the women’s basketball team made its first ever NCAA tournament appearance in almost a decade.
“Senior year, we made it to the Sweet 16 and that was probably one of our best years,” said Courtney Newton-Gonzalez, who played for the Gamecocks from 2007 to 2012.
The Gamecocks started making consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, but the team still needed more talented and motivated players to achieve its goal of winning a national championship.
“I think Coach Staley was an underdog early on in the season because they didn’t have the talent they needed to win the national championship,” said Debbie Antonelli, who has analyzed women’s collegiate and professional basketball for 30 years.
In 2014, the women's basketball program found themselves in a pivotal moment when Columbia native A’ja Wilson announced that she would play for South Carolina.
Wilson was the top-ranked player in the nation who turned down the opportunity to play for UConn.
The 2014 and 2015 season was the first time the Gamecocks became SEC tournament champions and made it to the NCAA Final Four.
“A’ja was that piece that really allowed S.C. to build where they are now,” Antonelli said.
In 2017 South Carolina won its third consecutive SEC tournament championship along with its first national championship.
South Carolina also had three players drafted into the WNBA during the 2016 and 2017 season.
“When you win a national championship, you put yourself in the position to be seen in a national light,” Staley said.
The Gamecocks have remained in the national spotlight as the team is making its eighth consecutive NCAA tournament appearance this season.
South Carolina also secured its first top recruiting class for next season with four out of the five players being ranked within the ESPN top 13 recruits.
The odds of South Carolina winning a national championship were low for many years.
Staley changed the team’s expectations from hoping to make a WNIT appearance to making consecutive NCAA tournament appearances and fostering players who now have a stronger chance of having a professional career.
“I come from a place where you have to beat the odds no matter what you’re doing in life,” Staley said.