South Carolina installs statue of the great Gamecocks, A’ja Wilson

South Carolina installs statue of the great Gamecocks, A’ja Wilson

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3:35 pm Eastern Time

  • Mechelle VoepelESPN.com

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      Mechelle Voepel covers WNBA, women’s college basketball and other college sports for ESPNW. Voepel started covering women’s basketball in 1984 and has been on ESPN since 1996.

South Carolina installed a statue of ex-Gamecocks All-American A’ja Wilson in front of the Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina.

Wilson, the 2018 national consensus of the year and WNBA’s No. 1 draft choice, will participate in a dedication ceremony on Monday.

Wilson, who is from Hopkins, South Carolina, on the outskirts of Columbia, helped lead the program to its first national championship in 2017, its first Women’s Final Four in 2015, four SEC tournament titles and three regular season titles from SEC.

She received three All-American awards from the top team and was the SEC’s first three times best player of the year in league history. She has been on the SEC’s first team four times.

“A’ja Wilson’s achievements, on and off the basketball court, make this statue so deserving,” said South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner. “I am very happy that we can celebrate it this way.”

Wilson was the WNBA Rookie of the Year in 2018 for the Las Vegas Ases. She led the aces in the WNBA finals last season, when she was named the league’s MVP.

The 3.5-meter-high bronze statue was made possible by private donations from the late Dodie Anderson, artist and South Carolina native Darius Rucker and female basketball coach Dawn Staley. It is one of three statues on the South Carolina campus that represents a specific individual; the others are George Rogers and Richard T. Greener, winner of the 1980 Heisman Trophy, the school’s first black faculty member.

“A’ja was a powerful force in our program, our campus and our community through everything she accomplished on the court and the person outside,” said Staley. “This statue in front of this arena is an equally powerful force. Every young person, especially black girls, can see what is possible through hard work, passion and dedication.”

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