With college basketball back, South Carolina’s head coach Dawn Staley is picking up where she left off. For the first time in the school’s history, Gamecocks started the year as the country’s No. 1 team. South Carolina is currently 17th and 2nd (Associated Press).
Throughout the season, Staley will share his thoughts with The Undefeated, narrating a season that will be unlike any other in the history of college basketball. In this issue, Staley remembers his mentor John Chaney, who died on January 29, holding a minicamp with the US team and approaching the end of the regular season.
A welcome change of pace
As we move towards the end of the season, this year so far has been a good change of pace. I’m not trying to take anything for granted when it comes to being in a pandemic. But what is it, my 21st year as a coach. For 20 and a half years it has been the same as always. You prepare for the game, go through the regular or non-conference season and then the regular season and the conference. And then the conference tournament. Then you go to the NCAA tournament.
This is a wrench in our typical season. Let’s see who can really train. Coaching doesn’t involve X’s and O’s all the time. It’s about people’s X-ing and O-ing. When you can play that game of chess, you are here. Everyone is dealing with this. Whoever best handles it will reach the top.
Lessons from loss
Losing games is normal in this sport. We are in a privileged position where a loss has weight.
This team in the last two years has lost three games. We have now won 31 consecutive SEC games. We built this program and our fans expect us to win these types of basketball games. They are difficult for us. We need to give them some firepower. I think we have a team in which we are solid in all aspects. They work a lot. When it comes to us, we know our expectations and hope to win every game. When we don’t, we are disappointed. But then we have to dissect why, so as not to put ourselves in a position where we will lose with the same mistakes.
When you can really point out the reasons why we didn’t succeed in winning the game, it’s important. Against UConn, we knew why we lost. The lessons that come from this particular game are priceless, to be honest. I couldn’t say some of the things I said to our team when we were on a winning streak of 10 or 11 games, because it didn’t make sense to them, ‘What are you talking about, lady? We achieved. We are winning. Nothing is broken. ‘
Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma (right) and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley (left) meet before a game in Storrs, Connecticut on February 8.
David Butler / Photo of the pool via AP
It is much like me in my career. When it comes to these important lessons, I always learned them beforehand. So, when I was able to really endure it, I knew I was prepared for it. So, I hope it is the same for our team, maybe they are suffering what my life has become, which is that you receive the lessons before they hurt you – before they hurt you later in life. I hope that is the case and we will continue without losing another game of basketball.
John Chaney was the example
In our game against UConn, I paid tribute to my mentor and great coach John Chaney. Coach Chaney was a great advocate and spokesperson for the kids who grew up like me – on projects, in the city center.
Coach Chaney was always that person who spoke when so many people just took it and said, ‘OK, those are the rules we have to follow. And if this rule harms the people, if blacks are robbed of receiving an education, so be it. The coach didn’t get that. He didn’t give up when it came to that kind of thing and I love him for it, I appreciate him for it.
Proposition 48 is an example that comes to mind. Proposition 48, which was introduced in the late 1980s, made the standards of education for entering college a little stricter for those people who grew up like me. And he never gave up. You stuck a microphone in his face, he was going to tell the constituted powers that this is notorious, this is outrageous. You can’t really do that. Because it is harming the very people he recruits, the same people he represents, the same people he always was … for lack of better words, changed, the forgotten, the voiceless. He was always that person for them.
I was probably in high school when I heard Coach Chaney speak out against this. I saw a video because Charlie Rose had a video of John Thompson, coach Chaney, George Raveling. I just observed that and the powerful voices of those coaches. There was a protest by black coaches fighting Prop 48. They went into the rooms and started talking to the people who made those decisions and they managed to overthrow it before it had catastrophic effects for black boys and girls who entered college.
He was the example for me. If I feel that there is an injustice somewhere, no matter where it is, no matter in our sport, outside of our sport, I cannot lie down and let it happen. I learned that from him.
It’s not about me
It’s been almost a full year since I worked with the US team. Having them in South Carolina for a mini-field earlier this month was really cool. It was tiring, but it was great to be in the room of the best basketball players and minds in the world. I had the chance to be around great coaches like Cheryl Reeve and Dan Hughes and Vickie Johnson, Kara Lawson. I always seem to learn a lot when I’m around them, because there are things that we don’t think about in college and that professionals are always thinking about. Because they are trying to create an advantage, each individual possession they are trying to create an advantage.
I was asked if I was able to reflect on where I am on my journey as a coach – having the opportunity to train the country’s No. 1 university team in the same week as the world’s No. 1 team. The answer to that is that it doesn’t really cross my mind. I don’t really customize anything. I don’t know why, but I don’t really look at any of it.
I have been very successful in my career so far, as a player and as a coach, that it is more about being a dream trader for other people. I always thought of others more than myself. And I think this is how you continue to earn more, because basketball is a sport in which he will reward you for liking him. It certainly has in my case.
So, I will continue as I am. When you start thinking about yourself, you take the focus off other people. And I’m just not the one. I don’t consider myself so important that you can think only of me. Life can go on without me. So I like to prepare for it, if I couldn’t play or train, life goes on. You just need to find a way to spin. If I could give it to other people, that’s it, just a pivot. I did this throughout my career and it worked very well for me.