South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley paid tribute to Temple’s legendary male basketball coach, John Chaney, in his outfit for the Gamecocks clash with No. 5 Connecticut.
© David Butler II, USA TODAY Sports
South Carolina Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley and UConn coach Geno Auriemma face off before Monday’s game.
Chaney, who won more than 700 games in his career between Cheyney State and Temple, who trained for 24 years, died on January 29 at the age of 89. A memorial service was held for the coach on the Temple University campus in Philadelphia on Monday.
To honor the late Hall of Fame coach Staley, 50 – a Philadelphia native who was Chaney’s classmate at Temple when he started his coaching career at the university in 2000 – he wore a sports suit that became one of Chaney’s signatures throughout the course of his career: a white button-down shirt with a large collar and a loose black tie.
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Gallery: Basketball coach John Chaney dies at 89 (imagn)
Chaney, who won the 1978 Division II national championship while at Cheyney State, is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the University Basketball Hall of Fame.
Staley, also a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame as his mentor, has been the head coach of South Carolina since he left Temple in 2008. She guided the Gamecocks to the 2017 national championship.
Unfortunately for Staley, his best South Carolina team fell for the second time this season, with UConn’s 63-59 win in overtime.
This article was originally published in USA TODAY: South Carolina coach Dawn Staley pays tribute to the late John Chaney in costume
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