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 8-1 and ranked No. 5 (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 discusses being faced with a COVID-19 scare for the first time this season, his thoughts on the US Capitol insurrection and why his players chose to sit down during the national anthem to illuminate racial inequality in America.
I was in my office when I saw what was happening and happening at the United States Capitol.
Hearing everything that is coming from what happened last Wednesday is really disheartening. It’s really. It’s disheartening because it didn’t happen spontaneously. No. It was planned and executed perfectly in their eyes. Perfectly. Their actions left us with a big black cloud over our democracy, and I don’t know if we will ever be the same. This is a stain in our American history.
Most of our players sat down during the performance of the national anthem in every game this season – a decision made by our players to draw attention to racial injustice in our country. If the opposing teams choose to play the anthem while we are in the locker room, we choose to remain in the locker room.
I talked to [South Carolina associate] Coach Lisa Boyer on this on Wednesday. She said to me, ‘I love our country. That’s why I am, because I love our country. I would not like to live in any other country. ‘
I love our country too. I don’t like how our country arrived, or how our country has been, but I would like to think that there are people in our country who will lead us more in a unified than divisive way, and I am here for that.
A few weeks ago, a friend and retired army general sent me an email about his thoughts on the hymn – about people kneeling, sitting or doing something other than standing, as we used to do. I haven’t read for a long time. I just wasn’t ready to read it because I don’t think I got comfortable enough to put myself in that place to read it and process it. I just never had the space to do that. I’m weird like that.
But when I sat down to do it and I’m reading, processing, I think it’s very good because no one ever gave me that opinion.
Let me just preface this, I think this general’s world. He is a leader among leaders in the sense that he understands the full spectrum of this. He tries to get others to understand what it means to represent the national anthem, and he basically said that it’s 90 seconds of us being in a ritual to do it, and what it represents. What it means is the moment when we can all remain in unity. Got it.
I thought it would be a good opportunity to share this with our team, so I did it on January 12th. I sent the email to everyone and asked them to text me with their ideas and reactions individually – probably 90% of the team did.
From the answers I was getting, it seemed like they thought I was saying to support the national anthem, and I would never ask them to stand up. I never.
When I asked if they thought I was asking them to get up, some said yes, and I said, ‘No, I wasn’t asking you to do that.’ I said, ‘It is an effort to understand. You are sitting, and I understand why you are sitting, but in order for us to come to an understanding, we have to see what other people are saying whether they are on your side, or not on your side, or whether you are in the middle. ‘
We cannot just sit and not receive information. We cannot just sit and not contribute to change, to help people change their thoughts about why we are sitting. In fact, we have to contribute to society so that we have tangible things that we can do so that people understand their side of things. I don’t want to force the issue, but I also want you to learn that there are people who are supporting you without agreeing, and we need more of those people to just talk and listen to what they have to say, because those are the people who can help.
I wanted to share the answer of one of our players. That sums up almost everyone:
I have many cruel thoughts about the message. Although I appreciate his point of view, I believe it is flawed in a way that he intends to find the path of least resistance, which in an ideal world would be great, but not in a way that compromises the purpose of the protests. In a way, seeking an approach that is normal in a time that is far from normal is far-fetched.
Bringing up the point that it would be better if everyone stood up could actually work in the opposite way, which he alluded to, because it would be a performative act. What’s the use of pretending that this country is together just to make people happy? The path of least resistance was rarely able to bring about real change. Rituals are put in place to bring light to a certain mantra. In this case, freedom, unity.
I don’t want to defend a ‘work in progress’ when there is no outstanding work at the government level. We don’t applaud unfinished work – any more than we applaud the United States for simply seeing the problem and not making noticeable changes to the system. My last thought is whether we should represent ‘those with whom we agree and those with whom we disagree’, so kneeling is a sign of this.
This is very powerful and my heart is full. My heart is full when I read this, because the seat symbol is wrapped in it. It’s packed right in with it. There is no disrespect for the flag or anything involved. This is her because, and until we can get to the table with tangible things that change the way people are treated – people of color, blacks, minorities – how they are treated in this world, in our country, so I think our players will be open to that. Until that happens, they remain steadfast in their protest.
Making progress on the court
As we dig deeper into the conference game, it is really difficult to say how much of our potential we have achieved so far this season. I think we make great strides in certain areas, and so, if we are not in that in all areas, it is missing, so it’s just a kind of push-pull thing.
Here’s what I like. I think the transition attack was much better with Destanni Henderson just pushing the ball to the ground, and she gained confidence. If I managed to take any area, or any player, with confidence, it is that position. It can make everything work. It all starts with her and her ability to make a jump start on both sides of the ball.
We won without Aliyah playing extremely well. We won without Zia playing extremely well. In fact, we won without Destanni playing very well, but we know that when she plays very well, we have a very good chance of at least one or two other people playing well because of her game. It is encouraging to see, to see her finally get into action and do what she does best and uses her speed.
A Covid Scare
In a normal year, we wouldn’t imagine traveling on a game day. Ever. But we did it twice this season. First with Kentucky on January 11th and then against Vandy on January 14th.
We got that terrible call, that a player had tested positive for COVID-19 on January 6, the day before we played against Georgia and I was like, ‘OK. Well, what’s next? ‘
I called the player who had a positive result and just asked how she is feeling. First of all, I just want her to be well, to have no symptoms and to be affected by it. And then, psychologically speaking, we wanted her to be okay, but she felt bad because we were closed.
She said, ‘I’m feeling great.’ She was like, ‘I don’t have that. I did nothing. I didn’t go anywhere. I’ve been with three other players the whole time. She was like, ‘I don’t have that.’
I knew that, just from Nick Saban’s false positive in October, that having to follow that positive test protocol, and then going into those three consecutive negative days, means it’s a false positive. That ended up being.
Basically, that’s what it’s going to happen, whether we like it or not, or if we try to turn our heads and think that if we don’t look at it, it might not happen.
I received some text messages from some players, basically out of frustration. ‘What do we do now?’ And then, ‘No. We do not. ‘Next, you have to convince them to give up and say,’ Remember, we talked about it a few months ago, and stay mentally strong, be mentally strong throughout the process and be able to spin? ‘ And she said, ‘Yes, but I still don’t feel well.’
I told them that you have to let the process run its course. We have a protocol that we must follow. It can be short and it can be long. We just have to be ready for that. That has been the season.