Dawn Staley wins two big Coach of the Year awards for South Carolina’s dominant season

MINNEAPOLIS — Days after her South Carolina Gamecocks swept to a fourth Final Four, North Philadelphia’s Dawn Staley swept a pair of major coaching honors: the Naismith and U.S. Basketball Writers’ women’s Coach of the Year awards.

It’s the second time that Staley has won each award. She also swept them in 2020 after coaching South Carolina to a 32-1 record and the No. 1 ranking in the polls, but the pandemic forced the cancellation of that year’s NCAA Tournament. Staley is the only person to win the Naismith award as a player (1991 and ‘92) and as a coach.

“I’m happy for our players, I’m happy for our coaches that we can be recognized this way. Because you know that any time you get any kind of coach of the year award, it has everything to do with the staff. … They’re the ones working, up at 3 o’clock in the morning trying to figure out game plans, and it’s our director of basketball operations putting all this stuff together. And we only have to coach.”

Led by star forward Aliyah Boston and guards Zia Cooke and Destanni Henderson, South Carolina has a 33-2 record this season, including 12 wins over nationally ranked opponents — Connecticut, N.C. State, and Stanford among them — by an average of 13.5 points.

The Gamecocks won the Southeastern Conference regular season title, then were upset in the SEC Tournament championship game by Kentucky, 64-62. Their only other loss was at Missouri, 70-69, on Dec. 30, on an overtime buzzer-beater that’s been one of the season’s most viral moments.

That résumé landed South Carolina the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, and it romped to the Final Four with wins over Howard (79-21), Miami (Fla., 49-33), North Carolina (69-61), and a Cinderella in Creighton (80-50).

The Gamecocks have also been the No. 1-ranked team in the Associated Press’ Top 25 poll for the entire season.

» READ MORE: Call Dawn Staley a villain if you want. She’ll just keep winning. | Mike Jensen

Staley highlighted the importance of being a Black female coach at the top of women’s basketball, a group that is growing but remains not too big. Of the 65 head coaches in the five most prominent conferences, 12 are Black women.

“An award like this means that you’re lending hope to other Black coaches, because we don’t get as many opportunities to be put in this situation, to be this successful,” she said.

And of course, there are those North Philly roots that have grown to become world famous.

“When you’re from Philly, you have a really strong foundation, because you know that you’ve been through some things,” Staley said. “Because of that toughness and foundation, we fear nothing. … [It’s] fortunate for us it’s been on a national stage to perform in this way, so I’m super happy for what I represent and what my foundation is.”

She gave a shoutout to the late, legendary Temple men’s coach, John Chaney, who mentored her for many years.

“Coach Chaney was my foundation when I got into coaching,” Staley said. “He was the guy that I leaned on the most; he was the example that I had every single day because I never knew how to be a coach. … And he was unafraid to say things, to do things for the greater good of basketball and the greater good for his team. I wouldn’t be here without Coach.”

Sandwiched around Staley’s honor were two for Boston: the Naismith Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year awards.

“I just want to say thank you and congrats to all the finalists,” Boston said. “I think we made it really hard on them because everybody had a great season.”

The other finalists for the top honor were Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, Stanford’s Haley Jones, and Baylor’s NaLyssa Smith; and for the defensive honor, Stanford’s Cameron Brink, Northwestern’s Veronica Burton, and Georgia Tech’s Lorela Cubaj.

Staley said watching Boston get honored was “super cool, like being a dream merchant.”

» READ MORE: Dawn Staley signed a seven-year, $22.4 million extension with South Carolina last October

Among the luminaries saluting Staley for the awards was one of her former star players, A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces, who’s in town with the USA Basketball women’s national team for a training camp.

“There’s things that go [on] in that locker room that no one will ever know, but the little things that she does, she deserves coach of the year,” Wilson told The Inquirer. “A lot of people doubted her, a lot of people probably didn’t want her to get it, but she’s executed and she’s proven that she is the best this year. So I love that for her.”

Longtime college basketball TV analyst Debbie Antonelli, the award ceremony’s host (and a South Carolina resident), also praised Staley’s work.

“I have watched Dawn Staley from day one do what she has done, and it’s absolutely remarkable,” Antonelli said. “We couldn’t be in any better situation in our game than with your leadership. So thank you, and thank you for the way you conduct your program with your players.

At one point during her acceptance speech, Staley thanked “the committee, the academy, everybody,” but she couldn’t finish her sentence because the crowd had burst out in laughter at the Oscars reference.

Her story is far from finished yet, but it certainly could be Oscar-worthy some day.