Dawn Staley makes history on SLAM 250 cover

Philadelphia’s Dawn Staley became the first coach to become a SLAM Magazine cover star on its 250th issue, which dropped Thursday.

In the past, several coaches have been featured on the cover alongside a player — including Staley, who featured alongside her South Carolina players, Aliyah Boston, Zia Cooke, and Destanni Henderson in 2022 — but Staley’s is the first cover to feature a coach alone.

Former Gamecock A’ja Wilson gave a sneak peek of the cover before Wednesday’s Las Vegas Aces game, wearing the design on a T-shirt.

Staley discussed in the cover story how she went from Virginia, to the WNBA, to Temple, to South Carolina, and the Olympics.

“I want my legacy to be an ‘odds beater,’” the North Philly native told the magazine. “I am an odds beater. The odds said that I wouldn’t be an Olympian, I wouldn’t be the head coach of an Olympic team. To have coached 24 years in this game, I know that I don’t care about a personal legacy. I want to let my players talk about the legacy that they were able to feel every day from our coaching staff. I don’t have to say anything, they say it. Historically speaking, you don’t really hear my name as being a great coach, whether it’s X-ing and O-ing. I’m probably known to be a player’s coach, whatever that means. But to win three national championships, to not be an X and O coach and only be a player’s coach, I think we’re doing pretty good.”

But Staley, who’s won three national titles as a coach, an Olympic gold medal, and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a player, has one more goal she still wants to achieve.

“Selfishly, it’s just one thing that I wanted out of this game: I wanted to be a Hall of Famer,” Staley said in the cover story. “So I went in in 2013 as a player. Now, I do want to go in as a coach.”

Copies of the magazine are available online, along with T-shirts featuring the cover.