Dawn Staley’s impact is reflected in coaches past and present

Her appreciation of the Black women who came before and her support of those who follow are proof that wins or losses won’t dictate her legacy. The opportunities created will.

By Owen Pence

It says everything about Dawn Staley that I’m equally compelled to write about her, win or lose. The numeric outcome is never the point; it’s the lives she’s changed.

The University of Connecticut defeated Staley’s South Carolina 82-59 in the National Championship game on Sunday. A deserving group of Huskies emphatically put their stamp on another wildly successful women’s NCAA Tournament.

Despite the loss, Staley’s reach, outlook, and legacy remain as profound as ever. Her words throughout March underscore a purview that aims to uplift all players, not just the select few who soak up the majority of coverage.

“There’s room for our game,” said Staley prior to Sunday’s contest, and her actions have always emphasized that reality.

To fully understand the immense impact of the Hall of Fame point guard from Philadelphia – winner of three National Championships as a coach and three Olympic gold medals as a player – one must scour the women’s basketball history books, turning back the page to another leader who helped inspire Staley’s own greatness.

Take a ride with me back to late March 1999, and fix your attention on Carolyn Peck. You might know Peck now as the deliverer of exceptional analysis on ESPN, but back in 1999, Peck had just pulled off the near-impossible: leading Purdue to its first NCAA Championship in just her second season as head coach of the Boilermakers.

Feats like this rarely happen with such celerity. Peck had studied for two seasons under the legendary Pat Summitt as an assistant at the University of Tennessee, then spent a year at the University of Kentucky before accepting a job at Purdue on Nell Fortner’s staff. After only one year as a Boilermaker assistant, she was offered the top job.

Peck was successful in her inaugural campaign (1997-1998), leading Purdue to the Elite Eight and drawing interest from the WNBA upstart Orlando Miracle. In what will become the throughline of this column, Peck considered others besides herself and decided to stay at Purdue for one more season, feeling she owed her players another shot at a Final Four berth.

It should take years – decades even – to build a title program. Peck did it in just two, cutting down the nets at just 33 years old after Purdue’s emphatic 62-45 trouncing of Duke.

I chose the words “cutting down the nets” over “hoisting the trophy” or “procuring a championship ring” intentionally. Cutting down the nets is a beautiful tradition unique to high school and college basketball. The process is cool – each player climbs a ladder placed underneath the hoop, takes scissors to nylon, turns to face an adoring crowd, energized with joyous exultation. The memento is cool, too – something other than a trophy or a ring, something that actually played a part in the triumph, now enshrined in a showcase or displayed proudly on a mantlepiece in a childhood home.

Remember the 1999 championship net. That’ll come into play shortly.

Despite her youthful standing, Peck understood the gravity of what she’d accomplished. She became the first Black women’s head coach to win a Division 1 NCAA Championship, and Purdue became the first Big Ten school to reign supreme in the sport.

In a recent video posted to the March Madness YouTube channel, Peck reminisced with Autumn Johnson on her glorious feat. She spoke of her role models – C. Vivian Stringer, Marian Washington, Marianna Freeman – upon whose shoulders she stood, who proved opportunity was all that was needed for Black women to win as head coaches at the highest level.

“I had an English teacher who taught me with outlines: You don’t have a one unless you’re going to have a two,” Peck recalled to Johnson.

You might have a guess as to who the “two” is in this metaphor.

Just one year after Purdue won it all, a point guard of high standing out of the University of Virginia accepted a side gig of sorts, as if her primary job running the show for the WNBA’s Charlotte Sting wasn’t enough. Dawn Staley had never dreamt of being a coach, and certainly not while she was in the prime of her playing career, but the challenge of turning around a hometown program was alluring. In 2000, Staley was named head coach of the Temple Owls, a role she would thrive in throughout the remainder of her WNBA career, which concluded in 2006.

Staley, having enjoyed an immensely successful eight-year run with the Owls, left Temple in 2008 to turn another program around. You might be a little more familiar with this story, one that takes place in Columbia, S.C., and changed the landscape of college basketball forever.

Now it’s 2015, and Staley has received a gift from Peck. It’s a piece of that 1999 net, along with a note reading, “You’re on your way. Keep this and when you get your own, you can give it back.”

Staley carried it in her wallet until she had indeed climbed the ladder herself, finally reaching the summit on April 2nd, 2017 behind the transcendent play of A’ja Wilson.

With the mission accomplished and the trophy secured, Staley returned Peck’s piece of the 1999 net.

On we move in this delightful time capsule to 2021, when Staley continued what Peck started, cutting up her entire 2017 championship net and sending a piece to every Black woman holding a head coaching position in Division 1. Adia Barnes, head coach of the University of Arizona, shared the Final Four stage with Staley that year.

“We must acknowledge when things look abnormal to the masses,” Staley told Sean Hurd of Andscape in 2021, “like having two Black head coaches in the Final Four or one Black head coach in the National Championship, until it becomes normal and all the masses want to do is acknowledge Black coaches for their great coaching prowess. That’s easier said than done, because it’s never been done.”

Finally, we land in 2025. It’s not the final game of the tournament I’m interested in, but one of the first. UConn ended up winning it all, but where did its March Madness journey begin? With a win over 15-seed Arkansas State, coached by Destinee Rogers, recipient of a slice of Staley’s 2017 net. Rogers led the Red Wolves to their first Sun Belt Tournament title last month with a miraculous 17-point comeback over James Madison.

Staley didn’t care that Rogers was just the interim head coach of Arkansas State back in 2021. A year later, the school made her full-time, making Rogers the first Black woman head coach in any sport at Arkansas State. Three years after that, Rogers was climbing her own ladder, taking her own pair of scissors to nylon, and turning to her own crowd in glee.

“I truly feel like I have an opportunity to be someone that could open the door for the next one, because if they see that I can do it, then they know that they can do it as well,” Rogers told SB Nation last month.

So, on the morning after a Dawn Staley team didn’t cut down a net, I want us all to appreciate how many wins Staley has played a part in that aren’t acknowledged on an ESPN ticker.

It’s seniors Bree Hall and Te-Hina Paopao sharing their deep love and appreciation for what Staley has built at South Carolina, a program that allows them to be themselves at all times – never shaming; always encouraging.

It’s all the former Gamecocks who show out every year – from A’ja Wilson and Allisha Gray to Aliyah Boston and Kamilla Cardoso – to support their alma mater, ever-connected to Staley as they pursue their WNBA-sized dreams.

It’s Rogers making history and continuing in the tradition of looking forward, hoping her achievement inspires others to pursue coaching careers in the sport.

The scoreboard might not have favored South Carolina on Sunday, but Dawn Staley is always winning.

Owen Pence is a freelance journalist covering women’s basketball. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, Star Tribune, SLAM Magazine, SB Nation, and elsewhere. He’s located in New York City.

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