When Dawn Staley agreed with Sue Bird about narratives in women’s basketball

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley has been a prominent figure in women’s basketball for a long time, both as a player and a coach. She has witnessed the evolution of the sport and firmly believes there is enough space for every player and story to be heard.

In March 2023, Staley participated in an interview with sports reporter Taylor Rooks, engaging in a wide-ranging discussion about the state of the women’s game.

During the interview, Rooks referenced a quote from four-time WNBA champion Sue Bird, who remarked that women’s sports are often perceived as having a “pond” rather than an “ocean” of opportunity.

“Sue is completely right about that. I do feel like the narratives are created as such that we go to the other end of the spectrum,” Dawn Staley said (12:49). “We start hating on that one, that chosen one, and we shouldn’t do that.”

“I know our fan bases love to go Tit for Tat, but it’s not. There is room. We need to respect the whole spectrum of all the people that make our game great. There are so many people that make our game great.”

“We have so much dissension in our game that we can’t elevate. We need to join our voices together to make sure that we’re all getting our just due in this space.”

Dawn Staley believed South Carolina would have won the canceled 2020 championship

Dawn Staley confidently asserted that the 2020 NCAA national championship title was within South Carolina’s reach, but the COVID-19 pandemic unfortunately denied them the opportunity.

In an interview with Taylor Rooks, Staley elaborated on the potential of the 2019-20 Gamecocks squad, reflecting on what could have been a historic season:

“We were a victim in 2020, being the number one team in the country for the last nine weeks before COVID hit, and you wouldn’t know,” Staley said (7:36).

“I think we would have won a national championship. We were playing so much elevated and we just got better and better and better, and maybe that story would have been told if we had an NCAA tournament.”

The Gamecocks started 2019-20 at No. 8 in the preseason poll and quickly climbed to No. 1 by mid-January. They only had one loss in the SEC regular season and were the heavy favorites to cut down the nets in New Orleans before the pandemic canceled the tournament.

Had the tournament been played as scheduled, the Gamecocks would have likely added their second national title, having won their first in 2017. That would have brought South Carolina’s total to four NCAA championships, including titles in 2022 and 2024.