Dawn Staley speaks out powerfully on opportunities for black women in coaching
When South Carolina women's basketball faced No. 11 seed Buffalo in the Sweet 16 on Saturday, it marked the final meeting between two African-American female coaches in the NCAA tournament.
And while USC's Dawn Staley emerged from that contest the winner, Bulls head coach Felisha Legette-Jack made headlines too when she was asked about being an African-American female coach and whether she felt her team's surprising success highlighted the lack of people like her in leadership positions throughout the sport.
In response, Legette-Jack spoke powerfully about the lack of opportunities given to African-American women as coaches in a sport where most of the players are African-American themselves. She also pointed out that when they do get them, they often are only given one chance to be successful, and if they fail, they usually are not given another chance somewhere else.
Legette-Jack herself was a head coach at Indiana from 2006 to 2012, at which point she was fired. She has been at Buffalo since, and she pointed to her own success this season as proof that administrators need to take more second chances on minority coaches.
Legette-Jack's comments were widely circulated on social media, and on Sunday, Staley was asked about them.
"She nailed it," Staley said. "I think any time you're in this profession as an African-American woman, man, you have to be successful out the gate. If you're not successful, you have to go back, and fortunately for me, I didn't go through the ranks of being a grad assistant and assistant coach up through there. I was given an opportunity because somebody saw something in me that I didn't see in myself.
"But for other coaches who have assisted for so many years and got the opportunity, like Jolette Law who is on our staff, she was an assistant for, I don't know, 12 to 15 years, and then she got an opportunity at Illinois. It takes awhile to get a program off the ground, especially a doormat program, and people want you to be great, you know, from the start. It takes a very long time. It takes patience. It takes an AD that has that patience. When I got the job at South Carolina, the AD was Eric Hyman, and he was like, 'It's going to take you at least three years, at least three years.'
"I didn't believe him because I just feel like, if you work hard and you do things the right way, things are going to happen for you quickly. And he was very right because he knew what was there. I think when you take over a program, you know, you've got to know what's there.
"Basketball coaches, you've got to know what you're going into, and you can't think you're invincible to having bad seasons. It has to be the right fit and you have to have people in there who believe in you and have the patience enough to give you an opportunity, and if you fail — because most coaches have failed.
"If you looked at all the coaches, both black, white, you know, and any other ethnic group, they failed at some point. And they probably have gotten opportunities. Those things don't happen a lot for African-American coaches. But, you know, Felisha, she is probably the poster child for that, and I'm glad that she was given an opportunity to right the wrong, because nothing worse than losing a challenge and not being able to regroup and win that challenge.
"I hope that my success is a beacon of hope for other black coaches and also a beacon of hope to other ADs, to see that given an opportunity, you can win a National Championship like we did."
This story was originally published March 25, 2018 at 7:26 PM with the headline "Dawn Staley speaks out powerfully on opportunities for black women in coaching."