A’ja Wilson fires back at criticisms of Dawn Staley’s recruiting
As South Carolina women’s basketball legend A’ja Wilson prepares for the start of an abbreviated WNBA season inside a “bubble” in Bradenton, Florida, she took to The Players’ Tribune on Monday to release an essay titled “Dear Black Girls.”
In the essay, Wilson, the unanimous 2018 national player of the year, hits on a number of topics, including a racist incident when she was growing up in Hopkins, South Carolina, the numerous challenges facing Black women in society and encouragement for young Black women to make an impact.
And in discussing those issues, she also brought up her college coach, Dawn Staley.
Calling Staley the “ultimate boss,” Wilson wrote that in spite of all Staley’s accomplishments as a player and coach — three Olympic gold medals, six WNBA All-Star selections, an NCAA championship — her credentials are still sometimes challenged.
“If you’re a Black woman in this country, especially in the South?” Wilson wrote. “It’s always this vibe of, ‘I’m going to tell the real boss on you.’”
As an example, Wilson cited the Gamecocks’ run to a national title in 2017, the first in program history. In the wake of that historic championship, Wilson said, criticism quickly started coming in from some corners of social media: “Coach Staley doesn’t recruit white players. Why doesn’t she recruit our white girls?”
“You had a team of 12 Black girls working their tails off. No, working their a---- off. To achieve history. Under a Black female head coach,” Wilson wrote. “And it still felt like a significant part of our community didn’t want to celebrate it fully.”
Staley’s rosters at South Carolina have been predominantly Black. The roster for the 2020-21 season features predominantly but not exclusively Black student-athletes. Across all of NCAA Division I women’s basketball, at least 45% of players have been Black since at least 2012.
Staley has pushed for more Black women to be hired as head coaches in the sport, saying Black players need role models who look like them and share their experiences. In 2019, just 17% of head coaches at the Division I level were Black women.
Wilson also mentioned the 2019-20 Gamecock team as an example of unequal treatment for Black women. South Carolina finished the season, which ended early because of the coronavirus pandemic, with a 32-1 record and No. 1 national ranking. Staley and her team were widely expected to be the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament and favored to make another title run.
“Where were the 32–1 South Carolina Gamecocks on SportsCenter?” Wilson wrote. “Where were all those Black women in your feed? So many people in America want to tell you, “Oh, just work hard and — actually — it’s all an even playing field!
“32–1. No 1. ranked. Where were those women?
“Yeah. You know what it is. We still got a long way to go.”
Wilson’s critique echoes some made by Staley, who expressed unhappiness on multiple occasions about the lack of attention she felt her top-ranked squad received during the season.
To read Wilson’s full essay on The Players’ Tribune, click here.
This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 1:34 PM.
