As South Carolina, Georgia Tech meet in Sweet 16, their coaches ‘forever have a bond’
Back in 1995, the U.S. women’s national basketball team embarked on an unprecedented experiment.
Instead of gathering over a smattering of weekends across the year and trying to develop chemistry on the fly, the 11-player roster and its coaching staff were assembled and proceeded to play together for months at a time. The WNBA didn’t exist at the start, and head coach Tara VanDerveer took a yearlong sabbatical from her job at Stanford so that the team could work essentially uninterrupted for more than a year in the run-up to the 1996 Olympic Games.
In such unique circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that the coaches and players became close. And on Sunday, two of them will meet once more, this time on opposite benches, when South Carolina plays Georgia Tech in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.
Dawn Staley, a point guard on that 1995 team and now the coach of the Gamecocks, and Nell Fortner, an assistant on the national team and now head coach of the Yellow Jackets, are still friendly.
“We forever have a bond, because we shared, in the year prior to us playing in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, we shared an entire 15 months just together. We had some domestic games, we had some international travels, and that team was pretty close. And we created that friendship through that,” Staley said Friday.
Staley and Fortner would win gold medals in 1996, then reunite in 2000 when Fortner was promoted to head coach of the national team and Staley returned for her second Olympics. Fortner still remembers the Americans’ first opponent, South Korea. The U.S. won 89-75, and the team was leaving the arena.
“I happened to be one of the first ones back on the bus to head back to our hotel,” Fortner recalled Friday. “And (Staley) got on the bus, probably the first player on the bus and she patted me on the back and she goes, ‘Coach, good job today.’ And it just really went a long way with me, because as a head coach in a stressful situation as coach to the Olympics, you don’t get a lot of pats on the back from people that really mean it. You know what I mean? Like, the players, sometimes you can have some contentious relationships with them, but not with this team, not with the Olympic team and Dawn was always very supportive and I always appreciated that.”
They would go on to win another gold medal in those Games, but Staley also remembered the pressure and said that deepened their relationship.
“You’re always going to have a strong connection when the goal is as big as it was, to win a gold medal. Today when I see Nell, I always talk to her. If I see her do well, I send her a text message,” Staley said.
On Sunday, they’ll get to exchange greetings in person before going head-to-head. At stake is No. 1 seed South Carolina’s fifth Elite Eight and first since 2018, while No. 5 seed Georgia Tech is seeking its first quarterfinals appearance. The Gamecocks are heavily favored — FiveThirtyEight gives USC an 89% chance of winning, Her Hoop Stats pegs that percentage at just under 92.
But that doesn’t change the mutual respect between the two coaches.
“The thing that’s most impressive to me about Dawn, and that’ll always stick in my head, is just how incredibly competitive she is, and I don’t care if it was on the basketball court or playing cards. It didn’t matter what it was, Dawn is extremely competitive,” Fortner said.
“What I remember is, I mean Nell’s pretty positive, she’s a pretty positive coach. She has a way of just always being positive, no matter how frustrated she gets,” Staley said.
The two women also share a passion for defending their sport — after unequal amenities and testing were revealed between the men’s and women’s tournaments, both coaches released scathing statements criticizing the NCAA.
“We share in being stewards of the game, and being ones that will want not just for this generation of players but for the next generation of players and coaches that so passionately love our game,” Staley said.
NEXT USC BASKETBALL GAME
What: NCAA tournament Sweet 16
Who: No. 1 seed South Carolina vs. No. 5 seed Georgia Tech
When: 1 p.m. Sunday
Where: Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas
Watch: ABC
This story was originally published March 27, 2021 at 10:30 AM.
