Staley, Gamecocks proud to represent U.S. this summer

Dawn Staley has spent half her life playing for the United States. It’s not just the three gold medals she won in the Olympics; she has drawers of gold medals from all of her international competitions.

It’s tiring. Time-consuming. Always the threat of getting hurt and jeopardizing a future.

And she would still never say no.

“I’ve never wanted to turn it down,” Staley said Monday. “Coach (Nikki) McCray and I are Olympians and we’ve played at the highest level. The experience of playing in the Olympic games is second to none.”

Staley and three of her players leave this week for international ball, each excited about what they’ll see and ready for what they can take from it and put into their current styles. Staley and sophomore A’ja Wilson leave Tuesday for a month-long sojourn in the FIBA U19 World Championships, while senior Tiffany Mitchell and junior Alaina Coates will represent the U.S. at the Pan Am Games in Toronto.

The quartet spoke Monday about the next few weeks, which will take them out of the country and put them against professional players. Staley and Wilson are quite familiar with the process, Mitchell got a taste of it last year and Coates is on her maiden voyage.

“I’m really excited,” Coates said. “Just being able to play against professionals from another country. One day I do want to be an Olympian. This is a small taste of what it could be like.”

Coates and Mitchell will be taking a relatively short trip. They’ll meet with Staley and Wilson at training camp in Colorado before they leave, but then head north of the border. The games are July 16-20 and the duo are hoping to win the States’ ninth gold medal, but first since 2007.

“I’m not really nervous,” Mitchell said. “I’m more so excited just to be able to play on another USA team. I think it’s always something, a pride thing, where you get to wear the country’s name across your chest.”

Staley will coach the U19 team with Wilson and several other holdovers from last summer’s gold medalist U18 team. Wilson, the team MVP last year, hopes to keep her game blossoming.

“Playing overseas really shows you how different basketball is, and it makes you look at basketball in a different perspective,” Wilson said. “It’s just a matter of putting a whole list of things down so I can chase it.”

The team travels to Spain from Colorado, then to Chekhov, Russia, for the finals July 18-26. Staley doesn’t want to put pressure on her team but realizes it’s unavoidable – like all USA basketball teams, anything less than a gold medal is failure. The U19 team has won five straight golds and has six overall.

It’s that desire and honor of being selected that has had every player Staley’s been around accept the invitation to play. There’s never been a case of declining due to worrying about an injury or wanting to relax over the summer.

“All the ones who have participated in USA basketball or any international team, we welcome them to do that,” Staley said. “They are the top level of international play. They don’t worry about getting hurt. They leave that worrying to the coaches.”

This story was originally published June 29, 2015 at 4:02 PM with the headline "Staley, Gamecocks proud to represent U.S. this summer."