Why Dawn Staley’s plans for sharing 2022 championship net has deep, personal meaning
The first time I became cognizant of being the only woman in a press box was when I was sitting between two men with two more on either side while covering high school baseball in Plainview, Texas in 2019.
Two years later, I couldn’t help but notice that I was the only Black woman reporter covering a charity golf event for Brian Mance, a former Clemson football player. In 2015, I got my first job in sports journalism at the Fairmont Sentinel, two hours south of the Minneapolis-based Target Center where South Carolina women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley fielded a question about the importance of diversity within newsrooms.
The aforementioned memories and other instances where I was the only person of my gender and race at my newspaper flooded my mind as she spoke.
“We bring a different perspective that, a lot of times, we’re not in the room,” she said, looking directly into the eyes of the Black journalist who presented the question. “Pretty much everybody could think the same way because that’s the way the system works. But the moment you bring a diverse person in the room, it’s a lot different than what the norm is.”
Within Staley’s local media corps in Columbia, to my knowledge, there are only two Black broadcast sports journalists covering the Gamecocks and none in print media. The deeper South Carolina got into the NCAA tournament, the number of journalists in general grew as more national outlets joined the ranks. One look around the media area in Target Center showed there could still be a few more voices of color, however.
Staley took a moment in her press conference after downing UConn for the national title to recognize the Black media members. She encouraged each to reach out to her so she could send them a piece of the championship net.
“Some of our Black journalists don’t get an opportunity to elevate,” said Staley, who also said she wants to send pieces of the net to Black male coaches. “So we’re going to try to cut this net up, give them a piece of it, and just hope that it will be something that they can utilize to advance in the area that their heart desires to in their field.”
While it might just be a piece of material to some, the significance of it runs much deeper for the woman believed to be the first Black head basketball coach to win multiple national championships.
“Moving forward, the net is going to represent something,” she said, “something in our game, something that will advance our game.”
Storing fragments of nets isn’t new to the Gamecocks mentor, either. Two years before the program’s first title in 2017, Staley had received a piece of the steel, nylon and polyester blended material from Carolyn Peck, who gave Staley a piece of the net she cut down with Purdue’s women’s basketball team in 1999. Peck, an example of why representation matters, led the Boilermakers to a 62-45 victory over Duke for the school’s first national championship in any sport while also becoming the first Black woman head coach to win it all.
Peck has since retired from coaching and was, ironically, part of the ESPN crew on the scene for the women’s basketball national championship Sunday night and interviewed Staley after the win. She sat and listened as Staley talked about the final piece of net she separated from the rim in 2017 after her Gamecocks took a 67-55 win over Mississippi State in Dallas for the program’s first national title.
While sitting at the podium five years later with another championship trophy in front of her, Staley pulled out that piece of the 2017 net. She’d been carrying it in a mesh bag throughout the tournament, but decided to put it in her pocket for safekeeping Sunday during the final game.
Even with a small percentage of Black journalists and Black men head basketball coaches, perhaps there won’t be enough net to go around. That doesn’t mean Staley isn’t going to give it her best try, though. With or without the offering, the sentiment remains.
Staley has never minded being a voice for her community, whether that be her geographical or racial community. Maybe both give her the boldness and fearlessness to speak her mind and advocate for marginalized groups she wants to spotlight.
On Sunday night, those groups were Black journalists and coaches. As a Black woman who primarily covers Clemson athletics — I can count on one hand how many women there are on that beat, and I am the one Black person — I’ll hold off on hitting Staley up, for now.
My time covering the Gamecocks started and ended with the NCAA tournament, so I’ll defer to WIS-TV sports director Rick Henry and WLTX sports anchor Chandler Mack, the two Black journalists who cover the Gamecocks in Columbia.
Still, Dawn Staley’s words about diversity within the newsroom ring true and are a constant reminder of how far we’ve come and still yet to go.
This story was originally published April 5, 2022 at 9:59 AM.
