A closer look at the WNBA, NBA clause in Dawn Staley’s new South Carolina contract
South Carolina’s Dawn Staley has often said that leading young people as a college basketball coach is her lifelong calling.
At the same time, USC’s decorated women’s basketball coach has also acknowledged that coaching in the NBA or WNBA would be an interesting challenge.
If Staley ever decides to take on that challenge, a clause within her newest contract at South Carolina would make leaving Columbia for the pros a lot simpler.
On Friday, South Carolina’s Board of Trustees approved a new six-year contract for Staley that makes her the highest-paid women’s basketball coach in the country.
Staley, a three-time national champion at USC, will earn $4 million over the first year of the deal and an additional $250,000 annually over every remaining year of her contract, topping out at $5.25 million in total salary (excluding bonuses) in 2029-30.
At the bottom of Staley’s contract term sheet given to The State, though, there’s an interesting tweak in the sections that discuss buyouts.
If Staley were to leave and terminate her contract, the document says, she would owe USC 100% of the remaining compensation left on her deal through 2030 — except in the instance of her taking a job coaching professionally in the NBA or the WNBA, as a head coach or an assistant coach in either league.
If that happens? She owes South Carolina nothing. That’s a new caveat that did not appear in the buyout section of Staley’s most recent contract, signed in 2021.
The specific language: “(I)f Coach terminates the Agreement in order to immediately accept employment as a Head Coach or Assistant Coach in the National Basketball Association (‘NBA’) or the Women’s National Basketball Association (‘WNBA’), she shall not be obligated to pay USC liquidated damages.”
Dawn Staley as a pro coach?
Staley, 54, is the winningest coach in South Carolina history and has led the Gamecocks to national championships in 2017, 2022 and 2024. Last year’s USC squad finished 38-0, recording only the 10th perfect season in the sport’s history.
Given her college coaching résumé — as well as her Olympic national team coaching experience, and her own excellent playing career at Virginia and in the WNBA — Staley is widely regarded as one of the top basketball minds in the country.
Naturally, that’s led to some NBA and WNBA interest. Staley made national news when she interviewed in May 2021 for the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers head coaching job, which ultimately went to former pro point guard Chauncey Billups.
Staley also revealed the NBA’s Washington Wizards reached out to her about their 2021 head coach opening but she declined to pursue the opening because, she told Vanity Fair, it’s important for teams to not treat hiring processes “like a publicity stunt.”
“I don’t want to be a number,” she told the magazine. “I don’t want to be a statistic. I don’t want to be a ‘check the box.’ Portland was pretty serious about it, and then everybody else — I don’t think it was that serious.”
After the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets had a job opening this past spring, there was an online push for Staley to be considered for the job or get an interview, something she acknowledged during a local radio interview.
Staley told the Charlotte station WFNZ she wasn’t interested in the job but would’ve accepted an interview request, had the Hornets asked, but only so she could help gather information for other women interviewing for NBA jobs, The State reported.
“My passion has always been young people,” Staley said in the interview. “I consider myself a ‘dream merchant’ for my players. And I really feel like this is my calling.”
Staley has not been publicly connected to any WNBA head coaching jobs.
In NBA history, no woman has ever served as a full-time head coach. Lisa Boyer, a current USC assistant coach, was the first woman to hold any sort of coaching position in the NBA, assisting the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2001-02.
Becky Hammon was the first woman to work as a full-time assistant coach, with the San Antonio Spurs, and interviewed for a number of NBA head coaching jobs. She’s been the coach of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces since 2022.
