A new book? Why now was right time for Dawn Staley to become an author
Dawn Staley can now add being an author to her deep bag of tricks.
The South Carolina women’s basketball head coach took to social media Friday morning to unveil her book, “Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three.” It will be available on May 20.
The book recounts Staley’s journey from growing up in the Philadelphia projects to a career in basketball that saw her become a three-time Olympic gold medalist, five-time WNBA All-Star, three-time NCAA champion at South Carolina and all the lessons she learned along the way.
Staley is at the height of her coaching career. So why write a book now?
“One, I just got tired of people asking me,” Staley joked.
“Two, I had to do it before I forgot everything. Three, I think the season that we had last year made me really thankful of what I described as an uncommon favor career. I think it was just only fitting to just kind of put that in context of my life and share it with people.”
South Carolina is coming off a 38-0 season last year that saw the Gamecocks win their third national championship in program history. The Gamecocks are currently 24-3 after beating Arkansas on Thursday night and will play against Sunday at Vanderbilt.
Staley joked with the media Friday that writing the book made her “mentally exhausted,” a feeling she typically only likes to feel after winning a game.
“Writing the book you got to think about a lot of things, who were the characters that played, and sometimes you lose that in just getting older,” Staley said. “But the good stuff is in it. The stuff that I really think was impactful to my life. Just starting out growing up in North Philly in the projects. Everything has a correlation back to that, everything has a correlation back to my mother. Everything has a correlation to the successes just because the foundation that I’ve had.”
Staley’s book is published by Black Privilege Publishing, an imprint of Atria Books.
“We are honored to have acquired Dawn Staley’s debut book at Black Privilege Publishing,” Jonathan Karp, chief executive officer of Simon & Schuster, said in a news release. “Beyond her extraordinary accomplishments as a player and a coach, she is known as an inspiring and exemplary leader. The same winning insights that have produced championship teams will benefit generations of readers.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2025 at 7:45 AM.
