Sheila Foster, A’ja Wilson on our Mount Rushmore of Gamecocks. See who else made it
Creating a Mount Rushmore for the South Carolina women’s basketball program was not an easy task.
It’s hard to pick just four players from a program that has produced 56 All-SEC selections, 23 All-Americans, nine SEC player of the year awards and has five jersey retirements in its entire existence. How does one balance honoring the stars of the program’s early days while also acknowledging the very best players who have made South Carolina a perennial powerhouse in the last 10 years?
There are several combinations of players you could argue belong on the Mount Rushmore, and even more who were left out of the Top 14 (the likes of Allisha Gray and Aleighsa Welch) we chose for fans to vote from.
Here’s who we decided makes the Mount Rushmore, along with picks from someone close to the program, the fans and even ChatGPT.
Picks from the voice of the Gamecocks
Brad Muller has been the radio play-by-play announcer for South Carolina women’s basketball since 2007 and the director of content for South Carolina athletics since 2014. All that to say, Muller knows Gamecock women’s basketball.
Here is who he put on his Mount Rushmore:
- A’ja Wilson
- Aliyah Boston
- Tiffany Mitchell
- Denise Nanney White
And here’s his thought process: “You have to put A’ja Wilson and Aliyah Boston up there because they were national players of the year and led their teams to national championships,” Muller said. “But we had some great players before them. I think Tiffany Mitchell was the first superstar of the Dawn Staley era as she won multiple SEC player of the year awards and was literally ‘Superwoman.’ She has to be on there because without her and what she did, maybe USC doesn’t get to that level that attracted players like Wilson and Boston and everyone else.”
“I think you have to give a nod to the roots of USC women’s basketball with either Sheila Foster or Denise Nanney White,” Muller continued. “Denise (who also played softball) was one of the first 18 women that received an athletic scholarship to play sports at USC. ... Final answer: Wilson, Boston, Mitchell were the best players I saw play here, and Nanney gets in because a lot of her numbers still look good today.”
For those who don’t know, Nanney White played for South Carolina women’s basketball during its first three years as a varsity program from 1974-1977. She led the team in scoring and rebounding in each of her three seasons and averaged 17.8 points and 11.2 rebounds per game in her career. Nanney White is No. 9 in the program record book for career rebounds.
How the fans voted
The State asked you, the fans, help determine who should make the Mount Rushmore of South Carolina women’s basketball.
Fans were given a poll with 14 players and could vote for up to four as many times as they wanted. Those 14 players were: Katrina Anderson, Aliyah Boston, Kamilla Cardoso, Alaina Coates, Zia Cooke, Sheila Foster, Shaunzinski Gortman, Tyasha Harris, Shannon Johnson, Tiffany Mitchell, Martha Parker, Jocelyn Penn, Brantley Southers and A’ja Wilson.
With more than 3,000 individual ballots cast, here’s what the fans said:
- Sheila Foster
- A’ja Wilson
- Aliyah Boston
- Tiffany Mitchell
Foster received the most votes from the fans, followed by Wilson, Boston and Mitchell.
Parker was fifth among fan voting, with Cardoso finishing sixth.
The State’s picks
Here are The State’s choices for the Mount Rushmore of South Carolina women’s basketball:
- A’ja Wilson
- Aliyah Boston
- Sheila Foster
- Tiffany Mitchell
Ask anyone who the best women’s basketball player to come from South Carolina is, and they will almost certainly say A’ja Wilson, as she is largely responsible for taking the program to the height it’s at now.
The Columbia product decided to stay home and was the first No. 1 recruit to commit to the Gamecocks. Wilson was the program’s first four-time All-American and National Player of the Year (2018) and led the Gamecocks to their first SEC Tournament title (2015), Final Four appearance (2015) and national championship (2017).
She’s the program’s all-time leading scorer, was the first in league history to win SEC Player of the Year three times and still holds 22 program records. There’s a reason she has her jersey retired and has a statue outside Colonial Life Arena.
Boston’s success at South Carolina is only rivaled by that of Wilson’s. She was the cornerstone of the 2019 recruiting class Staley nicknamed the “Freshies.” South Carolina recorded a 129-9 record while Boston was on the roster and took three straight trips to the Final Four.
She helped deliver the program’s second national title in 2022. Boston was a four-time All-American, four-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year, four-time All-SEC honoree, two-time SEC Player of the Year, Wooden Award winner and Naismith Award winner. Staley (and others) have said Boston is the next in line for a jersey retirement and statue, even before she played her last game as a Gamecock.
Foster’s success as a Gamecock might be forgotten by some, simply because of the amount of success the program has had as a whole in the last decade. The Spartanburg product played at South Carolina from 1978 to 1982, meaning her senior season started the same year the NCAA started recognizing women’s sports.
Foster rewrote the program record book and held on to most of those records into the 21st century. She was the program’s all-time leading scorer until 2018 and held school records for career rebounds and career double-doubles until 2023. Foster was the program’s first multi-year All-American and the first woman in Gamecock athletics to have their jersey retired in 1982.
Mitchell was the first from the Staley era to have their jersey retired. She was the first Gamecock to win SEC Player of the Year (and did so twice) while also earning All-American honors three times.
Like Muller said, you can make the argument that without Mitchell’s success, Wilson doesn’t stay home, which could mean Boston doesn’t choose to follow in her footsteps.
Can you imagine what South Carolina would look like without those three program-transforming players? Neither can we.
Honorable mentions
There’s a solid framework to start with for a Mount Rushmore for South Carolina women’s basketball specifically: the five players with retired jerseys (Wilson, Mitchell, Parker, Foster and Shannon Johnson).
Parker and Johnson are our honorable mentions, and just because they’ve been left off the mountain doesn’t mean their careers weren’t legendary.
Parker was a three-time All-American and two-time Metro Conference Player of the Year. She started in 122 of the 124 games as a Gamecock and helped USC to three Metro Conference Championships and three NCAA Tournament appearances.
Johnson is South Carolina’s third-leading scorer of all time and is the only Gamecock to ever average 20-plus points per game for three straight seasons. She was an All-American and three-time All-SEC player.
Bonus picks from AI
The State asked ChatGPT for its own Mount Rushmore. Here’s what the AI tool came up with:
- A’ja Wilson
- Sheila Foster
- Aliyah Boston
- Shannon Johnson
- Honorable mentions: Tiffany Mitchell, Kamilla Cardoso, Laeticia Amihere and Zia Cooke.
This story was originally published June 19, 2025 at 12:53 PM.
