Former local standout, Gamecock great gets first head coaching opportunity

Asia Dozier was like a coach when she played on the floor for Dawn Staley at South Carolina.

Now, Dozier will have that chance as Legion Collegiate Academy hired her to be the school’s first girls’ basketball coach. The charter school, located in Rock Hill, will open next fall.

Legion is a sister school of Gray Collegiate and Oceanside Collegiate and will compete in the South Carolina High School League once the two-year acclimation period ends.

“It means a whole lot and I’m extremely grateful to have a chance to pursue a career and intertwine my passion and purpose,” Dozier said Friday. “Coaching is something I have been longing to do even during my career even when I was a player.”

“I just always take things from Staley and her coaching brilliance. First coaching job with (Amanda) Butler helped prepare me. I know this is my first coaching job but I have been prepared for it for a long time.”

Dozier spent a half of 2016 as a grad assistant at Florida with Amanda Butler, who is now the coach at Clemson. Staley, who coached her for four years at USC, had high praise of her former player.

“Great hire,” Staley said in a release by the school. “Asia was coach-like when she played here at the University of South Carolina, and I think Legion got a steal in her. She is always thinking. She’s always been a cerebral player. Now she gets to put all those thoughts in her head into a young person, and I’m super proud of her.”

Dozier will have to wait a bit to see who her players will be. Enrollment at Legion ends in April and will go from there to see who she will be working with. She said being able to start a program from the ground up is a plus and also thanked Legion athletic director Strait Herron and principal TK Kennedy for letting get her coaching career going.

“I can build the program from ground up and do it my way,” Dozier said. “Create my own culture and that is something that I learned from coach Butler and model it after that. Plus, take what I learned from coach Staley and mix it in with own style.”

Dozier follows in the footsteps of her father Perry, who is the head boys coach at Spring Valley. Her brother PJ plays with the Maine RedClaws, the G-League affiliate of Boston Celtics. Asia spent last year in Oklahoma with her brother while he played on the G-League team with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Asia was SC Gatorade Player of the Year coming out of Spring Valley High School in 2012. She helped the Vikings to back-to-back state titles her final two years.

At USC, Dozier served as a team captain and finished sixth on the record list for games played with 131. She holds the USC single season record for games played with 37 in 2014-15.

“Asia is very passionate about the opportunity to help young people and begin a successful coaching career,” Herron said. “She played for one of the best at USC in head coach Dawn Staley and has learned what it takes to be a successful coach. It impressed me that Asia has given private lessons to players in the past, free of charge because she wanted to help them reach their goals.”