Dawn Staley talks USC’s seniors, NIL impact, Brittney Griner’s release and more

Dawn Staley is in her 23rd season as a women’s basketball head coach — her 15th with the University of South Carolina.

She’s coached the Gamecocks to two national championships with rosters that have produced eight WNBA players — so far. After this season, the team will likely lose key seniors to the professional level, while others will depart with their college eligibility expiring.

Over the years, she’s held a prominent voice on social justice topics and in the women’s basketball space as an advocate for the sport. Most recently, Staley’s been a vocal supporter of WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was detained in Russian prison since February on drug charges. Griner was released on Thursday in a prisoner swap.

The State’s Jeremiah Holloway sat down with Staley this past week to discuss the state of USC’s program, how she’ll address the departure of her most experienced players, her advocacy for Griner and more.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

The State: You set the team’s theme for this year, “DNA: dreams, nets and assets.” What’s the process of getting the theme together? Is it a collaborative process? Who ultimately has the final say with that?

Dawn Staley: Yeah, it is collaborative. It starts far out, and then it really starts heating up when we get closer to us having to reveal what it is. It took us a while to get to that place. But it’s collaborative. It’s Diana (Koval, communications director), it’s Ari (Moore, director of operations). We bring in our creative content people.

And it’s not like we sit down and meet about it. It’s just like, we all sometimes just are gathered in the same place and we’re just discussing it. And when it’s said, it’s like **taps table** that’s it.

TS: It just sticks?

Staley: It does. Sometimes, you’re so close to the situation that when someone else comes in and they say something about it, you actually know.

I still like mine. I probably like mine more than DNA. But it was too close to another company.

TS: What was yours gonna be?

Staley: “23 and We.” So it’s too close to 23 and Me. But it was all DNA-related.

TS: That motto does touch a little bit on the NIL (name, image and likeness) trend. You’ve spoken in a different interview about how, with NIL, it feels like a pro team in some ways. So with that, and also the way the players handle themselves — obviously they’ve won a championship before — would you say they carry a pro mindset along with them?

Staley: Yeah, I mean, they’re almost forced to, because pros are more than just basketball players. They’re thinking about their brand. They’re thinking about how they can complement the salaries that they have. And then they have to do things. They have to do things in their free time that, before NIL, they didn’t have to do. They have to schedule when and where they utilize their days off, doing deliverables for their NIL deals.

TS: One thing you talked about on media day, as a focus measure, you said you and your staff were practicing intermittent fasting at one point. Is that something you all are still doing?

Staley: I am, until I have to travel. When I travel, it throws me off.

TS: What’s that process like?

Staley: I just try to force myself to do things that I ask our players to do. Sacrifice some things. You get used to it. My hours to eat are 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. It’s eight hours on, 16 hours off.

So it’s good. It’s good to kind of force yourself to do some things that are different than your normal routine. Because sometimes, as athletes and coaches, we are creatures of habit. We like things a certain way. And sometimes, this allows you to pivot a little bit just in case you have to pivot. The world doesn’t revolve around your habits. Things come up and force you to do some other stuff.

TS: With this team two championships in, it’s become a staple in the city of Columbia. There have been a few names to come out of Columbia from a basketball standpoint. From your perspective, how important is basketball to the Columbia area?

Staley: I think is huge. I think our program has capitalized on us having local prospects that are attractive to the nation, like, all across the nation. We’ve been able to just keep them here, keep them home. And I think we’re able to do that because, one, we’re able to probably see them more than any other school. Two, we get to know who their parents are, who their friends are. We’re in their community, so we’re a part of their community.

They know us. Growing up, they know who we are. And I do think we present a program that oozes national attention and national championships. And we fit the profile of what a great program is from an attendance standpoint, from a marketing standpoint, from a likability standpoint and from a relationship standpoint. There aren’t too many programs that can offer what we can offer. And to do it close to home, it’s magnetic.

TS: As the program’s reached national prominence, I know you are someone that’s big on growing the game. Is that something that you ask of your players as well?

Staley: I don’t. I want them to draw their own perspectives of what they want from the game. I want to be an example of one way to do it. But I don’t push my agendas on them, at all. I want that to organically happen for them because it organically happened for me. And in their own right, they’re watching, they’re listening. They’re not always advocating, but I know they know. They’re knowledgeable about what’s happening in our sport.

TS: Since they are on that platform, how do you help them kind of maintain a focus as far as on the court? How do you think their approach is to that?

Staley: The core group of this team came in here with a business-like mentality. It just happened that way, where you didn’t really have to lead them. You didn’t really have to talk much about what our culture is, our chemistry. They formed it once they got here. Everybody else that came in really just gravitated towards the examples that they set.

Now next year, it’ll be a little different. But for this year, with the amount of seniors and grad transfers and grad students that are leaving our program, you take on a different culture, so to speak. We’re hoping our culture still stays the same as far as playing for each other, just being very business-like. We hope that still stays in place, but we’ll be a lot younger than we’ve ever been. The core group of our team will be more young than old. So we know that next year will bring different challenges, but we’re not fretting the challenges.

TS: With a lot of key players on the team potentially leaving, how early does the process start of preparing for their departures? From a culture standpoint, keeping that going, how do you prepare for losing players of their caliber?

Staley: Emotionally, I’m not really prepping. I just really appreciate. I am savoring all that they’ve been to our team. Everything. They’re low, low maintenance, like low. So I’m just going to savor it.

But I know it’s going to be a lot different, so I’m already thinking about it. There’s nothing you could do. Because each team takes on different characteristics. But this team has been one that it’s gone by how our most experienced players have created it. The 2019 class, they came in a lot more mature than most 18-year-olds, in Aliyah (Boston)‘s case, 17-year-old. So the more mature they are, the better we can function day to day. But if they don’t come in that way, like next year, it’s probably going to be a hit in the maturity department. So we’ll have to probably babysit a little bit more. We don’t mind that, because we are protectors of our peace.

TS: You’ve talked about it a lot for the last several months, but Brittney Griner being released through the prison swap. What does that mean to you that someone you’ve known for such a long time is free?

Staley: It means that the people who advocated for BG can be better advocates, for whatever they believe in. A lot of times what you advocate for, you don’t always get, and it dies. And you move on. The basketball community didn’t move on because we didn’t feel like the process was done right. Our U.S. government believed the same things, and they never stopped fighting for her.

And it also is proof that there is a God. To be able to be released from the throttle of the Russian government, the percentage of you being released from being in that captivity is slim to none. Slim to none. I know we’ve had another prisoner exchange over the past couple of months. But they just don’t happen very often. So just as the perfect storm happened 294 days ago, there was the perfect result that happened for Brittney. It took months for that to happen, but I do believe that God said on this day, “She will be released.”

He takes you through things and if you just keep the faith, he’ll see you through. Doesn’t mean you’re not gonna have another test, because Brittney’s gonna have another test, another life test that, hopefully, she’ll draw on that will push her through.