South Carolina, Dawn Staley adding former player to Gamecocks coaching staff

Thanks to an NCAA rule change, the South Carolina women’s basketball team is adding a fourth assistant coach — and she’s a well known Gamecocks alum.

Former USC point guard Khadijah Sessions is joining Dawn Staley’s staff, the program announced Thursday. Sessions’ hiring follows a rule change that went into effect July 1, allowing Division I women’s basketball programs to add two more assistant coaches. They were previously limited to three assistants.

“I’m super excited to be joining Coach Staley and the staff,” Sessions said in a release. “I gave every inch of me to this university as a player, and I’m ready to do the same as an assistant coach. I absolutely love the University of South Carolina, and to be doing this alongside the GOAT – I couldn’t ask for a better college start. Coaching is something I take pride in, and I’m just ready to get to work, learn and grow.”

Sessions played four seasons for the Gamecocks from 2013-16, helping South Carolina win five SEC regular-season/tournament titles and reach the first Final Four in program history. After graduation, she played overseas in Finland and for Team USA and Staley in the 2019 FIBA AmeriCup.

Since retiring, Sessions has worked as a private trainer and AAU coach in the Columbia area. She also spent two seasons as a Ridge View High School basketball coach, leading the JV boys team as head coach and working as a varsity boys assistant as the Blazers won the Class 5A championship in 2022.

Sessions joins associate head coach Lisa Boyer and assistant coaches Jolette Law and Winston Gandy as assistants for Staley’s 2023-24 team. Gandy, formerly of Duke, was hired earlier this year to replace longtime assistant Fred Chmiel, who accepted Bowling Green’s head coaching job.

Sessions’ duties will be slightly different than those three coaches, though. According to the NCAA, the additional coaches approved for women’s basketball by the Division I council in January “may engage in coaching activities but may not recruit off campus.”

Those rules will apply to Sessions in her new position, a team spokesperson confirmed to The State. South Carolina, if it chooses, could add a second assistant coach (and fifth total) with the same capabilities as Sessions

“There are few people who understand and embody what our program is about like Khadijah,” Staley said in a release. “From her vision and communication as a point guard to how she translated that into coaching at the high school level, she is ready for this move into the college ranks. I can’t wait to watch and help her develop in our sport.”

Sessions, a 5-foot-8 guard, was a Parade All-American and four-time South Carolina Basketball Coaches Association selection at Myrtle Beach High School.

After coming off the bench as a freshman, she started 97 of her last 101 games for USC, averaging 5.9 points, 2.1 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.4 steals per game. South Carolina won three SEC regular-season championships and two SEC Tournament championships during Sessions’ four seasons and reached the 2015 Final Four.

Sessions graduated from South Carolina fourth in career games played (134) and fifth in SEC games played (62). She also set a school record (since tied by others including Aliyah Boston and Brea Beal) for single-season games played with 37. Staley, in a tweet Thursday, described her as “the most energized, the most talkative, the most in your face defender that graced a Gamecock jersey.”

After graduating from USC in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in hospitality, restaurant, tourism management, Sessions played professionally for Kouvot, a professional team in Finland.

In retirement, Sessions has helped coach 10 players who’ve gone onto play college basketball. That includes former South Carolina standout GG Jackson, who overlapped with Sessions at Ridge View before going one-and-done with the Gamecocks in 2022-23. Jackson was drafted No. 45 overall by the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies last month.