What Dawn Staley said on GamecockCentral Takeover appearance on 107.5 The Game

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South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley joined the GamecockCentral Takeover Hour on 107.5 The Game Wednesday morning as a special guest, speaking on a number of topics about the national champion Gamecocks while also looking ahead to next season.

Below is Part 1 of a transcript of everything the three-time national champion coach had to say during the interview. Check back in for Part 2 on Friday.

On the whirlwind celebration over the last month…

It’s a good time, I will say that, it’s a really good time. You know, you often reflect on what I was doing last year this time and it was the complete opposite, so I’d rather have it this way, and exhaust myself celebrating than not.

On the mindset of putting the team before personal goals…

It takes just communicating with them, just I mean really directly and consistently, and you have to do it not only to them you got to do it to their parents, you got to do it to their trainers, you have to do it to everybody that really has or who plays an integral role in their lives. Because a lot of their supporters only see them and they only see their contributions and they don’t really worry — I mean they do worry about other people if they’re playing ahead of them or if they think they’re better than them.

So you have to explain to them that what their personal standard is, like their personal daily standard and that’s the only competition that you really need to be worried about — is you. And if you play to your standard and everybody plays to their standard then we got a big issue because I’ll have an issue as to who I play when and where. But if you let yourself down, then you leave room for somebody else who’s playing at their standard, you let them in on it, and it’s just that.

I know it sounds very simple but it is simple when you explain yourself that way and when your players really have that buy-in like you have someone like, I’ll say Sania Feagin, who I love to death, like she is I mean she’s the ultimate teammate, but she’s also a young person that really understands when she hasn’t lived up to her standard. And you see her playing time fluctuates. It didn’t, once it reached a point probably midway through the season she started just blocking everything out and just playing to her standard and she played an impactful, integral role on our run to the championship.

Like I could count on her, like I could trust her, and she built that through practice, and then she built that through the playing time that she did get and then she got extended playing time, and then she started one game.

I only have my word. I only have my word with our players and I try to stick to that as closely as possible, and if I don’t, then I’m explaining why. So I mean I’m fortunate, I’m blessed, I really am, like every coach doesn’t have the luxury that we have. Does it come with some heartache? Yes, I mean it’s hard to not play somebody that’s talented. But not so much as you know if they’re missing class or if they’re not communicating or if they’re not playing to their standard, it comes easy and they really understand that.

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On the growth of this team from start to finish…

I do think at times basketball repays you — it does. If you’re in it for the right reasons, you’ll take some losses that you don’t anticipate, i.e. last year. And then you get some wins that you don’t anticipate.

And for this team, when I reflect on where we started from in June and then you take June, July — I mean we we were afraid to allow them to go home. Because somehow the school, like our schedule is set up now that they get three weeks off in between the last summer session and when we start back in the fall. And it’s never been (like that), it’s been about 10 days for the most part, but now it’s three weeks, so everything that we built, and then we had to build it from the ground up because they did not come in shape as a whole (initially). And so I’m thinking we’re going to have to start back over (again) in August and then they came in back in pretty decent shape.

And then you don’t really know how good you are because you’re really so close to the situation and we again lucked up on having a really good Highlighter, our male practice squad, so you really couldn’t gauge how good we were until the first game, and then you didn’t want to believe how good we were because what you had been through since June. And then I just thought Paris was the game in which our team — not necessarily our coaches — I would just say our players, really found how good they could be.

And then from that game on, they just started holding each other accountable. Like their competitive spirit came out in a number of different ways and through a number of different players. Like Ashlyn (Watkins) found her voice and her leadership voice. But it came through just being competitive and not wanting to lose. And each and every person took a turn in leading our group. The things that they said to each other, the accountability they held each other to, I mean, it was really beautiful.

Because usually we have to do some life skills stuff, and we did do some of that. Like one of our former players, Markeshia Grant, has a life skills business. So we wanted to give her some business while also just getting this team to get together once a month. And it was nothing like dynamic, it was more like they did some number painting, and they had fun. Like I think they’re going to be bored with it, and I’m just trying to give Markeshia an opportunity to work with our team because she’s done some great things in the community. So we wanted to allow her to bless us with her skill work and hopefully, the team can get a little tighter with it.

And with every session of hers, with every game of ours, they just found a way to like each other, to love each other. And then it was organic. It happened just like organic. And there’s nothing that you can take from that. When chemistry is built from an organic place and a genuine place, you just really ride the wave as coaches.

On if you could have ever imagined the program would have this much success when she landed the job…

No. I really — like, my cup runneth over when it comes to the success that we’ve had. Although you work for it, you know. You really, we put in a lot of work for the type of success that we’ve had, but everybody does. A lot of people work really hard, and they don’t get one. We’re very fortunate to get three.

And you have to, again, reflect on the type of players, the type of parents. The type of FAMS. The type of administrators. Like, we can’t be as successful as we’ve been without the help from all those entities.

Because you can actually, as administrators, you can do some things that will damper your workplace, and you can damper the spirit of people who are in the workplace, you can have fans who, they can pick apart our flaws. They cannot like the makeup of our team and not show us the love that they’ve given us. I mean, we’ve had great players come and great players go. And although sometimes that leads people to put a dark cloud over our program, but we’ve been able to survive it.

And we’ve been able to survive it because ultimately, I just want, and not just me, but our coaching staff, we just want young people to be successful. So everything we do is for their success. Sometimes that’s believable. Sometimes it’s not. But I think if you judge us off of our body of work, and that’s what you have to judge someone off of. Not one bad day, not one great day, but the body of work. And our body of work speaks to just really having good people and treating our players with the ultimate respect. And that’s it. We’ve treated people well.

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