As long as Dawn Staley is in Columbia, the foot must remain on the pedal

Scott Davis has followed South Carolina athletics for over 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. He writes a weekly newsletter year-round (the following is his most recent) and a column during football season that’s published on GamecockCentral.com. To receive Scott’s newsletter every Friday, sign up here.

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The following newsletter was published Friday morning, prior to the announcement of Dawn Staley’s contract extension. To receive Scott’s newsletter every Friday, sign up here.

I keep thinking there will eventually have to be a ho-hum season in the mix.

You probably do, too.

The dominance can’t last forever, can it? Can it?

It’s not that any of us would ever doubt Dawn Staley. I mean, how could we? If there’s one South Carolina coach and program that we absolutely know we can count on no matter what, it’s Dawn and the Gamecock women’s basketball team.

Any Dawn-led squad is going to be stocked with great players, will compete hard every time out and will win some ballgames against the sport’s top programs. That’s a given.

But even legends have an off year from time to time. True, an off year for Staley would probably be something like – oh, I don’t know – not winning the SEC regular season title, finishing 25-7, getting into the NCAA Tournament as a mid-range seed and then making a spirited run before falling in the Sweet Sixteen.

So when we’re talking about a ho-hum season, that’s what we’d probably be thinking: Not winning the SEC and not making the Final Four. Look, it happens, even to the great ones.

But as January grinds on, this coach and this program are doing what they always do…again. They’re facing the best teams in the league (and the nation) and teaching them the art of championship-level basketball.

In recent days, the Gamecocks laid waste to the state of Texas, first dismantling Texas A&M before facing the Texas Longhorns in what was billed as a monumental Top 5 showdown at Colonial Life Arena on Sunday.

South Carolina had spent much of the young season holding the top spot in the NET rankings – which help to seed teams for the NCAA Tournament – before the Longhorns claimed the No. 1 slot coming into the game in Columbia.

On cue, the Gamecocks reminded the computers who’s boss, destroying Texas 67-50 in a game that didn’t feel that close. Nothing but NET, right? On Thursday, the team traveled to Tuscaloosa for yet another Top 25 battle with Alabama. Surprise, surprise: They again won with relative ease, dispatching the Tide 76-58.

Looks like the off year will have to wait. This team has other plans.

But we should have expected that by now.

Buckle Up, We’re Speeding Towards March

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Every sports fan knows the feeling.

You watch your team play for a few weeks early in a season, and you see what you have to work with, and you experience the wins and losses, and without even knowing it, something starts clicking inside your mind and your heart. You begin to mentally brace yourself for what’s to come.

You always support your team, and you’ll hang in there until the end, of course. But we can be honest with each other. There are some years where you realize early on: I won’t need to be quite as invested this season.

You always care…but there are definitely years when it’s almost like you subconsciously let your foot off an imaginary gas pedal that controls your emotions.

With Dawn Staley as your coach, you can never let your foot off the gas. You always care. Staley’s teams force you to stay invested. There’s always the possibility that a championship season is unfolding before your eyes, right now.

Last season, I was fully prepared to let my foot off the emotional gas pedal. If ever there was a year, that had to be it, right?

After completing a dramatic years-long run with the vaunted “Freshies,” the Gamecocks had essentially handed over their starting lineup to the WNBA, even losing one of the greatest players in SEC history in Aliyah Boston.

Though I knew they’d still be in the mix for the SEC title and would likely wind up making a proud run in the Big Dance, nothing could have ever prepared me for what ended up happening.

Perfection ended up happening.

The team brushed their shoulders off and casually went 38-0, won the school’s third national championship, helped set viewership records for women’s basketball, and denied Iowa’s Caitlin Clark a title.

As long as Dawn is in Columbia, the foot must remain on the pedal. Forever.

That’s why nothing changed for any of us when the Gamecocks finally did the unthinkable and actually lost a basketball game earlier this year on the road at UCLA (which is undefeated and currently ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25).

We knew everything was still on the table. Right now, in 2025.

And so it is.

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

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For the past four or five years, every time football concludes and we find ourselves deep into another basketball season, I’ve wound up writing a column that could essentially be described thusly.

Folks, are we really and truly appreciating what we have with Dawn Staley? Do we realize what’s actually happening here?

I plan to keep writing it every year, hopefully for the rest of my life.

Dawn is the coach we were waiting for during all those decades we spent wondering if our hopes and dreams for South Carolina sports could ever come true.

For heaven’s sake, even Ray Tanner had a season or two when we could ease off the emotional gas pedal.

And as for Gamecock football? Let’s just say there were plenty of years – and maybe even some entire decades – when we could not only take our foot off the pedal but slam the brakes, park the car and throw the keys into a ditch.

With Dawn, we must always remain emotionally locked and loaded, must always expect the impossible to become possible. Often enough, it does.

The late football coach Bum Phillips once said of Bear Bryant, “He could take his and beat yours, and he could take yours and beat his.”

In other words, the Bear could switch rosters with you and still beat you. It didn’t really matter who was suiting up for Bryant’s teams – whoever it was would be victorious when it was all said and done.

And that’s the way it’s starting to feel with Dawn Staley, if it didn’t already.

Staley watched A’ja Wilson – so important to the program that a statue of her stands outside Colonial Life – leave for the WNBA, and then she won another title. She watched Boston and the Freshies depart, and then she won another title.

After last year, the team’s best player – Kamilla Cardoso – became the third pick in the WNBA Draft, and not long after this season got underway, the program lost Ashlyn Watkins to a season-ending injury. But why would we expect the run to end now?

With Dawn, the run lasts forever.

So let your emotions run free, my friends. All gas, no brakes, all the way into March.

Tell me what you think about South Carolina’s chances for making another title run by writing me at [email protected].

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