Dawn Staley on the legacy she hopes to leave: “My mother grew up in South Carolina. This was the 1940s and early ’50s. Segregation was still legal. Separate bathrooms. All of it. She left the South at the age of 13, seeking equality and opportunity. I think about her a lot … I think about what she made possible for me and maybe what I’m supposed to make possible for others. She left South Carolina because of the racial divide. I came back with a hope to bridge it.
I also know what me coaching here symbolizes in light of history. When I walk around different neighborhoods in this city, I’ll hear Black people say, “I had never been on that campus before coming to your game.” I understand that my success isn’t about championships — it’s about bringing together people who were once, and in some ways still are, divided. It’s bigger than basketball.
If I never won another championship but my legacy was that — to have changed the face of opportunity and united communities — I’d take tha...