On Saturday night, the South Carolina women’s basketball team gave head coach Dawn Staley a special Valentine’s Day gift with a 79-72 victory over heated rival LSU in a thrilling game in Baton Rouge.
The win by no.3 South Carolina over no.6 LSU continues an incredible streak of dominance by the Gamecocks, who haven’t lost to the Tigers since 2012 (18 straight games). In addition, Staley is now 6-0 vs LSU head coach Kim Mulkey since the latter arrived in Baton Rouge after leaving Baylor.
But most impressive is that the win gave Staley her 500th career victory as the Gamecock’s head coach.
Since arriving at South Carolina in 2008, Staley has built the program into a national powerhouse.
She has an overall program record of 500-112, a ridiculous winning percentage of almost 82%, 9 regular season SEC titles, 9 Conference Tournament titles, 15 NCAA Tournament appearances and 3 NCAA Championships (2016-17, 2021-22, 2023-24).
She might have added a fourth in the 2019-20 season if Covid hadn’t prevented the NCAA Tournament from being played (the Gamecocks were ranked no.1 at the time with a 32-1 record).
Her success is why South Carolina rewarded her with not one but two history-making contracts.
The first came in 2021 when she signed a seven-year, $22.4 million deal, making her, per the school, the “the highest paid African-American head coach in her sport and one of the highest paid women’s basketball coaches in the country.”
Four years later in January 2025, Staley signed a contract extension with the school through the 2029-30 season that made her the highest-paid coach in women’s basketball, leapfrogging Mulkey, who was the highest paid coach in women’s basketball at the time.
“The Gamecocks are one of five programs to have at least three NCAA Women’s Basketball National Championships, and they are one of two programs to have put together multiple 40-game win streaks,” wrote South Carolina when announcing her extension.
Staley’s greatness is evident both on and off the court.
She’s one of the greatest coaches and recruiters women’s basketball has seen.
Staley has won five National Coach of the Year awards and is the first former Naismith Player of the Year to win the Naismith Coach of the Year award. Even more impressively, she’s the first men’s or women’s coach to win the award in three straight seasons (2022-2024).
Her three NCAA titles puts her in fourth on the all-time NCAA women’s basketball titles by a coach behind UConn’s Geno Auriemma (12), Tennessee’s Pat Summitt (8) and LSU’s Kim Mulkey (4).
Off the court, Staley is vocal about her beliefs. She has spoken out against racism, battled critics of women’s sports, fought for more Black women in coaching and is a big supporter of HBCUs and anything else close to her heart.
Before this month’s Super Bowl, she even wore the jersey of Seattle Seahawks rookie safety Nick Emmanwori, who played for the South Carolina Gamecocks and is the boyfriend of current Gamecocks basketball star guard, Raven Johnson.
Staley understands her power and the responsibility she has.
“I’m very aware of what my success represents. I’m also very aware of what my failure would represent.” wrote Staley in her story for The Player’s Tribune in 2018.
In her almost three decades long coaching career, Staley has only three losing seasons (one at Temple at two at South Carolina); her last came in her second season at South Carolina in 2009-10.
16 years and 500 wins later, all she’s done is win.
