Dawn Staley’s coaching gets rave reviews

Sports Odds and Ends

South Carolina will retire Tiffany Mitchell’s jersey on Nov. 12. She is in her first season with the Minnesota Lynx, her eighth year in the WNBA. She was a first-round pick by Indiana (ninth overall) in 2016.

A two-time SEC Player of the Year (2014, 2015), Mitchell is the first player who played for Dawn Staley to have her jersey retired, and only the fourth Gamecock women’s basketball player with a retired jersey.

“For a player like Tiffany, who believed in Gamecock women’s basketball before we ever won a title, this is incredible. She paved the way for our team to become the best,” Staley told The Next, a women’s basketball news site.

Mitchell is among 14 players drafted by the WNBA in the Staley era. Ten are first-rounders. She joined other former Gamecocks who overwhelmingly heap praise on Staley, the Hall of Fame college and pro player who is the only Black coach (male or female) to win multiple national championships (2017 and in Minneapolis in 2022).

“I think she has definitely given us all the tools and the right mindset over the course of four years to make sure we are successful,” said Mitchell of Staley after a recent Lynx practice. She, along with other Black players who talked to us, noted that having the opportunity to play for a Black female coach was instrumental in their decision to attend South Carolina.

“I wanted to make sure I felt comfortable with that dynamic of being coached by a Black woman,” continued Mitchell. “I wanted someone that looked like me who did exactly what I wanted to do.”

“She had the approach, a motherly approach,” the veteran guard said of Staley. “We’re so young, 17 years old, leaving home.” As a result, Staley “raised” her and others from teenager to grown women, she said.

 Aliyah Boston, the 2023 overall pick, added, “I think she’s just helped me be the player that I am right now. Over the past four years she has been able to help guide my steps into what it is to be a pro, guide my habits.”

“I’m definitely excited to know that I was coached by somebody that will be here for the rest of my life, and I love her for that for sure,” said Zia Cooke, drafted by LA as the 10^th overall pick in April.

“Her knowledge is through the roof, so we trust everything she says,” added Brea Beal of Staley. Beal was drafted by the Lynx 24^th overall this spring.

Staley also doesn’t get enough credit for her overall impact not only on her players, but also on the women’s game, added Mitchell. Boston and Las Vegas’ A’Ja Wilson expressed similar sentiments at this year’s WNBA All-Star Game.

“She’s improved the game much more than what she did on the basketball court,” noted Mitchell. “I think she calls herself ‘the dream merchant.’ She makes other people’s dreams come true. And she has that ability to impact young kids at age 17 through 20, 21 years old.

“I think she does a great job,” concluded Mitchell. “She does definitely more good than bad.  She is a mother figure to me. Easy to talk to, very personable, down to earth.”