The city of Columbia, South Carolina, honored South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley with her very own statue this week, reflecting the three-time national champion leader's legacy as a change-maker in women's college basketball.
The 14-foot bronze likeness, which sits just next to the university's alumni center, reflects Staley's championship prowess, with the statue showing the coach on a ladder holding a cut-down basketball net.
"This statue is a tribute, but it really doesn't encompass what she's delivered for us as a community, what she's done for women’s sports, what she's done for young people, especially young women,” Columbia mayor Daniel Rickenmann told reporters before Wednesday's ceremony.
A legendary coaching resume
After her decorated pro career, the six-time WNBA All-Star and three-time Olympic gold medalist took over the South Carolina coaching job in 2008, building the program into the behemoth it is today.
To date, Staley has led the Gamecocks to nine SEC regular-season titles and nine conference tournament crowns as well as seven Final Fours — including appearances in the last five NCAA tournament semifinals.
The four-time National Coach of the Year is far from done, though.
Staley, who turns 55 years old on Sunday, inked a contract in January to remain with South Carolina through the 2029/30 NCAA season.
That blockbuster deal — worth over $25 million — makes her the highest paid women's college basketball coach in history.
Staley agreed to statue to increase representation
Staley's statue now joins one of former star player and now reigning three-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson, who saw her own likeness installed outside Colonial Life Arena in 2021.
Though initially opposed to becoming a bronze sculpture, Staley later acquiesced to the honor in order to boost the currently low numbers of US statues depicting women, particularly Black women.
"I agreed to the statue not for me, but for the girl who will walk by one day and wonder who I was," Staley said at the Wednesday unveiling. "Maybe she'll look me up. She'll see that I did some things in basketball, of course — but I hope she sees much more."
"I hope she sees that I was a champion for equity and equality. That in my own way, I pushed for change... not as someone perfect or extraordinary, but as a regular girl who used her gifts to open doors so other girls wouldn't have to knock as hard."
