May 16, 2008

See all of Eric’s letters this year HERE.

If you weren’t there, I hope you have had a chance to view (via the web link on gamecocksonline.com – click HERE to see it for free) the press conference last Saturday in which Dawn Staley was introduced as South Carolina’s new women’s basketball coach. Dawn is a very modest person in spite of having achieved more success than anyone can imagine. Since she will never tell you these things unless you twist her arm, I want to share what made her such an incredible hire.

To me, one of the greatest accomplishments you can achieve is to carry the American flag at the Olympic games, because the Olympians themselves decide who they want to represent our country with this honor at the opening ceremonies. Dawn Staley was chosen to carry our country’s flag in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. That alone should tell you a lot about our new head coach. She is a three-time Olympic gold medalist athlete, will serve as an assistant coach in the 2008 Olympics, and will be a strong candidate to be the head coach in 2012.

En route to her coaching career, which began at Temple University in her hometown of Philadelphia, she was named national player of the year in high school, was a two-time collegiate national player of the year at Virginia and an all-star in the WNBA. These are just the highlights of her basketball career, which of course included many other awards.

At Temple, she did the impossible and took a small program without a lot of funds and turned it into a national program, taking her team to six NCAA Tournament berths. She compiled a coaching record of 172-80 in eight seasons for the Owls.

But as impressive as her basketball success is, she is also a winner off the court. In her hometown of Philadelphia and around the country, Coach Staley is known as much for her philanthropy as her basketball prowess. Beginning in 2007, the WNBA annually presents the Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award to the player who best exemplifies the characteristics of a leader in the community in which she works or lives. Staley heads the Dawn Staley Foundation, which is aimed at giving inner-city children positive input by sponsoring after-school programs, a three-hour focus on academics and athletics at the Hank Gathers Recreations Center, as well as summer leagues and fundraising activities.

In 2005, Staley was presented with Philadelphia’s prestigious Wanamaker Award, presented annually to the athlete, team or organization that has done the most to reflect credit upon Philadelphia and to the team or sport in which they excel. She is the only woman to ever win the award and is just the third individual to win the award twice. Staley received the Henry P. Iba Citizenship Award in 2007, an honor that is bestowed annually by the Rotary Club of Tulsa to the male and female athlete who has excelled in both his/her sport and in service to others.

We talked to some high-caliber people for our coaching position, but when it was all said and done, she was the best person for the job. There is a price for excellence. Here at the University of South Carolina we want to have excellence. We want to be great, not good.

I couldn’t be more excited to have a person like Dawn Staley represent the University of South Carolina. She is a wonderful role model for young women, not only at the University of South Carolina and in Columbia, but for the entire state of South Carolina and for that matter, around the world as she is known on an international level.

I hope you will welcome Dawn and her new staff into the Gamecock family with open arms.

The Game is On!

Eric Hyman