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Mary Wooley

Mary Wooley

In Summer 2022, Dawn Staley welcomed Mary Wooley back to her staff, on which she served three previous seasons as the director of recruiting operations. Wooley was hired as the program’s director of recruiting and strategy following a coaching career that includes 10 seasons as an assistant coach across four different teams. In July 2023, she was named an assistant coach.

After three seasons on the Gamecocks’ staff (2017-20), during which she organized the program’s recruiting efforts and helped land the top-ranked group in the Class of 2019, Wooley returned to the sidelines as an assistant coach at Villanova for two seasons. In her first season, the Wildcats reached the WNIT Round of 16 and built on that momentum in 2021-22 with a second-place finish in the Big East and a spot in the NCAA Sweet 16 behind a 24-9 overall record.

Just before her first stint in Columbia, Wooley was an assistant coach at Loyola (Md.) in 2016-17, following four seasons at Hawaii (2012-16), including the last three as the associate head coach. She helped the Rainbow Wahine to the postseason all four seasons of her tenure, including the 2016 NCAA Tournament after they won the Big West Conference Tournament. Wooley’s first coaching position came as an assistant coach at Southern Cal. In her three seasons in Los Angeles (2009-12), the Women of Troy went 61-37 overall and were the WNIT runner-up in 2010.

Wooley’s return to the Gamecock staff marks her third time working for Staley, who launched her career by hiring her at Temple as a graduate extern and director of basketball operations.

After Wooley’s own basketball career at USC Aiken closed with her 2002 graduation with a bachelor’s degree in experimental psychology, Staley welcomed her to the Temple staff (2003-09) as Wooley pursued her master’s in counseling psychology, which she completed in 2005. She served as the program’s director of basketball operations for three of the six seasons she was on Staley’s staff.