In probably the most unique wing of the Naismith Hall of Fame, 5 folks take pleasure in double transcendence for his or her abilities in sneakers and with the whistle: Bill Sharman, John Wooden, Lenny Wilkens, Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Russell. That’s the record, all males. No lady has been inducted as a participant and once more as a coach.
Staley may retire tomorrow and get there. It must be inevitable. Assuming she stays energetic, she can be eligible for induction as a coach in 4 years, after her twenty sixth season in teaching. She was elected for her taking part in profession in 2013. If logic wins, she may have her clipboard immortalized much less than 15 years after her preliminary recognition.
It’s unprecedented to realize a lot lengthy earlier than turning 60. Staley’s plurality within the recreation quantities to a singular standing in historical past.
“Coach, she’s the GOAT,” South Carolina guard Zia Cooke mentioned, and though younger folks hand out the Greatest of All Time designation like napkins, Cooke spoke with a lot conviction it gave the impression to be novel reward.
Staley had little interest in teaching till she discovered herself so fascinated with the problem of constructing a program at Temple that she took the job whereas nonetheless taking part in within the WNBA. She was 30. The ultimate seven years of her taking part in profession coincided with the start of her run in teaching.
She made Temple a perennial NCAA match staff, after which she left Philadelphia, her hometown, for South Carolina in 2008. Now the Gamecocks are a constant top-10 staff, and so they have grown into one of many strongest manufacturers in girls’s basketball.
“That train is going,” Connecticut Coach Geno Auriemma mentioned of Staley’s program. “And it’s not going to stop as long as she’s there.”
As extraordinary as Staley was at operating a staff, her knack for operating a program is a fair better story. She’s forging a profession that already holds its personal subsequent to any girls’s coach not named Pat Summitt or Auriemma, and she or he did it whereas having to create an infrastructure for fulfillment at two very completely different faculties, all throughout a time of elevated parity within the sport. She didn’t arrive and dominate due to her identify. For all of the successful Staley has loved, South Carolina didn’t make its first Final Four till 2015, which was her seventh season in Columbia and her fifteenth in teaching.
She hasn’t taken the straightforward route. Unlike former gamers of her caliber, she hasn’t change into annoyed with the method and the shortcoming to easily take the basketball and impose her will.
“I’m a point guard,” Staley mentioned. “I’ve always looked at the game differently than a shooting guard or a post player. I’ve always been able to see the big picture, and I’ve carried that. It doesn’t matter if it’s basketball or if it’s just life. I’m a point guard, so we’re trained to see it all. We’re trained to see the big picture.”
Sometimes you possibly can nonetheless see the participant in Staley. She will inform tales. When taking pictures round, she is going to flip aggressive and settle for challenges. But whereas her staff employs a hard-nosed and defensive type that mirrors the way in which Staley performed, she’s not teaching to reside vicariously by her gamers. On the sideline, similar to on the courtroom, she’s all concerning the help.
She is real in eager to make folks better by basketball. It has been 34 years because the flashy flooring common from Philadelphia got here to Virginia to play for Coach Debbie Ryan. Over extra than three many years within the public eye, her management has remained a defining trait.
“I just try to meet people where they are,” Staley mentioned. “Not be judgmental. Just meet them where they are. Then I talk to them to figure out what they want, and then we figure out a plan to make that work. Sometimes when you work with young people, you let them talk. I’m not telling them what to do. I’m just listening to them.
“Then they’ll start asking questions. When they start asking questions, that’s when you can really move the chain. So I’ve done that with teams that I’ve played with as a point guard, and I’ve found my second skin in coaching.”
Staley retains joking about a untimely ending. At the Tokyo Olympics, she declared she wouldn’t return to guide the staff in 2024, however later she softened the Team USA retirement speak. On Saturday, when reminded that Auriemma and Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer are each 68, Staley declared, “I won’t be here at 68.” Then she laughed.
As a lot as she could not need to develop outdated in teaching, she is aware of her significance to the sport. She embraces all that comes with being probably the most outspoken voice for progress in girls’s hoops. She is aware of she receives extra than she offers, and she or he appreciates every thing about her blessed life in basketball. It’s loopy to her that two members of her first recruiting class at Temple now work on the South Carolina workers: Ariana Moore, particular assistant to the pinnacle coach, and Cynthia Jordan, director of basketball operations.
“My players are, like, my best friends now,” Staley mentioned. “It’s that type of relationship.”
When contemplating all of the elements, she isn’t shy about making the grand admission: Staley, the participant, may go together with the perfect who’ve ever dribbled. But Staley, the coach, is eclipsing her.
“I’m probably a better coach,” she mentioned. “Probably a better coach. I say that because I’ve had a longer career as a coach. That’s one. Two, I think my impact is far [greater]. Like, I can make more of an impact as a coach than I did as a player.
“So that’s your answer.”
She laughed and let the final little bit of her taking part in bravado go.