COACHING WHILE BLACK
A three-time Olympic gold medalist, Dawn Michelle Staley is a Hall of Fame basketball player and coach who knows how to advocate for herself.
COLUMBIA, SC
Dawn Staley is a Hall of Fame basketball player and coach. She’s a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and carried the USA flag at the 2004 Olympics opening ceremony. She was voted in by fans as one of the Top 15 players in WNBA history, and elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. But her life wasn’t always like that.
“I’m an odds beater… I lived in the housing projects…. We made baskets out of crates, nailed it to a piece of wood and you got a backboard. My whole vision of happiness involved sports, and involved people.”
Dawn proved herself coaching at Temple University women's basketball team in 2000, and led them to six NCAA tournaments in six years. Despite her proven success, being the first black female coach at University of South Caroline meant breaking a racial barrier and delivering on expectations. She improved their record every year and won their first NCAA Women's Basketball National Championship in 2017.
There’s perhaps no more entrepreneurial employment position in any industry than to be an athletic coach. You make the plans, run the routines, and set the entire culture. Dawn is open about the self leadership and vision required to be a female African American coach. She knows how to advocate, inspire, and lead.
INTERVIEW
ROUND TABLE
DISCUSSION
Dawn says, “The biggest challenge you face is other people’s perception.” and that by being a female black coach she was “fighting against a history”. (4:30) It makes perfect sense that black female players should have black female coaches. Still even if your way of doing things or your new creation makes perfect sense, you’re still fighting against inertia and the status quo. Every creator deals with embedded assumptions, and so we must describe a new future.
Q: What are the assumptions you’re up against? How do you advocate for change?
Felisha says “It’s embedded in me that any day it’s gonna be our time to lead. Because we’re replaceable.” If you have no direct competitors then you’re irreplaceable, but you must advocate that just like a coach must advocate for themselves and their job. Winning championships is one way that coaches make themselves irreplaceable, what’s yours?
Q: What would make you and your work irreplaceable? How will you describe that to your audience?
Dawn says, “You have to be prepared for a lot of ‘no’s” And you can’t stop because it’s a no. You just have to figure out a way to get them to say hmmmm. Not yes, but hmmm.” (8:30)
Q: How can you get your audience to say hmmmm?