Dawn Staley is the ruling Queen of women’s college basketball
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez
It’s Black Women’s history month in my book, and I decided to pay tribute today to a phenomenal Black woman in the world of my favorite sport — women’s college basketball. I’m a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) fan as well, and South Carolina Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley has been part of both.
I was delighted to see this tweet from our MVP Kamala Harris acknowledging Staley’s being named SEC Couch of the year, for the third time in a row:
For those of you who don’t follow sports, or perhaps not basketball, or women’s basketball, here’s her bio from the Pennsylvania Center for the Book
Dawn Staley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 4, 1970. She grew up in the projects at the corner of Diamond Avenue and 25th Street in North Philadelphia. Staley is one of five children; her siblings include Tracey, Lawrence, Anthony, and Eric. Their parents, Estelle and Clarence, wanted all of their children to be successful and they believed a good education was the key to a life outside of the projects. Growing up Dawn lived on the basketball court. She played with the boys and, after they realized she had talent, she was given the respect she deserved. By associating herself with guys that were bigger and stronger than her, she felt confident when she stepped on the court to play with girls. The experiences she had throughout her childhood greatly helped her when she entered high school in 1986 at Dobbins Tech. As a sophomore Dawn earned a starting spot on the basketball team. She led the team to three straight public league championships and her senior year she was named USA Today's National High School Player of the Year. Her skill and ability to pass the ball were qualities colleges were looking for in their next starting guard. Many scholarships were offered to Staley, but in the end she chose to be a Cavalier at the University of Virginia (UVA).
From 1989 to 1992, Dawn Staley starred as a Cavalier guard. She led her team to a 110-21 record over four years and went to four National College Athletic Association (NCAA) tournaments. Three of those resulted in Final Four appearances and one visit to the National Championship. Staley achieved many awards over her four years of college, which included Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Rookie of the Year in 1989, Sports Illustrated Player of the Year in 1991, ACC Player of the Year in 1991 and 1992, and National Player of the Year in 1991 and 1992. She is also a three-time All-American and holds the NCAA record for steals with 454. Throughout her college career Staley accumulated 2,135 points and 729 assists. In the Sports Illustrated article "A Blazing Dawn" her assistant coach Shawn Campbell says, "The truth is she is at a different level. The things she can do, we can't coach." This compliment goes right along with all of her accomplishments. To top it all, she is one of three Cavaliers to have her number, 24, retired. In 1992, she graduated with a degree in rhetoric and communications studies.
After college Staley pursued a professional basketball career. From 1992 to 1995 she played overseas for several teams in Brazil, France, Italy, and Spain. In 1994, she returned to the United States to play for Team USA in the World Championships. That same year she was also named USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year. In 1996, Staley was selected to play for Team USA in the Olympics. Tara VanDerveer was the head coach and although she saw talent in Staley, there were times where they did not see eye to eye. Staley told Rachel Rutledge: "I've lost some playing time in the past for things I've done on the court. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad. They're just instinctive. I mean, to me, that's all part of the game and I've got to do some of these things to help women's basketball grow." Her instincts must have been right because that year the women's team brought home the Olympic gold medal.
I was elated to find this video/podcast interview with Staley from last year with three former football players, Channing Crowder, Fred Taylor and Ryan Clark. They discuss her childhood, her basketball career, and what she has to deal with as a Black coach.
Race, and racism are an issue in women’s college basketball — just like they are in the society as a whole. In April of 2023, Angelina Velasquez wrote this for Revolt:
Dawn Staley slams critics' hurtful narratives about South Carolina's women's basketball team: "We're not thugs"
University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley lambasted the media for its harsh criticism of her team and its style of play. In a press conference following the Gamecocks’ 77-73 loss to Iowa in the national semifinal on Friday (March 31), she said the narratives of Black stereotypic tropes are hurtful and wrong. When asked by a reporter what was true about the team, she said, “We’re not bar fighters. We’re not thugs. We’re not monkeys. We’re not street fighters. This team exemplifies how you need to approach basketball on the court and off the court.” On Tuesday (March 28), Iowa coach Lisa Bluder compared South Carolina’s approach to rebounds to that of people in a bar brawl.
Check out an example:
Staley’s response:
In case you are unaware, women’s college basketball headlines this year have been dominated by Iowa’s Caitlin Clark — who recently broke a longstanding NCAA shooting record.
Clark is a phenomenal player, and it is predicted that she will be the WNBA’s number one draft pick. However there were two Black women who scored more points than she has, at a time when there were no three point shots — they did it shooting twos.
Black Enterprise has the story:
NCAA Scoring Record Setter Caitlin Clark Sparks Conversations On Black Women Overlooked By Official Statistics
High scorers and record setters Lynette Woodard and Pearl Moore are two women the NCAA left behind.
Caitlin Clark broke the NCAA All-Time scoring record on Feb. 15, following a 49-point outburst that set her career high. While the fanfare around Clark’s record-setting achievement has propelled her into conversations about whether her scoring prowess will immediately transfer to the women’s professional game, it is also creating conversations about the women the NCAA left behind.
As NPR reports, Lynette Woodard, who played for the University of Kansas in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and Pearl Moore, who played for Division II Francis Marion College during the late 1970s, both put up more points. Woodard scored 3,649 points, and Moore scored an astounding 4,061 despite neither benefiting from the three-point line. However, since both records were set before the NCAA officially recognized women’s collegiate sports, as an organization spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal, they do not recognize statistics from non-NCAA associations. The spokesperson stated that records from these competitions “are not currently included in NCAA record books, regardless of gender.”
Following her incredible college career, Woodard became a two-time Olympian, winning a gold medal in 1984 as the captain alongside Cheryl Miller, Pamela McGee, and Kim Mulkey. Woodard also became the first woman to play for the Harlem Globetrotters and then played basketball professionally overseas, like McGee and Miller’s college teammate, Cynthia Cooper, before eventually joining the WNBA. Woodard told NPR via a written statement that while she celebrated Clark’s record, she also hoped others could have their records honored.
A look at the future:
USA Today’s sportswriter Lindsay Schnell just wrote this:
Women's basketball needs faces of future to be Black. Enter JuJu Watkins and Hannah Hidalgo
Not lost on any of the powerbrokers in the game: Both of these players are Black. And in a game built by Black women, it matters that the faces of the future look like the faces of the past. Over the past few years, as women’s basketball has exploded in popularity, much of the media and marketing attention has focused on three prominent white players: Clark, UConn junior Paige Bueckers and Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu, who graduated in 2020.
Too often, the Black players who built women’s hoops — and who now dominate the professional level, where the WNBA is 70% Black — haven’t been acknowledged. Occasionally their existence has been wiped from the record books completely, like with former Kansas standout Lynette Woodard's Division-I scoring record not being recognized by the NCAA.
[...]
At a USA Basketball training camp last month, Las Vegas star Kelsey Plum quipped that it would be nice if the WNBA had a better media rights deal so “my mom doesn’t have to jump through 10 hoops to watch our games" on some random streaming platform.
But it goes deeper than that, too.
During a speech at the 2021 ESPYs, Bueckers acknowledged as much, saying, "With the light I have now as a white woman who leads a Black-led sport ... I want to shed a light on Black women. They don’t get the media coverage that they deserve. They’ve given so much to the sport, the community and society as a whole and their value is undeniable."
I’m looking forward to watching a lot of exciting games this month and next, and I hope to see my favorite team, Staley’s Gamecocks continue their undefeated season — and win it all. The NCAA women’s championship game will be played on Sunday, April 7 at 3 p.m. ET on ABC, hosted at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio.
If my team doesn’t win? Well, there sure will have been some hellava great games!
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Stallworth is being represented by attorney Harry Daniels who said the incident began when Stallworth called the police multiple times to complain about a neighbor who was playing loud music. Receiving no response, Stallworth began setting off her car alarm in an effort to get the neighbor’s attention and convince him to turn down the music. Daniels said that while police did not respond to Stallworth’s calls, they did respond to the neighbor’s call about the car alarm. Local officials dispute that Stallworth’s calls were not responded to.
“Frustrated because Officer Barton threatened to cite and arrest her for the car alarm, but did nothing to address her multiple complaints, Stallworth pointed out the disparity suggesting it was racially motivated as Barton was returning to his police cruiser,” said a statement issued by the law firm.
Stallworth is black while the neighbor is white.
The attorney said that Barton returned to the front porch of Stallworth’s home and requested her identification. It is at that point, Daniels said, that Stallworth’s son began recording the encounter on his phone.
“The video shows Barton threatening to arrest Stallworth for failing to present identification despite the fact that state law only requires a person to do so when they are in a public place, not in their own home. When Stallworth goes back into her house in order to put on some shoes, Barton forcefully enters the home shoving past Stallworth’s son and grabbing her by the arm in order to handcuff her.
“Barton continued to escalate the situation despite the repeated pleas of Stallworth’s son for everyone to calm down and even shoves Stallworth onto a couch despite the fact that she was unarmed, had offered no aggression and wasn’t a threat to Barton or anyone,” Daniels said. Stallworth was arrested and charged with obstruction, resisting arrest and attempting to elude, according to Daniels; however, city officials said those charges are being dropped. Andalusia Mayor Earl Johnson apologized to Stallworth in a statement released by the city Friday afternoon.
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A new study finds that the gap between white and nonwhite voters is growing fastest in places that were stripped of federal civil rights-era voting protections by a 2013 Supreme Court ruling. NPR: Racial disparities in voter turnout have grown since Supreme Court ruling, study says
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The turnout gap between white and nonwhite voters in the U.S. is growing fastest in jurisdictions that were stripped of a federal civil rights-era voting protection a decade ago, according to a new study.
The protections in Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act required some states and localities with a history of voting discrimination to obtain federal approval before they could make any changes to their voting laws or procedures.
It most recently covered nine states, most of them in the South, as well as certain counties and towns in a handful of other states.
In 2013, the Supreme Court effectively gutted Section 5 in Shelby County v. Holder — clearing the way for states to pass laws for measures like redistricting, changing poll locations and adding restrictive voter ID requirements without federal review.
A new study by the Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank that advocates for expanded voting access, measured the impact of the Shelby County decision between 2012 and 2022.
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The Biden administration can keep operating a program that allows a limited number of migrants from four countries to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds after a federal judge on Friday dismissed a challenge from Republican-led states.
U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton said Texas and 20 other states had not shown they had suffered financial harm because of the humanitarian parole program that allows up to 30,000 asylum-seekers into the U.S. each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela combined. That was something the states needed to prove to have legal standing to bring the lawsuit.
“In reaching this conclusion, the Court does not address the lawfulness of the Program,” Tipton wrote.
Eliminating the program would undercut a broader policy that seeks to encourage migrants to use the Biden administration’s preferred pathways into the U.S. or face stiff consequences.
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More than a quarter of female Black voters describe abortion as their top issue in this year’s presidential election, a poll out Thursday from health policy research firm KFF reveals.
The findings signal a significant shift from previous election years, when white, conservative evangelicals were more likely to peg abortion as their biggest priority when voting. Those voters were highly motivated in recent presidential elections to cast ballots for Donald Trump, who promised to appoint U.S. Supreme Court judges who would take away the constitutional right to an abortion.
But just months ahead of the first presidential election since the court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, that voting dynamic is drastically changing, KFF’s poll suggests.
“It’s a complete shift,” said Ashley Kirzinger, a KFF pollster. “Abortion voters are young, Black women — and not white evangelicals.”
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To catch a glimpse of Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, visitors could book a table at a swanky new restaurant in Addis Ababa, the capital. Marcus Addis, the eponymous joint by Marcus Samuelsson—an Ethiopia-born, Sweden-raised, America-based celebrity chef—has proved a favourite. From the 47th floor of east Africa’s tallest building diners gaze out at the shiny infrastructure being built across the city under Abiy’s rule. The eatery symbolises the country he would like Ethiopia to be: modern, glitzy and rich.
The reality at ground level is less glamorous. Two years of war in Tigray killed hundreds of thousands and destroyed the region’s economy. Those close to Abiy argue that he can finish what he started when he took office in 2018, vowing to reform a dirigiste economy. An imf loan to support this could be signed by the end of March. But financial instability and violence in other regions are causing huge problems for one of Africa’s most influential—if controversial—politicians. A country often seen as a model for the rest of the continent may instead be a warning.
From 2004 to 2017 vast public investment helped Ethiopia’s gdp grow by more than 10% a year on average, outpacing every country save Qatar. But the state-led model accrued flaws: double-digit inflation, mounting public debt and the hogging of credit and hard currency by state firms. Repressive rule by the governing coalition, the eprdf, provoked a backlash that aided Abiy’s accession in 2018.
Abiy’s “Homegrown Economic Reform Plan” aimed to build on the strengths of the previous 20 years, especially in infrastructure and education, while fixing the weaknesses by liberalising the economy. Officials claim several successes. Lending to the private sector increased, and the government has chipped away at the monopoly of state-run Ethio Telecom by selling a mobile-phone licence to Safaricom. Competition from the Kenyan firm has accelerated the growth of digital payments.
Then came the war in 2020. “There is little in the way of an economy here,” says Getachew Reda, who runs Tigray’s regional administration. In Mekelle young people plot how to escape the country. Outside the Tigrayan capital things are even worse.
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Nigerian security forces continued to search forests and set up roadblocks in the north-west of the country on Sunday in an attempt to find hundreds of kidnapped schoolchildren, but observers said combing the woodland expanses could take weeks.
More than 280 children aged between seven and 18 were taken from a school in Kuriga on Thursday in one of the biggest mass-abductions in recent months in Nigeria’s turbulent north-west. A further 15 children were taken in another raid on a school in Sokoto on Saturday.
The two abductions were the latest in a series of group kidnappings by gunmen, where criminal gangs target schools, colleges and highways as they hunt for large groups of victims to make ransom demands. More than 200 other people, mostly women and children displaced by conflict, were taken in a separate raid in the north-eastern state Borno last week.
No group has claimed responsibility for the school abductions. Militant jihadists waging an insurgency in the north-east were suspected of carrying out the kidnapping in Borno.
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A state Senate committee is recommending the full chamber fire two Universities of Wisconsin regents who voted against a deal that called for limiting campus diversity positions in exchange for state funding.
The Republican-controlled Senate Committee on Universities and Revenue voted 5-3 along party lines Thursday to recommend the full body refuse to confirm regents Dana Wachs and John Miller. They voted against the deal twice last December. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers appointed both of them.
The Senate is expected to convene Tuesday for what will likely be its last floor period before the two-year legislative session ends. Asked if appointee confirmations will come up, Brian Radday, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, said only that the agenda won’t be finalized until Monday.
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