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Caitlin Clark. Caitlin Clark. Caitlin Clark. There. Got that out of the way. Can we talk about the champions now? Can we talk about how culture and THE culture combine to win for the South Carolina women’s basketball team?

Because that’s what’s going on here. Yes, Dawn Staley is a truly legendary figure in the sport. A wondrous basketball player who dominated in college. A gold-medal winner as an Olympian. And then she went on to become a six-time All-Star in the WNBA.

She could have hung up her sneakers and polished her trophies and medals til her dying day. But Staley, always a “coach on the floor” type of player, went on to become an actual coach.

After an eight-year stint at Temple University, Staley moved on to the University of South Carolina, a program I know well because I’m an alum.

The Gamecocks – the team was referred to as the Lady Gamecocks when I went there in the late 1980s, though that term has pretty much been officially retired – had brief periods of success before Staley’s arrival. Those periods, however, would be nothing in comparison to the juggernaut Staley would build.

First, though, she established a culture, one that prioritized team play and winning over individual excellence.

Success was not instant. Her first team won only 10 of 28 games. Her second squad won 14 of 29. By season three, her team was a winner, winning 18 of 33 games.

That third season is particularly notable. Her biggest recruit from the season before, a 6-4 center from Texas named Kelsey Bone, transferred back to her home state.

The thinking at the time was that she simply wanted to be back home. Recently, however, Bone has said she transferred because she wanted to be a top pick in the WNBA draft and feared that wouldn’t happen if she stayed at South Carolina.

She wanted to be a bigger part of the offense. She wanted to put up the kinds of numbers that generate notice and could lead to personal acclaim.

Bone committed no crime and went on to play five seasons in the W. In seeing Bone off and then actually improving the next season, Staley’s emphasis on team over the individual was validated.

Staley would get stars. A’ja Wilson, the reigning queen of the sport, grew up in the Columbia, South Carolina area near the university. She was the top player in the nation as a senior in high school.

When she got to South Carolina, she came off the bench – for her entire freshman season. Wilson would eventually prove that that top high school billing was no fluke.

She led her team to the program’s first national title in 2017 and was national player of the year.. It was Staley who led the push for a statue of Wilson to be erected not far from the arena where she starred in college.

The statue is of enormous racial significance in South Carolina, a state with a painful history of racism. In a tearful, moving speech commemorating the statue, Wilson noted that her grandmother could not walk in the area where her granddaughter is honored in bronze.

Wilson is now a two-time MVP and two-time WNBA champion with the Las Vegas Aces.

Other top recruits would follow in her footsteps to South Carolina – stars like Zia Cooke and Aliyah Boston. They’d win big, too.

But they all understood that they’d be in competition with other top players and the player that deserved to play – based on practice, based on the coaching staff’s evaluations – those players would see the court.

A team culture – team play over individuality – was set.

Along the way, Staley turned plugs for the culture – Black culture, Black girl power – into a recruiting weapon.

She hasn’t shied away from discussing race. She most definitely hasn’t shied away from demanding more resources and respect for her sport.

It was Staley who persistently kept Brittany Griner’s name on social media and on T-shirts when the former Baylor University and WNBA great was detained in Russia. Griner’s college coach, Kim Mulkey, said little during Griner’s imprisonment. The player wrote that her college experience under Mulkey was tainted by the fact that the coach wanted her to muzzle her homosexuality.

When the Russians jailed Griner, Staley didn’t let Griner’s sexual identity get in the way of the most salient facts – an American, a great basketball player, a Black woman – was being held hostage and needed to be brought home.

Staley’s teams are known for tough defense. But she’s pushed back hard when defeated coaches – up to and including University of Connecticut great Geno Auriemma – suggested her team was thuggish and hard or anything other than very, very good.

She understood the context of those criticisms, the not-so-subtle racism that would deny her players the respect they earned from great play on the court.

Players know and appreciate who Staley is and what she represents. High school recruits continue to flock to her program.

They want to buy what Staley is selling. They want it all – the sisterhood of a team, the freedom to be themselves, the winning. They want to do it for a coach who sees the world as it is, fantastic and flawed. They want to play for a woman who uses her status and her voice to lift them up as Black women and as players, carrying the sport along for the glorious ride.