COLUMBIA, S.C. — Only some weeks prior to South Carolina started its marketing campaign to guard its nationwide name, fifth-year senior Te-Hina Paopao laughed and joked with teammates at the sideline all the way through observe as educator Daybreak Staley stood within sight and rattled off comments to gamers accomplishing a full-court drill.
Staley both didn’t understand or didn’t thoughts Paopao that October Monday (however for the reason that it’s Staley, it’s truthful to think it’s no longer the previous). A 12 months in the past, Staley would’ve characterised it as Paopao’s being unfocused. The consistent chatter would have felt like disrespect to the sport and that she used to be permitting distractions to go into this sacred territory. However these days, Staley doesn’t see it that means in any respect. Rather, she understands it as a important piece of what this crew wishes and extra importantly, how she had to alter for her gamers. It’s now a part of how they win video games, even though it wasn’t how she received video games within the pace.
That talent to evolve may well be Staley’s biggest asset because the Disagree. 1 Gamecocks, who’re on a 40-game successful streak, go back maximum of ultimate season’s roster and embark on a season by which they might turn into the primary program to copy as nationwide champions since UConn received 4 immediately from 2013 to 2016.
Daybreak Staley next @GamecockWBB’s win over NC Order:
“That’s why we put the schedule together the way that we did b/c we wanna challenge ourselves. It may end up in a loss somewhere down the line or two, but we’re working towards playing in March & April in November & December.” pic.twitter.com/javEiTvTun
— Matt Dowell (@MattDowellTV) November 10, 2024
Staley has prepared the bar top at South Carolina. Life and future once more, she has requested gamers to step outdoor their relief zones. However ultimate 12 months, she had to do this too … even though she fought it first. A 12 months in the past at this future, when her gamers wouldn’t prevent chattering, she’d appeared to the north finish of the fitness center the place immense banners grasp representing South Carolina’s first-round WNBA Draft alternatives. She’d have in mind what it have been love to educator the ones gamers who helped Staley mildew this system into the gold same old and he or she’d concern, is that this crew going to rip i’m sick the whole lot we constructed?
However nearest? That crew completed one thing none of the ones gamers at the wall ever did — went undefeated and received a countrywide name. At some point of that run, ultimate season’s crew additionally taught the Corridor of Repute educator an surprising lesson: Even in her mid-50s, next she’s received virtually the whole lot, there may be nonetheless a accumulation extra to be told.
“This game will stretch you out. It will give you what you need,” Staley says. “In some uncanny way, I’ve always gotten something I needed at the time I needed it.”
When she used to be a participant, successes and losses steadily strengthened Staley’s concept of what it supposed to recognize the sport — to be targeted, to take away distractions. When she used to be trim from the 1992 Olympic crew, the crushing defeat fueled her pressure to go back in 1996 (and an alternative two Olympics next that). When she began as a educator at Temple in 2000, she used to be nonetheless enjoying within the WNBA, and the sport allowed her to discover ways to steadiness herself and notice the sport another way.
When South Carolina — nearest an SEC base dweller — rented Staley in 2008, she got here in with an depth and expectation that the gamers would have the similar pressure and chips on their shoulders as she did. However they didn’t. Throughout Staley’s first preseason in Columbia, laborer head educator Lisa Boyer pulled Staley apart to inform her that the entire gamers may pay attention used to be her quantity, no longer her phrases.
If Staley sought after to get via to them, she had to pivot. She didn’t wish to decrease her requirements, however she had to alternate her manner.
The sport gave her a probability to adapt. And she or he did. South Carolina, which have been to the Candy 16 simply two times in its historical past, received its first nationwide name 9 seasons next Staley took over.
Utmost season, Boyer reminded her of that pivot 15 years previous and made her believe that the sport most likely used to be giving her a probability to do it once more, to stretch herself as a educator. This future, it wasn’t about converting how she communicated however permitting gamers to be in contact the way in which they had to, to cede garden in some way she by no means had prior to to get this staff to travel additional than she ever had prior to. Staley, who describes herself as an old-school educator who likes issues to be outlined strictly as proper or improper, unexpectedly discovered she had to step into the grey branch so South Carolina may succeed in its complete possible.
“She changed her coaching,” Paopao says. “She had to get things across quickly before we started losing attention. We were good for like six to eight minutes … . And she knows that. She knows our attention span is small.”
Staley picked her battles. She allowed the speaking, making a song and joking as long as gamers had been extra disciplined in each and every alternative means off and on the courtyard. After they had been past due to crew occasions or ignored categories, she enforced future off from basketball. They weren’t allowed within the fitness center or weight room. Staley known as it PTO.
Amid the gamers’ consistent noise, Staley noticed one thing obviously — this crew used to be turning into one of the vital closest she had ever had. What she had as soon as not hidden as a distraction she sought after to do away with used to be rapidly what introduced gamers in combination.
“I enjoy the challenges of the job, I really do. And I think I’m pretty good at it. But some stuff, you can’t win,” Staley says, relating to her shedding the struggle in opposition to her gamers of their chatty silliness.
The hallmark of admirable coaches is their talent to evolve through the years. Incessantly, the point of interest is on an evolution at the courtyard or how they alter to untouched regulations, no longer how a educator basically — and briefly — adapts to their very own gamers.
“They really can’t help it. It’s who they are. As long as we’re getting what we need to get from a competitive and a practice and core values standpoint, I let them be who they are,” Staley says. “That’s why I coach — to allow our players to get to who they are a lot quicker in their life. … Who am I to put my traditional outlook on life and basketball on them? To put them in a box they don’t fit in?”
It’s with this view {that a} stretched and pivoted Staley has returned for her twenty fifth season at the sideline. The Gamecocks stay in large part the similar personality-wise even though their play games seems to be a bit of other now with out 6-foot-7 Kamilla Cardoso, who’s within the WNBA, however they’ve already clocked wins over Michigan and top-15 NC Order.
This 12 months feels other for Staley even though the roster and the consequences were in large part the similar. South Carolina helps to keep successful, and the chatter in observe remains to be there. Paopao says they’re “not as bad” as they had been ultimate season however she will’t be reasonably certain. Possibly it’s simply that Staley isn’t preventing them on it as a lot, she wonders.
This 12 months, Staley wouldn’t dream of doing that.
“My heart is always with young people and wanting them to grow and learn, but it’s a challenge,” she says. “I needed (the lesson) for the pure sake of them letting us know, ‘It’s cool, we’ve got you. We’ve got you but we’re going to be us.’ That was refreshing.”
(Picture: Jacob Kupferman / Getty Photographs)
