Dawn Staley

Keynote Speaker | University of South Carolina Women’s Basketball Head Coach

DAWN STALEY has helped to catapult The University of South Carolina into the national spotlight, and has made the Gamecocks a mainstay in the battle for SEC and national championships. Through her 16 seasons of leadership, the Gamecocks have reached many firsts – National Championships, NCAA Final Fours, No. 1 rankings, SEC regular-season and tournament titles, SEC Players of the Year, National Players of the Year, WNBA No. 1 Draft picks and No. 1 recruiting classes – to name the most notable. During this same time, Staley has been recognized as National Coach of the Year five times, the first former Naismith Player of the Year to earn the Naismith Coach of the Year award as well, a seven-time SEC Coach of the Year, and BCA Female Coach of the Year. She is the only Gamecock basketball coach – men’s or women’s – to amass 300 victories at South Carolina, the program’s all-time winningest coach, and the only black head coach in men’s or women’s basketball to win multiple national championships. Staley is recognized for her body of work as one of the most decorated participants in United States women’s basketball history. She is a member of both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, the namesake behind The Phoenix Club of Philadelphia’s Dawn Staley Award recognizing the nation’s top guard in women’s Division I basketball, one of the WNBA’s “Top 15” most influential players in the league’s history, and the FIBA and Olympic gold medal-winning former head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team.