Photo courtesy of Kirby Lee/USA TODAY SPORTS
The South Carolina women’s basketball team won their second NCAA championship with a 64-49 win over the Uconn Huskies Sunday Night. However, the Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley faced criticism after the team stayed in the locker room during the national anthem minutes before the final four-game win over Louisville Friday night. Staley insisted that it was a timing issue.
According to Fox News, the team was on the floor during the “The Star-Spangled Banner” before tip-off Sunday.
“I don’t know who wrote an article about our players not being out on the court for the national anthem. We’re just creatures of habit, creatures of habit. I think the national anthem was played at the 12- or 10-minute mark, and that’s just not the time that we’re out on the court because of our pregame ritual,” Staley said
. “If the national anthem is at 0:00 like it was today, we were out there standing for the national anthem.”She added, “So whoever that person, journalist was that wrote that, please do your research, ask the questions before you go out and write an article, and then I’m called all kinds of names, our players are called all kinds of names. Before you do that, please fact-check and don’t put us under the gun like that because it was a distraction for us. I didn’t let it be a distraction, but it was a distraction.”
The Philadelphia native said she received messages from fans on her social media accounts, calling her out for allegedly skipping the national anthem.
“People were on all of my accounts and all that. I can take the heat. But when you write something and it’s during one of the most important times of our season, let it be factual. Let it be factual,” she said.
“I think we could come up with a whole lot of different things you could write about our basketball team during this time than to write something like that that was full of untruths,” Staley exclaimed. “And then the other articles come out from that, and then we’re called unpatriotic, we’re called – some of the nastiness, and it’s because we’re a predominantly Black team.”
“So when you do that, understand your power, and if it’s facts, I can’t fight that. But they were full of untruths.”
In an interview with Andscape last year, Staley explained that her team decided to protest the anthem nearly every game during the 2020-2021 season to “bring awareness to racial injustice in our country.”
“If opposing teams choose to play the anthem during the time we’re in the locker room, then we choose to stay in the locker room,” she said.
Staley added: “I love our country, too. I don’t like what our country has come to or what our country has been, but I’d like to think that there are people in our country that’s going to lead us more in a unified way than a divisive way, and I’m here for that.”
Standing for the national anthem has been an ongoing issue since former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the anthem in 2016. However, it was common for NFL and college teams to remain in the locker room during the anthem until 2009, when players had to be on the field. In basketball, players from both teams have to be on the court during the anthem.
Despite the negativity, Staley led her team to another NCAA championship after 14 seasons as head coach for the Gamecocks. News Onyx reported that she also became the highest-paid Black head coach for women’s basketball after inking a $22 million contract with the University of South Carolina.
Congratulations, Coach Staley!