While her interview was legitimate, Dawn Staley doesn't think the NBA is actually ready for a woman to be the league's head coach.
The longtime South Carolina head coach was actually interviewed for the same debut with the New York Knicks earlier this offseason after the team parted ways with Tom Thibodeau. The Knicks ended up hiring Mike Brown. It's unclear how far Staley actually went in this process, but she was not considered a finalist for this work.
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Now, looking back on the process, she thinks the league as a whole just wasn't ready to hire a woman.
“No, I don't [believe it will happen in my lifetime]Staley said Tuesday. via Myron Medcalf of ESPN. “And I hope I'm wrong.”
Staley has been at South Carolina since 2008 and has quickly built the program into a women's basketball powerhouse. She led the Gamecocks to nine SEC tournament and regular season titles, seven Final Four appearances and three NCAA championships, most recently in 2024. They have reached the Final Four five times in a row and played in the national championship three of the last four years.
Staley is the highest paid coach in women's college basketball too. Earlier this year she signed an extension until the 2029/30 season. it's worth about $25.5 million. She was also inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.
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The Gamecocks were ranked second in the Associated Press preseason poll. this fall, although a star Chloe Keatts will miss the entire season with a torn ACL..
Staley is not the first woman to interview for an NBA head coaching position. Former San Antonio Spurs assistant Becky Hammon interviewed multiple times for the job and was a finalist to open for the Portland Trail Blazers in 2021 before ultimately moving to the Las Vegas A's. But since no woman has ever made it over that hill, Staley knows the criticism she would face as a Knicks would be incredibly severe.
“If the Knicks are on a five-game losing streak, it's not a losing streak,” Staley said. “It’s about being a female coach. So, you as an organization, a franchise, need to be prepared and strong enough to ignore cases like this when you are going to hire a female coach.”
Although Staley said earlier this year that she would take the Knicks job if offered, she seems very happy in South Carolina. She's also more than willing to help other women in the sport in the future, although she's skeptical that it will ever happen.
“If there is anyone who is interested in this and interested in becoming the first female coach in the NBA, I have all the information,” she said. “Come to me, I will prepare you for the interview.
“And if there are NBA franchises that are interested in hiring a woman, I'm here too, because you have to be willing to take on that and everything that comes with it, because it's not just about hiring the first female coach.”
