Dawn Staley knows her new statue at South Carolina is about her legacy
“I agreed to the statue not for me, but for the girl who will walk by one day and wonder who I was,” Staley said at the statue's unveiling.
After more than a year of work, a statue of Dawn Staley near the University of South Carolina campus was unveiled on Wednesday.
The honor for the North Philadelphia native, who has coached South Carolina women’s basketball to three national titles over 17 seasons, was announced in February of last year, with Staley telling ESPN at the time that “it wasn’t anything that I politicked for.”
Instead, the idea came from city officials in Columbia, S.C., the town in which the campus is located.
“I agreed to the statue not for me, but for the girl who will walk by one day and wonder who I was,” Staley said at the unveiling. “Maybe she’ll look me up, she’ll see that I did some things in basketball, of course — but I hope she sees much more. I hope she sees that I was a champion for equity and equality; that in my own way, I pushed for change.”
She described herself as someone who has “stood proudly in the space God called me to inhabit, not as someone perfect or extraordinary, but as a regular girl who used her gifts to open doors so other girls wouldn’t have to knock as hard.”
The initial design of the statue was criticized by some fans for not looking enough like Staley. Columbia officials and the artists involved said they’d make changes. The final product depicted her standing atop a ladder with a net, the kind she’d hold after her team won a national championship, wearing a cap that says “CHAMPIONS.”
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The statue was mounted near the city’s convention center, about halfway between the state house and the Gamecocks’ home court at Colonial Life Arena.
“Not only is it a tribute to the coach and what she’s done, but also I think it’s really a tribute to the fans who have rallied, who have really elevated the sport,” Columbia mayor Daniel Rickenmann told The State, Columbia’s local newspaper.
“This statue is a tribute, but it really doesn’t encompass what she’s delivered for us as a community, what she’s done for women’s sports, what she’s done for young people, especially young women, giving them a role model to look at, but also life lessons. She’s been an incredible ambassador.”