author photo of Dawn Staley by Kareem Black
On the eve of the 2024 NCAA Championship, Dawn Staley arrived at her pre-game press conference eager to talk about her team and the upcoming game. Her South Carolina Gamecocks were on the verge of adding themselves on a short list of legendary programs who capped off undefeated seasons with a championship. Their championship opponent, the Iowa Hawkeyes, had derailed their attempt to accomplish that goal in the previous year. The excitement over this year’s championship was at a fever pitch and the tournament’s ratings reflected that. And yet, instead of being asked about any of that, on the eve of one of the most consequential games in her coaching career, Dawn Staley was asked about her position on the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports.
Upon hearing the question, Staley paused and took a sip of her water. At that moment, Staley recognized that the question was meant to be a distraction and that it was meant to stir controversy. No one would have begrudged her for avoiding the question and shifting the conversation back to the next day’s game, as Iowa Head Coach Lisa Bluder did when she was asked later. But, Dawn Michelle Staley is Estelle Staley’s daughter and she had always prepared her for times like these.
Staley shares her mother’s advice in her new book, Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned From All Three: “Put down your armor, drop your defenses, embrace the platform that comes with having a spotlight.”
And so she did. Fully embracing the platform that came with having the spotlight that day, Staley offered unapologetic support for trans participation in sports.
“I’m on the opinion of, if you’re a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion,” Staley said. She acknowledged that her affirmation would likely result in backlash against her, even at this pivotal moment, but that she was okay with whatever came. Her mother had taught her “to understand differences and, rather than fear them, to embrace them” and Staley wasn’t going to stop listening to her now.
It’s hard not to feel like you’ve known Dawn Staley for years. Even for newcomers to the game, she is such a ubiquitous presence that she feels accessible. Her embrace of the culture — both in terms of women’s basketball and hip-hop — makes her feel more relatable than other coaches. But what becomes clear, as you dig into Uncommon Favor, is that so much of what we know about Staley is about what she’s done. We know her through her accomplishments. We know less about the behind-the scenes of it all: how she got to where she is and what inspires her choices. Uncommon Favor fills in a lot of the gaps. So much of what I know about her — like her standing up for trans women or handing out pieces of her championship net in 2017 — makes more sense now.
In Uncommon Favor, Staley invites readers into her home in North Philadelphia’s Raymond Rosen Projects and the community that helped raise her. We join young Staley on the sidelines at the Hank Gathers Recreation Center, waiting for the game to move down court so that she could get shots up. We join Staley at home, the youngest of five children, always fighting for her spot. We get to spend Sundays in church with Staley and her mother and watch as the most important relationship in Staley’s life evolves. Every story channels Dawn Staley’s specific brand of authenticity, which, ironically, strikes me as the book’s greatest strength and weakness.
Uncommon Favor doesn’t hide behind the polish of a co-writer or a ghostwriter, as many other coaches, including Pat Summit and Coach K, have. Instead, Staley tells her story in her voice, establishing trust with the reader almost immediately. But being authentically Dawn Staley also means grappling with her tendency towards introversion. She described herself as an “intensely withdrawn” child and even today covets the uncomfortable silence. At times, you can see that introversion reflected in the text. Moments that should be full of feelings — her father’s rejection of her basketball ambitions or her omission from the 1992 Olympic team, for example — were dispatched in an instant. Instead, Staley pivoted back to the way she communicated best: basketball.
“I guess I’ve come to understand the benefit of sharing vulnerability. Not too much. Let’s not get crazy,” Staley writes in Uncommon Favor. “But in some cases, my opening myself up can lead to awareness for others in need.”
Given her success as a coach, it’s easy to let Staley’s current efforts eclipse her past work. Uncommon Favor allows a new generation of women’s basketball fans to gain an appreciation for who Staley was as a player and the path she took to get there. I’m older and grew up on Tobacco Road, so I got a front row seat to see Staley compete in the ACC, but that’s an anomaly among today’s fans. Not enough people have seen her be great as a player: Staley was doing Point Gawd things long, long before fans handed the crown to Chelsea Gray. Folks who’ve come to know Staley through her time at South Carolina or her work with USA basketball don’t know the version of Staley who was a two-time Player of the Year. They don’t know Staley as the only player to ever win Most Outstanding Player while playing for the losing team. Staley has already been inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame as a player.
There’s a generation of fans whose only exposure to Dawn Staley, the player, is from that one episode of Martin (“Bangin’ Hard in the School Yard”) where Staley, Sheryl Swoopes, Teresa Edwards, and Rebecca Lobo schooled Martin and his boys on the playground. Perhaps this memoir gives Staley’s fans more insight into the player she was.
But Uncommon Favor isn’t just a memoir about Dawn Staley; it’s a history lesson in the growth of women’s basketball. Simply put, for nearly every pivotal moment for the sport over the last 50 years, Dawn Staley has been there…most times, at the forefront. She’s been part of the game’s evolution from post-Title IX to the NIL era. She’s part of the last generation of players for whom a domestic professional league was not an immediate option and then elevated the American Basketball League (ABL) upon its launch in 1996. She ushered in the golden era of Olympic basketball for Team USA, recapturing gold in 1996 as a player and then continuing the team’s success as coach in 2020.
Decades of underinvestment in women’s basketball means so much of the game’s history has been lost. If you want to have a debate about greatness in the men’s game, across decades, there’s a treasure trove of old articles and highlight reels for you to dig into, but comparable archives just don’t exist for the women’s game. In the absence of those archives, memoirs from greats like Staley help preserve the history of the game. It’s my fervent hope that Staley’s work on Uncommon Favor will push others to chronicle their stories so that we have a barometer by which to measure greatness.
After an early exit from the playoffs in 2021, the MNBA’s Portland Trail Blazers found themselves looking for a new head coach for the first time in 10 years. The franchise tapped the usual sources to fill their vacancy: former players, past and present MNBA assistants and head coaches, and, increasingly, over the last few years: experienced female coaches. Becky Hammon, the then-long tenured San Antonio Spurs assistant, was a fixture in candidate pools across the league. But then Portland did something unexpected: The franchise reached out and sought permission to talk to Dawn Staley about their vacancy. With two strong female candidates among the pool, the Portland opening didn’t feel like lip service; it felt like the best shot yet to see a woman leading a MNBA team.
Staley’s bonafides were undeniable. She’d done it all and, perhaps, a move to the MNBA — an unprecedented one, to be sure — was the next challenge. On the surface, Staley radiated confidence; she knew that her knowledge of the game and her capacity to build relationships with her players were transferable skills that would serve her well in the MNBA. Beneath that bravado rested some uncertainty: Could she leave South Carolina? Could she walk away from the women’s game to which she’d given so much? Despite her uncertainty, she took the meetings and made her best case for why she could succeed at the MNBA level. Ultimately, Portland goes in a different (read: worse) direction, but I think Staley got what she wanted out of the experience.
“The whole time I was speaking with the Trailblazer folks, I jotted copious notes,” Staley admits in Uncommon Favor. “I wanted to be certain that if another female coach was ever in the position to apply for a coaching slot with the NBA, they’d have all the details they’d need to prepare.”
(It’s worth noting that, in the time since the Portland Trail Blazers passed on Staley, she’s won an Olympic gold, two more national championships, and a slew of individual honors; Portland, on the other hand, hasn’t been able to climb above 0.500 in the regular season or make the playoffs.)
Uncommon Favor is the story of Dawn Staley’s rise to greatness, but within that is a lifetime of jotted down notes. To the women who have been underestimated, under-appreciated, disrespected, and undervalued, Staley offers all the details you need to prepare.
Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three by Dawn Staley is out now.
