“We did hear from the White House…”
On Friday, President Donald Trump welcomed over 18 National Collegiate Athletic Association teams to the White House. One team notably missing from the trip was the University of South Carolina women’s basketball team, the 2017 NCAA champions.
Pres Trump takes photo with Penn State women’s rugby team – holding his team jersey. One of 18 NCAA championship teams invited to WH today. pic.twitter.com/itvTtlLWzC
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) November 17,2017
The team’s head coach, Dawn Staley, said the team was unable to attend because they wanted to keep the focus on this season’s games.
“We did hear from the White House about attending (Friday’s) event, but we will not be able to attend,” she said in a statement, per Fox News . “As I’ve been saying since our practices for this season started, all of our focus is on the season ahead. The only invitation we are thinking about is to the 2018 NCAA tournament.”
After first saying the team would visit the White House after they won the tournament, the Associated Press reported Staley said in September they had yet to get an invitation “and that in itself speaks volumes.”
She added even if they did get an invitation at that point, she was unsure if they’d accept after “some things transpired over the last few months.”
