Many of us think that successful coaches are those who are able to recruit the greatest talent to their team. In Sunday’s national championship game, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley certainly showed up with a great team, but she didn’t just show up with her stars.
So many of us think that successful coaches or business leaders are those who are able to recruit the greatest talent to their team. We think of the classic scene of Nick Saban sitting on the couch in the family room of some High School All-American, rattling off the reasons why the gifted athlete should come to Alabama over some other campuses. In Sunday’s national championship game, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley certainly showed up with a great team that included the nation’s best player in Aliyah Boston and some other high-marquee talent in the likes of Zia Cooke, Brea Beal, and Destanni Henderson: players who have every reason to believe they will play professionally someday—and probably sooner rather than later. But she didn’t just show up with her stars, as she made dramatically evident in the moments after her South Carolina Gamecocks won the championship by beating UConn 64-49. She showed up with a team—16 players in all. And before she left the victory stand, she made sure that the names of all 16 were etched in the country’s collective consciousness. “Our path was divinely ordered, and the order was for us to be national champions on this day,” Staley began, her voice reduced to a hoarse croak from two hours of yelling. Few who have watched Staley develop as a leader would deny that, at the very least, she had given God an awesome assist.
