South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley Syndication: The Des Moines Register
By Reice Shipley on

South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley addressed the media on Saturday to discuss her team’s upcoming National Championship matchup against Iowa on Sunday. However, the biggest statement Staley made had nothing to do with the game whatsoever, instead advocating for transgender women to be able to compete in women’s sports.

Staley fielded several questions about the upcoming game. But she was also asked about her opinion of whether or not transgender athletes should be able to compete in women’s college basketball, definitively saying that she believes any transgender athlete identifying as a woman should be able to play.

“Damn, you got deep on me,” Staley joked. “I’m under the opinion of if you are a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion. Do you want me to go deeper? Yes, so now the barnstorm of people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game. And I’m okay with that.”

This topic has been highly debated for years now, so it is safe to say this is a pretty big statement from one of the most prominent coaches in the college game.

Understandably, it appeared quite clear that Staley wasn’t all that thrilled to receive the question because it may take some focus away from her team ahead of their big game.

Regardless, Staley is seemingly all of inclusivity in the sport, which is certainly admirable to a large majority of college basketball fans.

[Lindsay Grubbs on Twitter/X]

About Reice Shipley

Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.

View all posts by Reice Shipley