Dawn Staley Says She Would Have Left South Carolina for Knicks’ Head Coaching Job

Dawn Staley said if she’d been offered the New York Knicks head coaching job, she would have felt compelled to leave South Carolina — where she has won three national championships — to take the position.

Staley interviewed with the Knicks before they hired Mike Brown last month.

“I would have had to do it. Not just for me. For women. To break [that door] open,” Staley mentioned on the “Put up Strikes” podcast with Aliyah Boston of the Indiana Fever and former WNBA star Candace Parker. “I might have needed to. It’s the New York Knicks. I’m from Philly. However it’s the freaking New York Knicks.”

Daybreak Staley talks with two of her South Carolina gamers throughout the nationwide championship sport towards UConn in April. (Photograph by Carmen Mandato/Getty Photos)

It is unclear how significantly the Knicks thought-about hiring Staley.

New York interviewed a number of different candidates for the place, together with former Charlotte Hornets coach James Borrego, former Memphis Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins and Minnesota Timberwolves assistant Micah Nori.

The 55-year-old Staley mentioned she thought she did effectively within the interview.

Nonetheless, she questioned whether or not she might have jeopardized her probabilities of touchdown the NBA job when she requested Knicks officers in the event that they had been totally ready for the way it would possibly influence the group to rent the league’s first feminine head coach.

“How, when you employed me as the primary feminine [head] coach within the NBA, would it not influence your day by day job? As a result of it might,” Staley mentioned. “You’re going to be requested questions that you simply don’t need to reply when you’re a male coach. There’s going to be the media and all this different stuff that it’s a must to take care of that you simply didn’t need to take care of and don’t need to take care of if you rent a male. That received them to considering, ‘Possibly she’s proper.’”

Staley mentioned she felt the power change after that.

“So, I shot myself within the foot by being inquisitive and asking all these darn questions,” Staley mentioned.

Reporting by The Related Press.

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