South Carolina coach Dawn Staley was answering a question about being the first Black coach to win multiple national championships Sunday night when she pivoted in her response.
The two-time NCAA champion took time to explain that the Gamecocks not being on the court for the national anthem in previous games — most recently in the Final Four win over Louisville — was because of timing.
“I think the national anthem was played at the 12- or 10-minute mark, and that’s just not the time that we’re out on the court because of our pregame ritual,” she said after Sunday’s game. “If the national anthem is at 0:00 like it was today, we were out there standing for the national anthem.”
Staley’s remarks were in response to an article from the Business Insider that originally said the national anthem isn’t played at Colonial Life Arena, South Carolina’s home court. The report was later changed to say the Gamecocks are simply not on the court for the anthem at any home games but are for most of the away contests.
Staley said the article, which circulated Saturday on social media, created a distraction ahead of the national championship game with players being “called all kinds of names.” She added that she received comments on her accounts as well.
“I can take the heat, but when you write something and it’s during one of the most important times of our season, let it be factual,” Staley said. “Let it be factual. … And then the other articles come out from that, and then we’re called unpatriotic, we’re called — some of the nastiness, and it’s because we’re a predominantly Black team.”
In the 2020-21 season, most Gamecock players sat during the anthem before home games, with the team issuing a statement Nov. 25, 2020 about their decision: “Each of us made an individual decision about how to use our platform to call attention to what matters most to us. Many of us stayed seated to shine a light on the need for racial equality, social justice and ending systemic racism in our country. One of us chose to stand in honor of her family’s military service.”
This postseason, neither South Carolina nor Creighton was out for the national anthem before the Elite Eight, but the Gamecocks and UConn were both on the floor Sunday. The Gamecocks went on to win the program’s second-ever national championship 64-49.
“I think we could come up with a whole lot of different things you could write about our basketball team during this time than to write something like that that was full of untruths,” Staley said. “So when you do that, understand your power, and if it’s facts, I can’t fight that. But they were full of untruths.”