Dawn Staley has everything Kentucky basketball has been missing

There's only one reason they wouldn't consider Staley, and it's on her birth certificate.

Resume? She has posted an unprecedented 109-3 record over the past three seasons at South Carolina, building the largest talent pool in the country, all in the midst of the NIL and transfer portal chaos. It's been nine years since Kentucky made it to the Final Four. During this period, Staley achieved five of them and won three titles. “It would be pretty cool to see Kentucky hire that damn good coach from South Carolina who just won his third championship!” tweeted George Karl, the former coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings.

Why would a 6-foot-2, 250-pound high school junior like Jayden Quaintance, who has just re-enlisted, listen to a 53-year-old woman who is only 5 feet 7 inches tall? ? Well, I don't know, apart from all their Olympic gold medals and trophies. Why do young men listen to their greatest teachers in every field? Temple's John Chaney, one of her old mentors, once compared Staley to “a magician” in terms of her ability to influence younger people.

As soon as Staley opens her mouth, you can't help but listen as wisdom and firm instructions pour out of her like coins from a Vegas slot machine.

“What exactly is it that you can’t get over?” she asks her players. “You see it over and over again. Then when you get past that hurdle, you move on to the next one.”

College coaching, whether male or female, is a more complicated task than ever before. Raw talent with eggshell egos and access to the transfer portal have turned campus arenas into hubs. Zero funds and the benefits of other school collectives mean that you will have to continue recruiting your own players even after you move them to their dorms.

Staley negotiated everything more smoothly and convincingly than any other operator in the game. They didn't lose a single transfer this season despite having a strong rotation of nine players sharing time.

“I would be surprised if any of our players decided to enter the transfer portal,” Staley said last week. “Not from a lack of playing time or anything like that. It's simply how they are treated. You will be treated like professionals. They are treated – they are communicated with. You listen to them.”

Many male coaches could take a lesson from Staley's NIL management. She doesn't sit around lamenting the game's loss of purity while gloating over her $3.2 million salary. She makes it a point to combine her own opportunities with offers for the team so that her players don't have to stare hungrily at a coach's wealth earned “off her back,” as Staley says. Example: When Staley received an offer from a medical company called Rewind, she asked the company to make a deal for each of her players. “Honestly, I make a lot of money,” Staley told The Washington Post earlier this season. “I want our players to earn a lot of money… I am actively committed to ensuring that they benefit in this area.”

Rewind not only gave every South Carolina player some zero money, but also stock options. Staley wanted them to learn what it meant to have “justice.” The deal avoided jealousies over zero opportunities because each player got a share, and it strengthened Staley's position as a recruiter: She's the coach who will try to steer deals your way and maybe even get you a portfolio.

“It’s in our space now — just like an opponent is in our space,” Staley said last week in a fascinating reflection on how she deals with it. “NIL is now part of our game. And we have to approach it and be as committed as we are to winning basketball games, because there's a direct correlation to your ability to manage the NIL area as it is to managing personalities, to managing playing time, as it is to that Managing a staff.”

What player – or parent – ​​at Kentucky wouldn’t love to hear that pitch?

One of the demands of men's football is that you have to fill a squad and rebuild a team within a few months. Staley did it too – better than anyone. Last year they lost five players to the WNBA, including three first-rounders led by Aliyah Boston. Staley began this season with just four players averaging at least 10 minutes per game. For a while, she said, it was like “day care.” Nevertheless, she remained undefeated with them at 38:0.

Certain personalities have a natural aura of commanding and listening to men. Staley, like Pat Summitt before her, is one of those whose leadership is so obvious that it renders gender irrelevant. She doesn't coach women's basketball; She coaches basketball. She does not belong in the candidate category and is the best candidate in every field and for every job.