Dawn Staley: How To Have the Courage to Compete

COVID nineteen. This year's edition of March Madness, it's been a real lift to our collective spirits as we continue to work together to get through these next few months to the light at the end of the tunnel. For me, it's been especially fun to see the University of Arkansas playing in both the men's and women's tournaments, and to see my alma mater, Georgetown make the men's brackets after they're through only run in the Big East. My old

friend Patrick Ewing is smiling. Premier to hear looking down on us is my old friend John Thompson. He's happy to so. Why am I telling you this Because for so many people across America around the world, sports are

often about much more than just playing a game. Sports teach us about teamwork, self improvement, leadership, endurance, about winning and losing with grace and dignity, And as we've seen over the last year, athletes can be particularly impactful when they use their platform to advocate for social justice and change. At their very best, sports lift up our common humanity, help people to connect across borders, generations, gender, race, and

all the lines that might otherwise divide us. Today, for the special March Madness edition of Why Am I telling You This? I want to share a conversation with someone I deeply admire, Don Staley. Since two thousand and eight, Don has coached the South Carolina Gamecocks women's basketball team, which earned a number one seed in this year's tournament.

This conversation was recorded in twenty and you will hear how she's always been driven by a desire to make a positive difference in other people's lives through her philanthropic work or coaching career and her powerful example. Don Staley is a remarkable woman, and I hope you'll enjoy this conversation with a true Hall of Famer on and off

the court. I'll never forget visiting the athletes ahead of the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, and seeing men and women from countries all around the globe, some of whom were bitter enemies, sitting with one another in the dining hall of the Olympic Village, sharing meals and slowly breaking the eyes that divided them. This was opening day for the Olympic Games in Atlanta. President Clinton and his family were welcomed by athletes from around the

world as he toured the facilities. President Clinton praised American athletes at the Olympic Village. I want you to win all the mods to camp, and I want you to mop up and do great, But I want you to realize that just by being what you already are, you are a source of enormous pride to our country and an inspiration to the world. And I hope tonight at these next couple of weeks of the greatest time of

your life. Today, I'm joined by one of the athletes who won goal thatt those ninety six Summer Games, Don Saley. I first met her when she and her basketball teammates

came to the White House after their victory. After that, she went on to win two more gold medals than two thousand and two thousand four, to have an accomplished career playing and the women's NBA, to become one of the greatest coaches in the country, leading the University of South Carolina since two thousand and eight, including winning the school's first national championship in ten. But more than being a great basketball player and coach, Don Staley is a

great person. I've had the chance to travel throughout Africa where here visiting some of our foundations programs, and it's clear that she's driven by desire to make a positive difference in other people's lives, from her players to the fans, to the countless people benefiting from her own philanthropic work and her powerful example. Don, it's great to talk to you today. It's so great to talk to you, President Clinton. You're one of the most decorated athletes and coaches of

all time. You're an All American, you played for the American Basketball League, the w n b A, you remember the Basketball Hall of Fame, an Olympic athlete and flag bearer, head coach at Temple, now at South Carolina. How did this happen? What does basketball meant to you, both personally as well as professionally. Well, basketball has been and incredible resource.

It's been my safe haven. Growing up in in North Philly and the projects called the Raymond Rosen Housing Projects was a place in which there wasn't a whole lot to do besides sports or getting something that's that's illegal or that can leave a negative impact on your life. You know, I'm known for playing basketball, but if anyone that knew me growing up in North Philly on Diamond Street, they knew I played tackle football, I played softball, I

played baseball. I did everything the guys were doing. I grew up with three brothers and one sister, and all of us were super competitive. And if seven of us, that's my my siblings and my parents lived in this three bedroom house with one bathroom, so you had to compete to go in and take a shower. I didn't win very many of those battles. I had to compete because I'm the youngest to you know, to get socks

and shoes. The one thing, the one thing that I had to make sure that none of my oldest siblings got to were my socks. I'm a sock fiend. I had to have my my white, pure white sox, and my seam had to line up with my toes, and if any of my siblings wore any of my socks, I knew. So I come from a competitive family, and I'm very fortunate that I used sports as a vehicle

defeat into that competitiveness. But when I first received my my college letter, just interest letter, which was somewhere between the seventh and eighth grade, I knew basketball was gonna be the ticket to get me to all the pages and books that I read and imagined visiting. How did your life affect how you coach? Um, I would say, I'm probably the opposite of how I grew up and how I coach. How I grew up, I was an introvert. I was extremely shy, and I wasn't verbal. I didn't

use a lot of my verbal skills. UM. I went to the University of Virginia, where it's a predominantly white university. I grew up in the projects. It was predominantly actually not predominant. It was all black, you know. So my first experiences, even with people outside of my race, all happened at the University of Virginia. When I got to Virginia, I didn't quite know. I didn't think I fit in with Virginia. As far as what happened outside the basketball court. One,

it was just I was young. Two Again, I was shy, and I was an introvert. So I wasn't easily approachable because again it's the trust thing. I had to be able to trust you. I had to be able to allow you into my space. And I did not do that very easily after University of Virginia. So for me being uncomfortable, you get more comfortable because I had a an experience at Virginia during my first year of college where I did not do well and something that I

applied myself too. Um, So it made me extremely uncomfortable. I did have a dean. I had to sit down with a dean and she pretty much threatened to throw me out of the University of Virginia because I didn't perform well. And I'm sitting across from her. Again, I'm shy, UM, an introvert. You know, I didn't. I wasn't very comfortable in my skin, wasn't comfortable talking to adults that I didn't trust. Um. So all of these nonverbals that I was giving off really didn't sit well with the dean.

So my coach really had to help me out. She had to have that little pep talk with me and said, you know, you basically gotta you know, you gotta look people in their eye. You have to you have to conform. And I wasn't. I wasn't big on conforming because I you know, I wasn't one that liked to live in a box or um. So that word really took me, took me back. So I said, I'm not gonna kiss anybody's but this is the way I am. I'm not

gonna change for anybody. And little did I know what I was saying and what I was doing at the time really was one of the crossroads in my life where I had to stop. I had to think about what I wanted my life to be without basketball, and that's when it hit me, you gotta, you have to conform. This is the way that you have to exist at the University of Virginia and it helped me um now as a coach. I think certain things happened to me throughout my life that has helped me get more comfortable

with dealing with you know, just across cultural lines. All of those life lessons I look back on it has helped me to be able to to come to a place that's predominantly white and unify and reach go across different ethnic backgrounds and and be able to hear people, talk to people, be comfortable in my skin, and then and let them see me for who I am. And I you know, I always reflect on my days back in Virginia know that, um I would sent there for

a reason other than basketball. I've heard you say before that you think it's important that there'll be more black coaches in your game. You still feel that way, and why is it so important? Well, I absolutely do feel like not not just coaches, head coaches, I feel like there should be more black coaches to coach individual one basketball, women's basketball, because how the makeup of our sport is predominantly black. I don't know the breakdown of the numbers,

but I know it's it's more than fifty. And if it's more than they need role models. And here's why, because no one other than a black woman can teach another black woman how to be a black woman in America. It's quite simple. There's there's certain things that they're gonna go through in their life and they're going to experience throughout their life that they're gonna have to handle like

I've handled in my experiences, good, better and different. I think I can be a great example of showing them of of giving them advice that they'll need to be safe or to have an incredible career in whatever profession they decide to go in. Thank you for making that point. I think it's important that people understand that. You know that the best coaches don't just coach their players when they're on the court or a field. They coach them when they're off the court, and they think about their

life after they're out of their one lost column. We'll be right back. Well, let me ask you something. I I like to watch basketball. I like to watch women's basketball, and I try to watch you and your team every time you're on television. I'm very interested in how various coaches relate to their players, have related to the crowd,

relate to the referees, especially when they're intense situations. And one of the things I've noticed about you is that you seem to be very careful and sparing about the times you jump up and down. I've seen you in games that are really tight and the other coaches walking up and down the sideline and you're just sitting there staring looking at the players, trying to figure out what's

going on. What is is that deliberate? Do you have a deliberate style when you're in the public eye about how you talk to your players and how you're seen by the audience and by the referees and by your own players and by the other team to be conducting yourself well, I think what happens to me is I want to be my authentic self. I want to be my authentic self when I'm coaching. I want to be my authentic self when I'm off the floor and I'm talking to a young person. I think I have a

way of being appropriate doing appropriate times. But I'm myself. I want to sleep well at night knowing that by myself. So when I'm on the sidelines, I try to figure out what's the pulse of the game. So we want to we want to pick the face up. Okay, we're gonna it out into the passion lines and don't let them off the hook, make them work for everything. How are officials calling the game? And what are my colleagues doing beside me? What's the opponent and the coaching said?

What do they What does it look like, what does the crowd feeding off? I look at my players eyes, and I want to see that fire in their eyes. I want to see that they are locked into the task at hands. Every opportunity you can grow, grow, every opportunity you can lead, lead, Okay, and then I take my place after seeing all those things. If we can't get a day, sometimes I do get up and I

talk to officials. Sometimes I scream at them. Sometimes I say some things that I probably shouldn't say, but it's my authentic self. I do sometimes sit down and just let the game come to me. Trust our players, Trust our players, And I will tell you this, President Clinton. Is that a lot of times when I'm yelling at officials and I'm self assessing because this is what I do.

If I'm yelling at officials about a certain call, I know, for me, the root of why I'm yelling at official is probably because I don't trust my team in those instances. And I have to do a better job at trust of my team and putting that energy that I'm giving to the officials to my team. How do you think basketball women's basketball, particularly is different from when you played in college. How is it changing, where's it going? Well, women's basketball is a lot different from I'm not gonna

mention this. It's almost thirty thirty years from when I played. And I know some of my old school buddies will say that UH will beg to differ and that I think it's better. And here's why. They're quicker, they're stronger, they are more skilled, and they're more skilled than all those things because of what they've been able to see.

The w n B A I believe, is starting their twenty third year, and when the little girls have seen twenty three years of women play professionally, that's the carrot that's been dangling in front of them for all of their lives. When I was growing up, we only had the NBA, you know, and that's that was a far gone conclusion that we weren't gonna be, you know, in the in the NBA. So I would give the new schoolers an edge on the old schoolers only because they

they've seen it. I think the other thing is, I think the strength level of these players is expanded enormously. Yeah, you know, because every everybody has a trainer. Now, you know, some of them are taking care of their bodies a lot better because they want to play longer, they want to play as long as they can, and their careers

have been extended because of that. You know, the longevity of a w NBA career, it's it's more years than previous, but it's it's it's much harder to get into the w n b A nowadays because there are only one hundred and forty four ops. And that's not to say that there's always a hundred and forty four available because you have pros that that have been in the game.

I would say, and I think I talked to a couple of GM to the w n b A, they're only probably maybe ten to twenty new jobs available if that for someone that's leaving college and going into the w n b A, and that that percentage is very low. So I tried to extend that percentage to our players because everybody is not going to be a professional athlete. So we gotta get this degree. We gotta learn how to navigate through life just in case, just in case

it doesn't work out on the professional basketball level. Tell me about the Olympics. How did it affect your life? How is it different from all the other contests you were in the Olympic Games um growing up in on those same projects. I only saw women play two times on television. One was the n C Double A Final Four Women's Final Four, and the other one was the Summer Olympic Games. And I wanted to do both. I wanted to be a national champion. I wanted to be

a gold medalist. So the Olympics and playing for USA Basketball is basketball utopia. The culture of USA Basketball, the friendships, the sisterhood that are created because we didn't care, and we don't care. You know, who scores the most points, who gets the most rebounds. The one goal for us

is to win basketball games, to do it together. And at the end of the two week period of planning Olympic Games is that we're standing on that podium and we're receiving gold because there's so much pressure to win gold, and we go into it knowing that it's gold or failure. So the Olympic Games, the USA Basketball experience is what I model my coaching after. It is that I know sometimes when you're coaching at the collegiate level, there's so many external people and things that get in the way

of a player totally committing to that common goal. So the Olympics is a lot different. And I've coached for nineteen years on the collegiate level, I don't think that I've ever had a team that had that same type of culture. It's they've come close, but not that the total culture of giving self to the team. We'll be

right back. You went to Africa with me and a group of people to see the foundation's work that Clinton Foundations work to help people get AIDS medication, to help farmers improve their yields, to do things to build villages that are healthier and get food that's healthier. And you agreed to represent and affect women's basketball and going on that trip to Africa, and I just like to ask you, first of all, do you think it was worth your while? And what do you remember most of about the trip

we took together. First, I don't think I got a chance to say thank you, so thank you for that life changing experience. I'm a better person because of that experience that I had. The people that I experienced it with were incredible giving people. And I cried this, this tough girl from North Philly cried on that trip. But what I what I remember most about it. The hearing aids. I saw someone here for the first time in their lives and it it just brought tears to my eyes.

My heart opened for that person. For a deaf person to hear a voice they repeated the words that the doctor was saying to them, really was heart wrenching for me. There are so many people around the world that are classified as death because I live in really poor countries who are capable of functionally normally if someone helps him and I agree with you, man, when you see somebody

here for the first time, it's breathtaking. That was a session we did with one of our c g I partners, Starkey, which is basically giving a couple hundred hearing aids to people with difficulty hearing a couple hundred thousand a year. Now, mmm, you know if it if it weren't for your foundation, I don't think there would be as many people living. I can remember we went into the hospitals and we saw, you know, people getting treated for AIDS and it was

it was life changing. I came back to the University of South Carolina and our team for that particular year was be the Change. Be the Change, and I shared with my players, what be the change meant to me? And we went out into the community and I hope we were able to impact some kids and being a change in their lives and our lives because it was an incredible experience. When can we go back, I'd love for you to go back with me. Up, you have

your own philanthropic effort UH appropriately named. Since started this show with the story of your childhood, Inner Soul, tell us about Inner Soul and what did it do. Inner Soul was birth from a conversation I had one of our partners who was doing some some spring cleaning and she was gonna throw away some some new shoes that she had, and I was like, oh no, don't, don't do that, and I just kind of thought about my

childhood and I'm like, we need to do something. We need to do something here in the state of South Carolina that will help you know, so many because there's a lot of homelessness that's here in the state of South Carolina. I said, we need to give out new sneakers to homeless children and children who are in need, because I know what a new pair of sneakers did from me when I was growing up. Because sneakers were something that I really enjoyed, and that was the only

thing that I love. I didn't care what I looked like from my ankles up as long as I had a new pair of sneakers on. And I know that resonates probably all across the country, where if you feel like you have a new pair of sneakers on, would pay attention a little bit more in class. So it raises your self esteem, It makes you feel a lot better. It gives you so much confidence. So what we're doing now is we're going into elementary schools and we're implementing

a new initiative called Educate my Soul. And Educate my Soul is an initiative that has about five variables. It is class attendance, It is behavior, It is reading, it is physical fitness and getting good grades. We go into these elementary schools and we create a competition between all of third grade, all the fourth grade, and all the

fifth grade, and they compete. So after each grading period, we find out what classroom scores the highest and those five variables, and we give them a new pair of sneakers each grading period. And I just went to two today and they open those those bags up with those sneakers in it, and again the smiles on their faces

are quite incredible. So it's a partnership that we had with certain schools throughout the state of South Carolina, and hopefully we could continue to grow all across this country and then hopefully we'll we'll have some sneaks to take over to Africa or wherever the Clinton Foundation is is servicing young people. I thank you for joining us down,

Thank you, Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for making this young girl from North Philadelphia get a chance to speak to the forty second president of the United States. Thank you so much. All of you been listening. You now know why I'm telling you this dog. Stayley is one of the most impressive and admirable people I've had the honor to meet and really get to know since

I left the White House. One of the great blessings of these many years since I left offices that I've had a little more time to get to know people, take trips with them and make friends with him and uh, I think she has done an unbelievable job. It's a coach not only on the court, but what's more important to me, off the court and as a person Thanks for listening. Why Am I Telling You This is a production of our Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation and at

Will Media. Our executive producers are Craig Manascian and Will Malnty. Our production team includes Mitch Bluestein, Jamison cat Sufis, Tom Galton, Sarah Harrows, and Jake Young, with production support from Tyler Scott and LaTavia Young. Original music by What White. Special thanks to John Sykes, Tina Finoi, John Davidson on Hell Arena, Corey Gantley, Oscar Flores, Kevin Thurm, and all our dedicated

staff and partners at the Clinton Foundation. If you have an idea of suggestion for the show, we'd love to hear from you, so please visit Clinton Foundation dot org slash podcast to share your thoughts with us. If you like the show, tell someone else about it. You can subscribe to Why Am I Telling You This? On the I Heart Ready ap Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Listening to this podcast, you're helping support the work or the Clinton Foundation, So thank you. Hi. I'm

myshe Alexander. I'm senior Impact and Design manager and a proud alumni of the Clinton Global Initiative University c g i U, President Clinton and Chelsea often say that you're never too young to make a difference. Not c g I YOU are working to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses across the country and around the world to turn their big ideas for social change into

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YOU demonstrate the future of impact. Learn more about this work and see how you can get involved visit www dot Clinton Foundation dot org. Slash podcast