“We’re not your parents”: When Dawn Staley explained how she sets expectations straight with young athletes

Through her 25-year coaching career at South Carolina and Temple, Dawn Staley has seen the rise of many players, the most famous being A'ja Wilson, Aliyah Boston and Kamilla Cardoso. Players come into her fold at 18 and often need guidance and healthy communication to help them grow into great professionals.

During a 2023 interview with "What Drives Winning," Staley was asked about her approach to having honest and tough conversations with her players. Quoting an incident of a student going through a rough spot in her career, the Gamecocks coach said (2:23):

"She wanted us to be a certain way and we, in turn, wanted her to be a certain way and we never got there, but the fact that I had to explain to her like, 'We're not your parents. We're not going to trust you like your parents because your parents had 18 years to build that trust and you had 18 years to build the trust with them.'

"I mean, we don't have that; 'this is our first year together, so you have to understand that trust comes in different forms.'"

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Dawn Staley's additional efforts to help her players excel

As much as Dawn Staley and her South Carolina staff put their all into coaching and molding the players into who they should be, it can be a tough task without the support of the parents. To keep them in the loop about their daughter's progress, Staley shared that she holds meetings with them.

"I include them in how I'm coaching and mentoring their daughters," she said (4:25). "I have monthly Zoom meetings with all the parents, all of them, just to check in and make sure that this is what's happening here at the beginning of the season.

"... some of them will go through some things that they haven't gone through before, some of them won't play... and that's something new for them. As parents, you're used to seeing your daughters play and play a whole lot ... some of them are just gonna have to help us prepare to win instead of really getting out there."

With all the information, parents can also hold the players accountable for the opportunities given to them, making Dawn Staley's job a bit smoother. This method has worked for the coach as she has won three national championships with South Carolina and is on track to win another this season.