When Dawn Staley explained how Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird extended their WNBA careers: "Diana turned her life over to being a vegan..."

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley is a three-time national championship-winning coach with various dominant Gamecocks teams. Before she was a coach, Staley was one of the most famous women's basketball players winning three Olympic gold medals (1996, 2000 & 2004) as a player and one as a coach during the 2021 Olympics.

During her illustrious career, Staley played with some of the greatest women's basketball players including the legendary Sue Bird and former UConn Huskies star Diana Taurasi who announced her retirement on Tuesday.

Staley was the captain of the national team when Bird and Taurasi were selected to their first Olympics team in 2004 at the Athens games and she coached them for their fifth Olympics in 2021 after UConn Huskies coach Geno Auriemma left his post as coach of the national team (2017).

Speculation was rife that Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi would retire from the national team alongside Auriemma but during her introduction news conference, Dawn Staley revealed how Bird and Taurasi had extended their careers.

“I knew they were coming back,” Dawn Staley said. “They were healthy. Diana turned her life over to being a vegan a while ago just to prolong, to give her options. Sue was another nutrition buff. I think they’re just smart. They made smart decisions throughout their career to prolong it. Given they were healthy and injury-free, they were going to go.”

How Dawn Staley inspired Diana Taurasi

With Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi still new members of the national team, Dawn Staley was the star of the team in the 2004 Olympics in Greece. She showed her star power by scoring 14.0 second-half points in the gold medal game against Australia to complete a comeback win to clinch the gold medal.

During a 2020 interview with NBC, Taurasi revealed how Staley's performance in the Athens gold medal game set the tone for her career.

“I got to see firsthand how Dawn, in the gold-medal game in 2004, made two of the biggest baskets to get us a gold medal,” Diana Taurasi said. “I just know the grit and the competitiveness that she has. And that’s carried over to the court [in her] coaching.”

Dawn Staley has been inducted into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (2013) and Women's Basketball Hall of Fame (2012) and is still the first person to win the Naismith Award as both a player and a coach.