Dawn Staley on Why the Journey Matters More than the Win

9 to 5ish with theSkimm

theSkimm

Entrepreneurship, Careers, Business

4.7 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dawn Staley helped Team USA’s women’s basketball team win gold at the ‘96 Olympics. It was the highlight of her career. Yet she fell into a depression that was so bad, she didn’t even want to look at a basketball. Nothing prepared her to process reaching such a milestone. She was left asking herself: now what? With a resumé is full of career-highs (hi, 3x national champ), Dawn says the real reward isn’t the trophy – it’s all the work it took to get there. Dawn gets into it all in her new memoir, “Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three”. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Dawn also shares: How many shoes she has in her collection (sneakerheads beware) Why she aspired to play in the NBA – instead of the WNBA – growing up How the taboo nature of mental health stopped her from asking for help post-Olympics Why she was insulted when approached for a coaching job The one thing she wants to see change for women athletes this year PS: Dawn’s memoir is out now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Representation does matter.
0:02.1	Like the only thing I had to go on was grow up and be the next point guard for the 76ers,
0:08.3	because that's all I watched.
0:10.2	Nothing inside of me said, why isn't there a women's league?
0:14.1	Nothing.
0:14.7	You just go on.
0:17.2	I'm Carly Zakin, and I'm Danielle Weissberg.
0:20.3	Welcome to 9 to 5-ish with the skin.
0:23.0	We've run into so many questions over the years and had so many moments where we needed advice and we got it from women who'd been there.
0:32.8	And that's what we're bringing you at this show. Each week we're helping you get what you want out of your career
0:37.7	by talking to the smartest leaders we know. Because we know your work life is a lot more than
0:43.7	nine to five. All right, let's get into it. Hi, everyone. Today, our guest is Don Staley. She is a
0:53.2	former WNBA player and the current head coach of the University of South Carolina's women's basketball team.
1:00.4	Don grew up in North Philadelphia in the Raymond Rosen Projects. She was a pretty reserved kid, but she let it all out on the basketball court.
1:08.9	She mostly played with boys and dreamt of going pro in the NBA one day because when she was a kid, the WNBA didn't even exist yet.
1:18.9	Don played all throughout high school and in college at the University of Virginia. After graduating, she went pro and played around the world. In 1999, she entered the
1:30.6	WNBA and remained in the league for seven years. While playing in the league, Don became a
1:38.1	women's college basketball coach at Temple University. She later moved on to the University of
1:43.5	South Carolina, where she's led the
1:45.2	team to three national championship wins. Dawn gets into all of this and so much more in her new
1:52.4	memoir called Uncommon Favor, where she shares her journey of growing up in Philly to becoming
1:58.1	a trailblazing figure in women's basketball. And I would say leadership
	...

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