In February 2023, A’ja Wilson received a surprise message from someone she’s spoken with thousands of times before. It was then that Wilson’s coach at South Carolina, Dawn Staley, informed her that she would be a Nike signature athlete. She would have a collection and a signature sneaker.
While Wilson was still playing at South Carolina, Staley told the 6-foot-4 forward that Wilson would one day have her own shoe. As a child, Wilson said she always dreamed of having one. But it wasn’t until the Las Vegas Aces star won her second WNBA MVP in 2022 that she said she thought it could become a reality. Staley had long believed in her, however, which is why she gladly played the role of the messenger.
“That was truly a special moment that she could share that to me,” Wilson said.
It was fitting that Staley did so, not only because of her ties to Wilson, but because in the late 1990s, Staley had a signature Nike sneaker of her own.
The Nike Zoom S5 was short-lived, but it made Staley one of the just over-a-dozen current or former WNBA players ever to have had a signature sneaker. That’s the rare company Wilson is joining, with Nike announcing on Saturday, ahead of the Aces preseason game on South Carolina’s campus — where Wilson already has a statue in her honor —…
