The Athletic has live coverage of Iowa vs. South Carolina in the women’s national championship game.
CLEVELAND —After South Carolina beat Iowa Sunday afternoon for the national championship, Dawn Staley’s phone almost certainly was pinging with a congratulatory messages. Including many from the 215 area code.
Mike Flynn, her former grassroots coach from Philadelphia, said earlier this week that he had the perfect message to send his former point guard. He wants Staley to be ready for the ultimate Philly celebration after cutting down the nets in Cleveland.
More specifically: He wants her to get a Mummers costume ready.
“She’s a Philly girl. She hasn’t given it up,” Flynn said. “She’s an icon of the city.”
In the nearly 16 years since Staley took over South Carolina’s women’s basketball team in May 2008 — raising the program from consistent mediocrity to the sport’s gold standard at the moment — Staley has become a lot of things to a lot of people. Leader. Advocate. Winner. Three-time national champion.
Among her favorite titles, though?
Philadelphian.
Born in 1970, Staley was raised in the Raymond Rosen Projects in North Philly — a place that helped shape her as a woman, a player and now arguably the top coach in her profession. She roots hard for the…
