We’ve seen Dawn Staley make statements before with her sideline fashion.
She wore a Randall Cunningham jersey ahead of the Philadelphia Eagles’ appearance in this year’s Super Bowl and last season won her second national championship while clad in Louis Vuitton.
On Sunday, as Staley coached her No. 1-seeded South Carolina Gamecocks to a 76-45 second-round win over No. 8 South Florida in a nationally televised NCAA tournament game, she paid homage to HBCU and history of women’s basketball by sporting a throwback Cheyney State University jersey.
The jersey Staley wore was incredibly fresh and clean, a white shirt with blue sleeves and lettering. It featured the number 44 that belonged to Yolanda Laney, who played on the 1982 Cheyney State team going to the national championship game in Norfolk, Virginia.
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Honor the past with today’s drip 💧 @dawnstaley#MarchMadness X @GamecockWBB pic.twitter.com/MYeVBQrvpL
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessWBB) March 19, 2023
To date, Cheyney State is the only HBCU team to ever make the Final Four in women’s college basketball, doing so in 1982 and 1984. In 1982, the Wolves lost in the title game to a Louisiana Tech team led by a feisty Watch was led by the name of Kim Mulkey. In 1984, Pat Summitt’s Tennessee Volunteers defeated Cheyney in the Final Four.
These Cheyney teams were coached by Hall of Famer C. Vivian Stringer, who later also led Iowa and Rutgers to the Final Fours. Laney is an inductee for the Naismith Hall of Fame this year.
Cheyney has faded from the sport’s spotlight over time, and the school lost its NCAA Division II status in 2018. That season, the Cheyney Wolves competed in volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball without being affiliated with a conference or NCAA division.
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Still, they will always be the first HBCU to play for a national championship in women’s basketball at the Division I level, and they will always hold a historic place in the minds of fans of the sport. Cheyney is less than 30 miles from Philadelphia, where Staley grew up. She was 12 when Cheyney played for a national championship.
“Yolanda Laney … She’s from Philly, grew up — she actually started leagues for us. When I was younger we played in something called the DBL and she was very involved in creating this league to give younger players a chance to just get together and play in the summer. So, fond memories of that,” Staley said after Sunday’s game. “I mean Cheyney State was the only HBCU to make it to a Final Four and that they were led by Coach Stringer who opened doors that I’m walking through now, I mean it was really an honor, that one wearing jerseys and representing them.”
The Gamecocks remain undefeated this season and are now advancing to their ninth straight Sweet 16 behind the game of Aliyah Boston, who is likely to be the No. 1 pick overall in this year’s WNBA draft. South Carolina’s win over USF marked Staley’s 400th as Gamecocks coach.
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