South Carolina coach remains focused on road to NCAA title

The undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks will play Iowa in the women’s championship game Sunday at 3pm Eastern. Head Coach Dawn Staley is not afraid to share the secret of her success.

“If you don’t believe in God, something’s wrong with you,” she said after her team’s regional championship victory last weekend. “I’m a believer, because he makes things come true. When you’re at your worst, he’s at his best.”

Staley, who was just named the AP’s Coach of the Year, continued her faith-filled testimony when she took questions from the media moments after the television broadcast.

“I think God has a funny way of dealing with people,” she said. “I’m one of his. And for us to lose the way we lost last year and for him to bring us to this point today makes me believe a little bit deeper. I don’t want to ever not give God the glory for giving us uncommon favor.”

Staley said she also praises God following losses.

“You just don’t celebrate the victories,” she said. “Last year, I thanked God for even the loss, because I don’t want to be one-sided and to give him the glory when it is only befitting for wins. Easter is as significant as any other day. He is risen.”

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Staley has been open about her Christian faith during her career. After her team won the 2022 national championship, she told a national TV audience, “I have to give glory to God, glory to God. I think people don’t really understand that our path was divinely ordered.”

Staley also speaks regularly about her Christian faith, including on social media. Last Sunday, she tweeted about Easter, her pregame devotional centered on Jeremiah 31:3 and her team’s “prayer warriors.”

“To God be the glory,” she wrote. “Thank you to all of our prayer warriors who call on the main line to help get us to another Final Four.”

–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice