South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley was awarded the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at Thursday night’s ESPY Awards.
Staley joins a profound list of recipients, including Dick Vitale, Liam Hendriks, Jim Kelly and the late Stuart Scott and Craig Sager amid their cancer battles and Eric LeGrand after he was paralyzed following a tackle in a Rutgers football game.
The coach was given the award, named after famed basketball coach Jim Valvano after his famous speech at the 1993 ESPYS, due to her leadership efforts in women’s sports and helping fight cancer.
During her passionate acceptance speech, she made a plea for pay equity.
“How do I not fight injustice when I ask them to do things the right way?” Staley said. “How do I not ask for fairness when I ask them not to cheat themselves, not to cut corners? How do I not fight for equity when I tell them they can climb as high as they want, they can be all they want?
“How do I not fight pay disparity when I do the same job and get paid less but win more? They’re watching me; I can’t ask them to stand up for themselves if I’m sitting down, nor can I ask them to use their voice to affect change if I’m only willing to whisper. So, when someone tells me to ‘shut up and coach,’ I simply say, No. I have a job to do.”
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According to USA Today, Staley’s $3.1 million salary this year is the second-highest among women’s coaches but would be 38th among men’s coaches.
Earlier this week, she asked Barack Obama if the United States could “borrow” his wife, Michelle, for “four short years.”
She also recently showed support for transgender females in girls and women’s sports.
“I’m of the opinion of, if you’re a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman, and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion,” Staley said during the March Madness tournament.
When asked whether she thought “transgender women should be able to participate in women’s college basketball,” Staley responded, “Yes.”
Staley and the Gamecocks completed a perfect season by defeating Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in the national championship in April. It was her third title and second in three seasons.
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