We’ve seen Dawn Staley make statements with her sideline fashion before.
She wore a Randall Cunningham jersey ahead of the Philadelphia Eagles’ appearance in this year’s Super Bowl and won her second national championship last season while decked out in Louis Vuitton.
On Sunday, while coaching her No. 1 seeded South Carolina Gamecocks to a 76-45 second-round victory over No. 8 South Florida in a nationally televised NCAA tournament game, Staley paid homage to HBCU and women’s basketball history 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, which belonged to Yolanda Laney, who played on the 1982 Cheyney State team that went to the national championship game in Norfolk, Va.
Honoring the past with today’s drip 💧 @dawnstaley#MarchMadness x @GamecockWBB pic.twitter.com/MYeVBQrvpL
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessWBB) March 19, 2023
To this day, Cheyney State is the only HBCU team to ever advance to 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 guard by the name of Kim Mulkey. In 1984, Pat Summitt’s Tennessee Volunteers topped Cheyney in the Final Four.
Those Cheyney teams were coached by Hall of Famer C. Vivian Stringer, who later guided Iowa and Rutgers to Final Fours too. Laney is a nominee for the Naismith Hall of Fame this year.
Cheyney has faded from the spotlight in the sport over time, and the school dropped its NCAA Division II status in 2018. This season, the Cheyney Wolves competed in volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball, unaffiliated with a conference or a NCAA division.
Still, they’ll always be the first HBCU to play for a women’s basketball national championship at the Division I level, and they’ll always hold a historic spot in the minds of the sport’s fans. Cheyney is located less than 30 miles from Philadelphia, where Staley grew up. She was 12-years-old when Cheyney played for a national championship.
“Yolanda Laney… She’s from Philly, grew up — she actually started leagues for us. Like when I was younger, we played in something called the DBL, and she was very much a part of creating that league to give younger players an opportunity to just come together and play in the summertime. 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 for them to be led by coach Stringer, who opened doors that now I walk through, I mean, it was truly an honor to wear this jersey and to represent them.”
The Gamecocks remain undefeated this season and are now advancing to their ninth consecutive Sweet 16 behind the play of Aliyah Boston, who will likely be the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s WNBA Draft. South Carolina’s victory over USF marked Staley’s 400th as the Gamecocks coach.
