To say that Dawn Staley has been around plenty of talent would be a massive understatement. She’s one of the greatest coaches ever, and her days as a player also made her a legend of the game.
Nevertheless, everybody makes mistakes. She’s found some bumps along the road during her coaching career, and she’s vowed never to make the same mistake twice.
That’s why she’s done making promises to her players. Recently, she revealed that she didn’t even promise A’Ja Wilson she would be a starter for the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Dawn Staley makes no promises
“I did that once in my career very early in my career when I was at Temple. I did it off of potential like I knew that this player could be really good and maybe starting would be the thing that keeps them motivated. Wrong. So I’ve never made that mistake,” Staley said.
From the moment she did that, she realized she had messed up. That’s why, regardless of how talented her players were, she stopped making any sort of guarantee:
“I’ve never made that mistake (again). I’ve never told an A’ja Wilson you’re going to start,” she continued. “I never told any one of our players that they were going to start because you get them in here and you don’t know, they could be the most talented individual. But you get them with other talented individuals that work really hard, that understand, that can make the transition a lot smoother and you start them over that. That leads to a disaster.”
Talent alone can only get you somewhere. Fortunately, players like Wilson know that working hard is the only way to get things done. Now, she’s the best player in the WNBA.