COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley is now a finalist for another hall of fame, this time for being part of the gold medal team in 1996. And there's a way her Gamecock FAM can help her get there.
The U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame listed the 1996 U.S. Women's Basketball team as a finalist for induction into the 2002 Hall class. Staley is nominated both as an individual Olympian along with being a member of the 1996 team on the ballot.
The 1996 team competed in the Atlanta Summer Games and in winning gold avenged the national team's loss from 1992. Other than Staley, the squad featured some of the biggest stars in women's basketball of all time-- including Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, Jennifer Azzi, Rebecca Lobo, and Nikki McCray--all of whom also served as the core for the inaugural season of the WNBA a year later.
Staley is currently a member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame and the Naismith Hall of Fame. The 1996 team had previously been nominated in 2012.
Staley won three gold medals in her career (1996, 2000, 2004) with those teams never losing a game in competition.
As a coach, Staley was an assistant on the 2008 and 2016 gold medal winning teams, and was head coach of the team that won gold in 2021.
Public voting for the Hall of Fame class is open now at go.teamusa.org/TUSAHOF. Fans are allowed to vote once per day, per category, from May 2-16. The 2022 class will be announced on June 1 and the ceremony will be in Colorado Springs on June 24. This is the first class inducted to the hall since 2019.