BREAKING: “Give Them the Real”: How Dawn Staley ‘Spoiled’ Local South Carolina Reporters.

David Cloninger began following South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball 16 seasons ago, when Dawn Staley took over as head coach. During that first 10-win season, Cloninger was one of only a few reporters on press row, in a gym so quiet that Staley could be heard calling plays from the bench. After cycling through various publications, he now works for Charleston’s The Post and Courier, where he has witnessed the team grow into a dynasty and Staley become a true celebrity coach. And, while Staley has matured as a coach over the years, he believes the one thing that hasn’t changed is her unwavering commitment to local media.

“She is always willing to make time for everyone who requests it. Even though there are an increasing number of people asking,” Cloninger tells Front Office Sports. “She’s never refused me an interview, even when you have to talk about difficult subjects.”

Following an NCAA tournament game, the Gamecocks must conduct a national press conference and have an open locker room. Then, local journalists line up to chat with the coach. Everyone has two minutes to ask two questions, although Staley will push reporters to ask a third if they have one.

“She could be off after these games doing literally anything she wanted,” Chase Justice, a reporter for WYFF, an NBC affiliate in Greenville, South Carolina, told FOS. “But she’s taking the time to communicate with the media because she knows how far that coverage reaches. That’s special, and it doesn’t happen very frequently.”

While receiving the most media attention of her coaching career—South Carolina’s 87-75 win over Iowa in the national championship drew an average of 18.7 million viewers—Staley still made time for a young girl wearing a pink and white microphone flag and a sparkly black jacket who requested an interview. The video, as well as others of South Carolina media members lining up for their two minutes, went popular on social media during the tournament. According to one post, Staley remained on the floor for half an hour following the national title, addressing questions from local press.

The three-time national championship-winning coach tells FOS she prefers to communicate with South Carolina-based sources than national ones, especially near the end of the season. “They know the type of questions they need to ask because they know the inner workings of our team,” Staley said. These reporters inquire about more than only the great players, including Staley’s connections with players’ parents, what motivates lineup adjustments, and whether she would get a second dog after winning her second national championship. It’s also comforting to see familiar faces during the Final Four, she says.

“They’ve watched us, and they’ve followed us, and they know what our standard is, and when we don’t play to our standard, they recognize it. So it’s not like the national media who sees you once or twice or three times, and that’s their opinion. Or they’ll speak from a historical standpoint, not knowing real-time what our team is all about. But the local media, they know,” Staley says. “I’d rather spend my time with the people that really know our team, that’s going to report back to our fan base and give them the real.

College sports are rife with coaches who refuse to contact with the media, sports information directors who are uninterested in directing information, and limits on whether first-year athletes can conduct interviews. The amount of time Staley and her players devote to local media, particularly down the stretch, is not typical at this level, or any level for that matter. Reporters who cover Staley for a living understand that they have unprecedented access to a star coach and a powerhouse program. (Consider how Kim Mulkey discusses the media, for example.)

It’s not simply that Staley values the greater coverage she receives from reporters who are always around the squad. She claims the media might be “free marketing” for her squad in reaching Gamecock fans, dubbed “FAMs”. She also said she welcomes FAMs in for office tours, open practices, and shootarounds. The atypical amount of access fosters an atypical level of fandom, which helps to explain why, in addition to the product on the court, South Carolina has topped the nation in attendance for the last nine seasons.

‘She simply gets it.’

Local reporters benefit greatly from the team’s communications director, Diana Koval, whom Cloninger refers to as a “pro’s pro.” She handles the rush of questions for Staley, scheduling everything from postgame local media scrums to Good Morning America appearances. Koval even allowed local reporters to film mayhem in the locker room, with balloons scattered all over the floor and one athlete parading about with a balloon under her shirt to resemble a pregnant tummy.

“All the fans were like, ‘This is really what Dawn has been trying to tell us all along, is what this team is like behind the scenes,’” Amanda Poole, a reporter who recorded the moment for WACH, the Fox affiliate in Columbia, S.C., tells FOS. “And we were able to show that to the fans, and they really liked that.”

Poole, who has never covered a South Carolina loss, says she and other reporters talk about how “spoiled” they are to get that kind of access to the team. Justice says the emphasis on local media allows him to report on the team “in a way that they deserve to be covered.”

The access that Staley and South Carolina give create something of a virtuous cycle, making it worth it for local media to invest in covering her team. One local station, WIS in Columbia, S.C., sent five staffers to the Sweet Sixteen and Final Four this year.

“I got to shout them out because a decision maker decided to blow the budget on women’s basketball, and that’s unheard of,” Staley says. “Not in Columbia, South Carolina though.”

That recognition from Staley, which she also shared during a recent press conference, is “the cherry on top” for Justice. “She just gets it,” he says.

“To have her understand at a thorough level just how much goes into making these trips, and how much money it is for us to be there,” Justice goes on to explain, “that just means the world to everybody that’s doing this day in and day out.”

Despite some belt-tightening at Poole’s Sinclair-owned station, she claims they’ve sent at least one person to every tournament game in her three seasons covering the Gamecocks, and this year, her entire three-person team traveled to Cleveland. That enabled her to cover a story about former Gamecocks Aliyah Boston and A’ja Wilson practicing for Team USA in Cleveland during the Final Four, which she claims she would not have been able to do if she had flown solo.

“I think local media is the soul to the local team,” Staley says. “I hope that … whatever market that you’re in, that you allow your local media access to your team. Because the community is listening, and that’s your fan base.”

All three writers agree that local media coverage is critical to expanding women’s sports. Poole says her station airs WNBA clips of previous Gamecocks throughout the summer because viewers are interested in how Boston and other teams are playing. Staley did not take over one of the sport’s blue bloods, such as UConn or Tennessee, who already had committed fan bases, but it wasn’t only the winning that made women’s basketball the most popular ticket in South Carolina. It was her constant recruiting of an army of supporters, and the local media was an important component of her approach.

Cloninger, whose media career spans nearly three decades, claims that, unlike previous coaches he has covered, Staley accepts any request, even if she cannot fulfill it. “It has been a pleasure to work

He’d also never seen her cry until after winning this year’s national championship, which he suspects was from finally escaping the prospect of having another undefeated season ruined by Iowa.

“I never thought that you could get better than winning multiple national championships and all, but somehow they managed to find a way to improve, even when you were this good already,” Cloninger says. “It’s been the thrill of my career to be along for the ride.”

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