South Carolina’s Dawn Staley is undeniably one of the most respectable figures in basketball coaching. Under her helm since 2008, the Gamecocks have won three NCAA championships and nine SEC tournament championships.
Staley’s proven success in leading South Carolina has led the team to witness massive audiences over the years, and she shared the mantra for the same while speaking at the Epic Center Summit. Staley had one simple way of looking at fans that puts things into great perspective.
“We don’t call them fans, we call them fams, because they’re like family members to us,” Dawn Staley said.
“We don’t call them fans, we call them ‘fams.’”@dawnstaley shares how S. Carolina fills its arena year after year & offers advice to the owners of the WNBA Portland Fire: Include the fans in the whole process & make them feel like a part of the team. #EpicenterSummit pic.twitter.com/P5AtgbdN41
— Sarah Spain (@SarahSpain) July 26, 2025
Dawn Staley’s piece of advice serves as a great blueprint for upcoming WNBA teams such as the Portland Fire to amass audiences to their arena. For Staley, South Carolina’s motto of including fans in the process of building the team all throughout has been what’s worked for them.
Staley also added how she was inspired by Beyoncé to form an exclusive group called the ‘Beehive.’
“We took it from Beyoncé’s beehive, so we call it the beehive. and we put every single members of our beehive names etched in the word. That makes them feel included in what we were doing,” Staley added.
In the 2024-25 season, the Gamecocks led in attendance for the 11th consecutive season, drawing a record 16,437 fans per home game at the Colonial Life Arena. What’s more fascinating is that they also set a program record with 7 sellouts. The Gamecocks’ total attendance for last season was a record 279,423 fans over 17 games.
Dawn Staley was rumored as one of the HC candidates for the New York Knicks
Dawn Staley was rumored to be one of the considerations to coach the NBA team, New York Knicks. After a Conference Finals exit, Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau was fired from the role, which opened the window for many, including Staley to be considered for the coaching role. But unfortunately, that wasn’t really the case.
As per The Athletic, the Knicks had reached out to Staley and were impressed with their conversation with her. However, she never was a finalist for the role. It could have been quite a revolutionary move had the Knicks signed her for the role.
The Knicks went forward with former Sacramento Kings coach Mike Brown for the head coaching role. Brown was announced as the 32nd coach of the Knicks earlier this July.
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