Over her 25 years as a head coach, including 18 seasons at South Carolina, Dawn Staley has built one of the most powerful programs in college basketball — and not just because of the players she’s developed.
Staley has produced 14 WNBA players and guided the Gamecocks to three national championships and 648 career wins, but her success runs deeper. The legendary coach has also quietly become one of the sport’s most effective mentors for future head coaches.
The Dawn Staley Coaching Tree
South Carolina opened the 2025–26 season facing two programs led by former Staley assistants — a clear testament to her coaching influence.
The Gamecocks opened with a 94–54 win over Grand Canyon, led by first-year head coach Winston Gandy, who spent the last two seasons as a South Carolina assistant. Then came Friday’s game against Bowling Green, coached by Fred Chmiel, a longtime Gamecock assistant from 2015 to 2023.
“Anybody that comes in here, whether they’re family or foe, we want to beat,” Staley said after the Grand Canyon win. “So it was cool. It’ll be cool to have Fred back with his team, and I hope it’s the same results.”
Alongside Gandy and Chmiel, the late Nikki McCray-Penson is another major branch of Staley’s coaching tree. McCray-Penson served on Staley’s first staff at South Carolina before becoming head coach at Old Dominion and later Mississippi State. She tragically passed away in 2023 at the age of 51.
Other Staley protégés have made their mark across the basketball world, including Cynthia Jordan (Florida assistant), Darius Taylor (Texas A&M), Carla McGhee (Nike), and former Gamecock Olivia Gaines, now head coach at Allen University.
For Staley, seeing her staff members evolve into head coaches is just as rewarding as developing star players.
“Ultimately that’s their dream,” Staley said. “The dream isn’t just with players. The dream is with people and the people I work with.”
Lessons from the Best
Both Chmiel and Gandy credit Staley for shaping how they run their programs today.
Staley first hired Chmiel during her final two seasons at Temple, then reunited with him at South Carolina in 2015. Together, they won national titles in 2017 and 2022.
“I stole everything from Dawn,” Chmiel joked. “I took everything. … I’m different from her, clearly. You’ve always got to put your own little spin on it, but the origins of it — a lot of it is Dawn.”
Chmiel estimates that “80 to 90%” of what he does at Bowling Green traces back to lessons from Staley.
For Gandy, his biggest takeaway from Columbia was understanding how hard it is to win consistently. During his two years with the Gamecocks, South Carolina went 72–4, winning a national championship and two SEC tournament titles.
“Once you see how much it takes, you then are able to kind of see the difference,” Gandy said.
Gandy also tries to emulate Staley’s consistency and humility.
“With Dawn, no job is too small, no job is too big,” Gandy said. “She’ll help unload bags, sweep the floor, or sit down and eat with managers. There’s a reason people are so connected to her.”
Who Could Be Next?
Staley’s newest assistant, Wendale Farrow, is already viewed as the next likely candidate to join her growing list of coaching graduates.
Farrow came to Columbia from Southern Cal after Gandy’s departure, and Staley didn’t hesitate to use her track record as a selling point.
“The two guys sitting in your seat got jobs — head coaching jobs,” Staley said with a smile.
Farrow knows the pattern but remains focused on learning and growing under Staley.
“Whatever soil I’m in, I want to grow from that soil,” Farrow said. “I feel like Coach Staley is going to water me in a lot of ways that naturally, becoming a head coach will be my next step.”
Other potential future head coaches on Staley’s staff include Jolette Law, who previously led Illinois from 2007–12, and younger assistants Khadijah Sessions and Mary Wooley.
The ‘Utopia’ of Coaching Under Staley
Despite the success of her coaching tree, Fred Chmiel believes it could be even larger — if assistants weren’t so content in Columbia.
“Nobody wants to leave her,” Chmiel said. “If you were at a different university, you’d be climbing the ladder and it would be easy to take a head coaching job. But here, you want to be selective. You want to leave for the right job — because being there, that’s the utopia of being an assistant in college basketball.”
Veteran assistant Lisa Boyer, who has been with Staley since 2002, is the perfect example. Despite likely receiving head coaching offers, Boyer has chosen to stay and help build South Carolina into a powerhouse.
As Staley continues to chase more championships, her influence continues to expand far beyond the court — shaping not just elite players, but the next generation of coaches who will carry her legacy across college basketball.
