As far as overall track records go, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley has an impressive resume. The four-time Naismith Coach of the Year and three-time NCAA Division I tournament champion even interviewed for the New York Knicks earlier this year when the franchise was looking for Tom Thibodeau’s replacement.

And while the interview was “legitimate” by her own admission, Staley claimed that she did not care “a whole lot” about becoming the NBA’s first female coach. As a matter of fact, she gave the Knicks interview due to the connection she felt with the people there.

“I did the Knicks interview because I have known Leon Rose for 30 years. I am a person that I need a connection to the people, right? So I have a connection to him and World Wide Wes so I have known them all my life and it was a real interview, so I liked to see what they were talking about,” she explained, per ESPN’s Myron Medcalf.

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Both Leon Rose and William Wesley were hired by the Knicks back in 2020. Staley claimed that she was willing to help fellow female coaches prepare for potential NBA coaching jobs because she had “all the information.”

“And if there are NBA franchises interested in hiring a female, I'm here too, because you've got to be ready to take on that and all the things that it comes with,” she continued, although she expects a range of challenges if a female coach is indeed hired in the NBA.

“If I am the Knicks coach and you have a five-game losing streak, it’s not going to be about the losing streak. It’s not going to be about the losing streak, it’s going to be about being a female coach,” Staley explained, claiming that in addition to hiring a strong coach, the franchise will also have to prepare for potential backlash when things don’t go well.

Staley believes that a potential female coach in the NBA would also be subject to a higher degree of criticism. Hence, franchises will need to be “strong enough to endure those kind of instances.”