Daybreak Staley, a Corridor of Famer and the present coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks’ ladies’s basketball workforce, mentioned that she had a proper interview with the New York Knicks for the franchise’s head teaching emptiness earlier than the group employed Mike Brown.
“I interviewed for the Knicks. I did,” Staley said during a recent appearance on the Post Moves podcast hosted by the Indiana Fever’s Aliyah Boston and former basketball nice Candace Parker. “It was the identical interview that everyone else [had] that was of their candidate pool. Identical factor.”
Staley, who has received three nationwide championships as the top coach of South Carolina, mentioned how that dialog went with New York’s premier basketball workforce.
“It was like hours. However within the interview, I assumed I did fairly effectively,” she defined. “I used to be effectively ready for the interview.”
Staley even went on to say that she would have accepted the place had she been prolonged a suggestion by the workforce.
“If the Knicks would have supplied me the job, I might have needed to do it,” she mentioned. “Not only for me. It’s for girls. Simply to interrupt open that [door], I must. It’s the New York Knicks, and I’m from Philly, but it surely’s the freaking New York Knicks. And I did say that within the interview.”
Though Staley described how she wouldn’t take any NBA job, there would have been immense stress on her as the primary feminine head coach in league historical past. She additionally would’ve been beneath fixed scrutiny working in the US’ largest media market.
“The NBA needs to be prepared for a feminine head coach,” she elaborated. “You’ll be able to’t simply interview any individual and say, ‘We’re gonna rent her.’”
Curiously, Staley claimed that she “in all probability misplaced the job” after asking questions concerning the franchise and the league’s readiness for a feminine head coach.
“I believe I in all probability misplaced the job by asking this query… ‘How – in the event you employed me as the primary feminine coach within the NBA – wouldn’t it affect your day by day job?’ As a result of it might. It will since you’re going to be requested questions that you just don’t need to be requested in the event you rent a male coach,” she mentioned. “There’s going to be the media. There’s going to be all these items that you just’re going to need to cope with that you just didn’t need to cope with, and also you don’t need to cope with once you rent a male. After which that acquired them to considering. That actually acquired them to eager about, ‘Hm, possibly she’s proper?’ After which, I felt the vitality change after that.”
Staley jokingly blames herself for asking too many questions.
“So I shot myself within the foot by being inquisitive,” she concluded. “Asking all these darn questions.”
