It’s easy to see the impact Dawn Staley has had on the University of South Carolina’s women’s basketball team.
A statue of A’ja Wilson — one of Staley’s early marquee recruits and national champion — greets fans as they enter the arena. Pieces of Final Four courts hang in the concourse. And, not to mention, the three national championship trophies on display.
But another part of her legacy lives on not only in the players who are still playing professionally but those who are now coaching the next generation of players.
These are just a few of their stories.
Khadijah Sessions, South Carolina
Sessions has come a long way from coaching on rec center floors to under banners she helped win.
Sessions — an integral piece of three regular season SEC championship teams, two SEC tournament championships and one Final Four team — began her coaching career at the grassroots level as an AAU coach.
There, she found a love for the craft bouncing from gym to gym coaching high schoolers.
“Being able to see myself on that level taught me a lot about myself as a young coach being able to know I can coach on any level,” says Sessions, who earned her degree at the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management.
She worked her way up from there to an assistant on Columbia’s Ridge View High School boys basketball team where she helped win two state titles.
When Staley called ahead of the 2023-24 season offering her a position on her staff, Sessions took the opportunity.
Just like that Sessions was back at her alma mater working for Dawn Staley.
“The things she does outside of coaching makes you love everything about her,” Sessions says. “Just everything outside of just her coaching makes you realize you can be that type of person and still be a great coach.”
Brionna Dickerson Zimmerman, Heathwood Hall
The good news for Zimmerman ahead of the 2008 season was she was about to be coached by her childhood hero. The bad news for Zimmerman was she was about to be coached by her childhood hero.
“I just remember idolizing (Staley). Back when bobbleheads were a thing, I had a bobblehead of her,” Zimmerman says. “When I found out she was going to be our head coach, there was this mix of excitement but also terror.”
Zimmerman committed to Staley’s predecessor, Susan Walvius, playing three seasons for her. Staley took over the Gamecocks program for Zimmerman’s senior year, tasked with getting USC to national prominence.
What happened over that season was a crash course in coaching that Zimmerman, who earned her master’s degree in international business from USC, still uses today.
“She said something along the lines of, ‘If I feel like I need to coach every play of the game, then we're not as prepared as we should have been. I didn't do my job in practice,’” Zimmerman says. “So that's something that I've taken with me.”
Zimmerman’s senior year didn’t end with a lot of wins, but what it did was lay the foundation not only for the Gamecock program but for Zimmerman’s career.
She’s coached Heathwood Hall in Columbia to two straight state championships and hopes to keep those winning ways she learned from Staley.
“She’s really just encouraging me and giving me advice when I need it today,” she says. “Even though I've only played for a year, I never felt like that door closed.”
Olivia Gaines, Allen
Gaines’ time at South Carolina was defined by sacrifice.
A junior college player of the year, she enrolled at South Carolina before the 2013 season and had to find a new role with minutes hard to come by at USC.
After conversations with Staley, Gaines chiseled out her niche as someone who helped coach a swath of young talent and provided energy on the bench while earning a degree in sociology.
“The conversations that I had with her, she never made me feel less than. Even if my playing time was up or down,” Gaines says. “She was always in my corner, so I'm forever grateful for her. I'm forever grateful that I stuck it out.”
Gaines was immediately pulled into coaching, coaching at the junior college and Division I level before becoming Allen University’s head coach ahead of the 2024-25 season.
“I didn't think I was going to fall in love with it,” Gaines says. “The game owes me nothing, so I'm just trying to pay back to the game right now.”
And now she’s trying to give back like Staley did with her.
“I feel like I'm doing a disservice if I don't do my part. So I'm just forever locked in on my kids,” she says. “I do want them to be successful on and off the basketball court.”
Lindsey Spann, Maryland
Spann’s playing career was cut short quicker than she would have liked. After transferring to South Carolina for the 2017 season, Spann played only in 15 games before a knee injury ended her season and ultimately her playing career.
But what the rest of that season — plus a year as a graduate assistant at USC — gave her was a glimpse into the ins and outs of being a Division I coach.
“You start to really get into that and just see all that it takes to kind of run a high-level program,” she says. “It was great for me to see because I kind of realized I could do this.”
After graduating with a master’s degree in sport management, Spann hasn’t left the Division I ranks. Spann went to Maryland in 2018 as director of recruiting operations and was elevated to assistant coach and recruiting coordinator in 2020.
“She made sure that I was connected to certain people. She was like, ‘Hey, when you go here, make sure you introduce yourself to this person,’” Spann says of Staley. “She still takes care of me to this day.”
Spann is still early in her coaching tenure but has already experienced two Big Ten regular season titles, two tournament titles, three trips to the Sweet 16 and one to the Elite Eight.
“If you’re not doing it for the people and the kids, what are you doing it for?” Spann says. “Yeah, the winning and everything is great. But to be able to see people achieve their dreams and do well in life is the greatest thing.”