July 18, 2008

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina head women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley announced the hiring of Angela O’Neal as the director of women’s basketball operations. O’Neal joins the Gamecocks after spending the last year as the assistant director of enforcement at the NCAA. She was previously the director of women’s basketball operations at the University of Kentucky from 2003 to 2007.

“Angela is loyal, passionate about the game of basketball and enjoys the task of helping people be the best they can be,” Staley said. “We have been friends for a long time, and I have always wanted to work with her because of her outstanding work ethic and her thoroughness.”

“Dawn is the epitome of greatness,” O’Neal said. “To work alongside her as she implements her vision at the University of South Carolina is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I could not forego.”

At the NCAA, O’Neal was charged with investigating and evaluating information to determine if NCAA violations had occurred then processing that information within the enforcement guidelines.

After her first three years at University of Kentucky, O’Neal earned an assistant athletics director title in July 2006. She continued to manage the day-to-day operations of the women’s basketball program. Working with a $2.25 million budget, O’Neal handled the logistics for team travel, non-conference scheduling, facility usage and the supervision and hiring of staff, student employees and team managers. Additionally, she was the administrator for the Victory Club for Women’s Basketball, the program’s university-affiliated fundraising entity.

Prior to her start in college athletics, O’Neal was an associate attorney at Kennerly, Montgomery & Finley, P.C., where she was a civil litigator with a concentration in insurance defense and business related torts. She got her start as an attorney at Legal Aid of East Tennessee, litigating and negotiating family law cases under a Department of Justice Domestic Violence grant.

O’Neal earned a bachelor of arts in American government in 1995 from the University of Virginia, where she served as a women’s basketball student manager. She attended law school at University of Tennessee, receiving her doctor of jurisprudence in 2000.