Dec. 16, 2015

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley was named 2015 USA Basketball Co-National Coach of the Year for her leadership in the United States’ gold medal at the FIBA Women’s U19 World Championship in July. Sharing the award with Sean Miller who coached the men’s team to the same honor, Staley becomes the first person to have earned both a USA Basketball Coach and Athlete of the Year award.

“Sean Miller and Dawn Staley were tremendous leaders for USA Basketball this past summer at the FIBA U19 World Championships,” said Jim Tooley, USA Basketball CEO/Executive Director. “We are grateful for their commitment and appreciative of the sacrifices they made in order to lead these teams to gold medals.

“Dawn continued her remarkable service to USA Basketball, which not only saw her lead the USA U19 women to a gold medal over a formidable field, including host Russia, she also continued her duties as a USA Women’s National Team assistant coach and helped the USA to a very successful showing during the team’s October European Tour.”

With Staley at the helm, the 2015 USA Basketball Women’s U19 World Championship Team won its seven games by an average margin of victory of 32.1 points. The gold medal at this year’s event in Chekhov, Russia, July 18-26, was the U.S. women’s sixth-straight U19 title. In the preliminary round of the event, the USA beat Spain 72-57, China 88-62 and Egypt 104-41. The USA downed Argentina 89-39 in the round of 16, Canada 93-45 in the quarterfinals, Spain 80-65 in the semifinals and host Russia 78-70 in a hard-fought gold medal game.

“It’s a pretty cool honor, especially when you look at all the great coaches that were coaching this summer,” Staley said. “I was really fortunate to have a great coaching staff and to have a special group of players. They played hard and had fun. They put our coaching staff in a position to win an award like this.”

Prior to the U19 worlds, Staley guided the USA to a 3-0 exhibition record in the Spain U19 International Tournament in Murcia, Spain, including an 85-82 win over Australia on July 12, a 95-40 win over Canada on July 13 and a 75-51 victory against host Spain on July 14. She also was on hand as an assistant coach for the 2015 USA Basketball Women’s National Team minicamp May 4-6 in Las Vegas and four exhibition wins during a European tour and training camp Oct. 2-10 in Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic.

This year marks the 20th time USA Basketball has presented its National Coach of the Year award, which was first earned by USA Basketball Women’s National Team and Olympic head coach Tara VanDerveer in 1996. The USA Basketball National Coach of the Year Award is given to a USA Basketball head coach who made a significant impact on the success of individual athletes and team performance at the highest levels of competitions in a manner consistent with the highest ethical, professional and moral standards.