The backlash following UConn coach Geno Auriemma’s outburst at South Carolina coach Daybreak Staley within the closing seconds of their nationwide semifinal matchup on Friday evening has drawn a substantial quantity of media consideration and help from followers of each groups. Coach Auriemma sparked the heated alternate by allegedly accusing Coach Staley of not shaking his hand earlier than the sport, an accusation refuted by a video aired by ESPN that exhibits the 2 exchanging handshakes.
As Staley walked away from Auriemma, she yelled, “I’ll beat Geno’s ass,” a line that has since gone viral with at the very least one sports activities bar including the phrase to its marquee.
In an interview on Saturday, considered one of Coach Auriemma’s former star gamers, retired WNBA participant Diana Taurasi, downplayed the alternate between the rival coaches, saying it was nothing greater than “two folks competing on the highest stage which have an incredible quantity of respect for one another.”
However, for a lot of Black girls, Auriemma’s habits displays a well-known dynamic many people have encountered within the office the place irrespective of how onerous we work, we nonetheless face discrimination and disrespect from white colleagues.
Many people are taught earlier than we set foot in our first workplace jobs that to be a Black girl within the office means we now have to work twice as onerous to be twice nearly as good, solely to get half as far.
In keeping with a 2020 research launched by Lean In and McKinsey and Firm, Black girls “expertise a wider vary of microaggressions” and are “extra more likely to have their judgment questioned of their space of experience and to be requested to offer extra proof of their competence.”
As a longtime newsroom chief who has occupied high excessive stage editorial positions at among the high information organizations within the nation, I’ve skilled this extra occasions than I can depend. I’ve had my editorial judgment questioned in methods and with a stage of veracity my white friends don’t expertise. I’ve by no means been accused of not shaking somebody’s hand earlier than a recreation, however I’ve skilled managers dwelling on trivia unrelated to my work and calling into query my private ethics and professionalism.
Over the previous a number of a long time, Coach Daybreak Staley has emerged as a legendary determine in girls’s basketball who has proven she’s prepared to work twice as onerous.
The four-time U.S. Olympic gold medal winner (three as a participant and one as head coach in 2021) performed seven seasons within the WNBA, and for many of these seasons, she concurrently coached Temple College’s girls’s basketball staff.
In 2008, Staley joined the College of South Carolina Gamecocks as head coach, and he or she constructed this system into the powerhouse it’s in the present day. Throughout her tenure, the Gamecocks gained their first nationwide championship in 2017, adopted by two extra championship wins in 2022 and 2024.
Staley’s successes have earned her the distinctive distinction of being the one particular person to win the celebrated Naismith Award as each a participant and a coach. Twice nearly as good, certainly.
What makes Auriemma’s accusations all of the extra appalling is that Staley has additionally confirmed to be twice as sort behind the scenes. She’s earned a status for displaying compassion and care that goes past what might fairly be labeled nearly as good teaching or good sportsmanship.
After the Gamecocks defeated the Southern College girls’s basketball staff firstly of this yr’s March Insanity match, she gifted the Southern College gamers with Louis Vuitton fragrance. When requested by a reporter what prompted her providing, she defined that it was a small gesture for the gamers after a few the younger girls had complimented her and requested her what scent she was sporting.
Staley can be recognized for greeting the lengthy line of individuals seated courtside within the media row, one thing she did previous to the beginning of Friday’s UConn recreation.
When reporters requested Auriemma to touch upon what had occurred within the last seconds of that recreation, he stood by his phrases and actions and withheld an apology for his habits. He didn’t really feel it was warranted.
Whereas Auriemma was standing his floor, Staley continued to point out up as she at all times has. In the course of the UCLA v. Texas matchup that adopted her staff’s win, she was seen within the stands graciously posing for footage and signing autographs for followers.
In an interview early Saturday, Auriemma was requested by a reporter if he had a private relationship with Staley, and he stated “Nah, probably not. We don’t have lots in frequent.” Whereas Auriemma went on to say he revered the work Staley had achieved to construct the Gamecocks basketball program into the sturdy program it’s in the present day, his dismissiveness about whether or not the 2 had a private connection was at greatest peculiar and at worst pointless.
It’s well-known that faculty basketball coaches spend a substantial quantity of their private time pondering, speaking, and obsessing over basketball. As coaches of elite groups, Auriemma and Staley compete for a similar titles and dwell the identical year-round grind and excessive stress that solely a handful of equally located coaches can relate to and perceive.
Whereas I don’t anticipate rival coaches to be greatest mates, Auriemma might have chosen not to answer that a part of the query and easily shared how a lot respect he has for Staley as a coach. In spite of everything, Auriemma is a seasoned coach and well-versed in find out how to maneuver powerful questions from reporters. He knew higher.
The framing Auriemma selected, coming from a white coach a couple of Black girl coach, echoes a well-known sample for Black folks within the office. We’re subjected to offhanded remarks, and our excellence is handled as a separate relatively than shared expertise, even when the work, stress, and stakes that go into reaching success are nearly an identical.
In keeping with Lean In’s 2025 annual report on Ladies within the Office, these distinctive stressors for Black girls within the office are taking a toll on our well being. The researchers famous that “nearly 8 in 10 senior-level Black girls have been regularly burned out up to now yr, and much more are involved about their job safety– greater than different senior leaders.” This, at a time when corporations are more and more seeing variety and DEI as a legal responsibility, and labor information present that Black girls are going through larger charges of unemployment when in comparison with the overall inhabitants. Greater than 300,000 Black girls turned newly unemployed in 2025, a pointy rise.
After calls for for Auriemma to apologize reached a fever pitch, on Saturday afternoon, UConn launched an announcement from Coach Auriemma that learn partly, “There’s no excuse for a way I dealt with the tip of the sport vs. South Carolina. It’s not like what I do and what our commonplace is right here at Connecticut.” He then supplied a broad apology to “the workers and the staff at South Carolina,” saying his response was “uncalled for.”
Lacking from Auriemma’s apology was any direct point out of Staley, one thing {that a} broad cross-section of followers, celebrities, and sports activities fanatics took challenge with on social media. A number of demanded that he challenge one other assertion and apologize to Staley immediately. His assertion as soon as once more detracts from Staley and her staff’s success.
Because the late Toni Morrison as soon as defined:
“The operate, the very severe operate of racism is distraction. It retains you from doing all your work. It retains you explaining, over and over, your purpose for being. Any person says you don’t have any language and also you spend twenty years proving that you just do. Any person says your head isn’t formed correctly so you may have scientists engaged on the truth that it’s. Any person says you don’t have any artwork, so that you dredge that up. Any person says you don’t have any kingdoms, so that you dredge that up. None of that is crucial. There’ll at all times be yet another factor.”
For Geno Auriemma, on Friday evening, that “yet another factor” was his accusation that Coach Staley missed a pre-game handshake. That unwieldy accusation prompted the press and followers alike to go on the hunt and provide up video footage that may present whether or not she missed one or each customary pre-game handshakes. On Saturday, that “yet another factor” was a lackluster assertion from Auriemma when Staley deserved a real (and direct) apology.
What this “yet another factor” distracted from was the fact that Daybreak Staley outcoached him and her staff outplayed his. He robbed Staley and her staff of the same old celebratory cheers and hugs on the finish of a double-digit win. His habits left no house to offer the Gamecocks credit score for his or her win towards a staff that had gone undefeated for 54 video games earlier than South Carolina single-handedly snapped their successful streak and ended their desires of back-to-back championship wins.
He additionally distracted from the same old post-game evaluation of what would have certainly included information illustrating the Gamecocks weren’t solely higher ready however the higher staff. The evaluation would have included praising the stellar protection performed by Gamecocks’ senior Raven Johnson, who’s positioned to be a primary spherical decide within the upcoming WNBA draft.
Because the viewership and fan base of ladies’s basketball proceed to broaden, and with Morrison’s phrases in thoughts, the purpose is that we should always not fall into the behavior of litigating each second or handshake, however to return to what that is actually about.
Sunday, a championship recreation is going on between the South Carolina Gamecocks and the UCLA Bruins. This recreation will probably be coached by two phenomenal girls and the gamers who take the court docket are all members of primary seeded groups. They’re enjoying on the highest stage of a sport that has by no means been extra seen, extra aggressive or extra consultant of its followers and this nation.
So, as I sit down and watch the 2 groups duke it out for a championship ring, I will probably be holding deal with the place it belongs, on the sport, and the folks on and off the court docket who proceed to raise it. Oh, and GOOOOO Gamecocks!
Now somebody please run me a kind of “I’ll beat Geno’s ass” t-shirts. Whether or not the Gamecocks win or lose, I’m sporting it via subsequent season.
