On August 22, 2022, a woman volleyball player named Rachel Richardson claimed she was racially targeted at BYU. She was specific.
Brad Slager wrote of the alleged incident:
As the press was unspooling the dastardly acts and pontificating on what it all means, they failed to wait and learn if it had happened at all. An investigation was conducted into the game’s events , and there came to be found quite a bit of contradictory evidence – or, more accurately, there was a stark lack of evidence.
Richardson had been rather specific about when during the game she absorbed these insults, specifically at the times she served near that section. This would involve only about half the game, as the teams switch sides, and thus a study of the game film was conducted. In the early portions of the game, when she stated the individual insulted her, they were not present in the section. At other times, the individual was seen using their phone and not paying direct attention to Richardson.
Dawn Staley, the head coach of South Carolina’s women’s basketball team, jumped into the fray. Her university had scheduled “home and away” games at BYU. She canceled the games, refusing to play at BYU and refusing to allow BYU to play at her campus. Staley put her foot down.
Was there additional information that backed up Richardson? Did video or audio surface that proved or even suggested that Richardson was telling the truth? Did a new witness step forward? No. Staley simply took the word of Richardson over a mountain of empirical evidence to the contrary. Why? You can draw your own conclusions, but Richardson is black. So is Staley.
It’s now 2024. South Carolina women’s basketball team is about to play for the National Championship against Iowa. On Saturday, during the media day question and answer session, Outkick’s Dan Zaksheske asked Dawn Staley a question about transgenders playing women’s sports broadly and college basketball specifically. Would Staley welcome biological men who “identify” as women to play on her team? She didn’t hesitate.
I'm of the opinion of, if you're a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That's my opinion. You want me to go deeper?
Staley went deep into the well. She added:
That's the question you want to ask, I'll give you that. Yes, yes. So now the barnstormer people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game, and I'm okay with that. I really am.
Staley was “right” about one thing. Kinda. The internet, and specifically X (Twitter), went nuts. A USA Today pseudo-journalist was convinced that the question was racially motivated.
Dawn Staley is a goddamn national treasure. She’s asked by the usual suspect about transgender athletes. Says transgender women should be allowed to play.
— Nancy Armour (@nrarmour) April 6, 2024
Then skewers the guy by saying she knows this’ll now create a firestorm ahead of biggest game, “and I’m OK with that.”
There was also this clown who was connected to U of South Carolina sports.
Meet Dan. Dan is a coward who left the press conference after asking this question because Dan doesn’t care about basketball, or lifting up the amazing female athletes in the Final Four, or women in general. Dan is unlikely to ask this question of the other coach. Don’t be a Dan. https://t.co/AsiIEKpz6m
— Forrest L. Alton (@ForrestLAlton) April 6, 2024
The question was asked of Iowa’s coach as well. She deflected and didn’t answer specifically. Iowa’s coach is a white woman, and her team is predominantly white. The question wasn’t motivated or directed at the black coach of the predominantly black team; it was directed at both. One coach made it clear: She’s fine with biological men playing women’s sports.
It was a legitimate question. Women should compete against other women. A biological man competing as a woman ruined women’s swimming. “Lia” Thomas was a man before he decided he was a woman. Outkick has asked these questions before.
Thomas the man was an average swimmer. When Thomas “switched teams” and swam as a “woman," Thomas dominated. Biological men competing as women in basketball will ruin the sport, just as Thomas ruined women’s swimming.
But Staley will welcome biological men. I guess there is one “positive” for Staley and the future of South Carolina’s women’s basketball team. Staley might have a player on her team who can dunk.
