COLUMBIA — At South Carolina, no team in recent years has been more directly impacted by the Confederate flag’s presence on the statehouse grounds than Dawn Staley’s women’s basketball squad.
But basketball seemed insignificant in the wake of nine lives lost at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
“You kind of reflect on what will happen in the future as far as basketball in the back of our minds. But those nine victims will always be in the forefront of what’s taken place,” Staley said Monday, when the Gamecocks’ head coach and three of her players spoke with media before departing for international play.