South Carolina women’s basketball coach Daybreak Staley was awarded the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at Thursday evening’s ESPY Awards.
Staley joins a profound checklist of recipients, together with Dick Vitale, Liam Hendriks, Jim Kelly and the late Stuart Scott and Craig Sager amid their most cancers battles and Eric LeGrand after he was paralyzed following a sort out in a Rutgers soccer sport.
The coach was given the award, named after famed basketball coach Jim Valvano after his well-known speech on the 1993 ESPYS, as a result of her management efforts in ladies’s sports activities and serving to combat most cancers.
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Daybreak Staley accepts the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance onstage through the 2024 ESPY Awards at Dolby Theatre July 11, 2024, in Hollywood, Calif. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Photos)
Throughout her passionate acceptance speech, she made a plea for pay fairness.
“How do I not combat injustice after I ask them to do issues the proper means?” Staley stated. “How do I not ask for equity after I ask them to not cheat themselves, to not minimize corners? How do I not combat for fairness after I inform them they will climb as excessive as they need, they are often all they need?
“How do I not combat pay disparity after I do the identical job and receives a commission much less however win extra? They’re watching me; I can not ask them to face up for themselves if I am sitting down, nor can I ask them to make use of their voice to have an effect on change if I am solely prepared to whisper. So, when somebody tells me to ‘shut up and coach,’ I merely say, No. I’ve a job to do.”
Daybreak Staley speaks on the ESPYS. (Getty Photos/Frank Micelotta)
In line with USA Right this moment, Staley’s $3.1 million wage this yr is the second-highest amongst ladies’s coaches however could be thirty eighth amongst males’s coaches.
Earlier this week, she requested Barack Obama if the US may “borrow” his spouse, Michelle, for “four short years.”
She additionally not too long ago confirmed assist for transgender females in women and girls’s sports activities.
“I am of the opinion of, when you’re a girl, it is best to play. For those who take into account your self a girl, and also you wish to play sports activities or vice versa, it is best to be capable of play. That is my opinion,” Staley stated during the March Madness tournament.
When requested whether or not she thought “transgender ladies ought to be capable of take part in ladies’s faculty basketball,” Staley responded, “Sure.”
Aubryanna Corridor, Chloe Kitts, Raven Johnson, Daybreak Staley, Sania Feagin, Te-Hina Paopao, Tessa Johnson, Ashlyn Watkins, MiLaysia Fulwiley, Adhel Tac and Sakima Walker attend the 2024 ESPY Awards at Dolby Theatre July 11, 2024, in Hollywood, Calif. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Photos for W+P)
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Staley and the Gamecocks accomplished an ideal season by defeating Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes within the nationwide championship in April. It was her third title and second in three seasons.
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