Dawn Staley, others on Nikki McCray-Penson legacy: Willing greatness, inspiring mom, joy through cancer
Dawn Staley knew all the ways to make Nikki McCray-Penson laugh.
And if anyone got McCray-Penson laughing, she wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. Triggering that during serious moments was a favorite pastime of Staley’s, like when the pair were playing on the U.S. women's basketball team for the 2000 Olympics. Nell Fortner was the coach, and she liked to meet often just to talk, Staley said.
"So we’re like, 'Oh boy, another meeting,' " Staley told Knox News. "(Fortner) was pouring her heart out talking about what we needed to do. But we’re like, 'You heard (these stories) once, you heard ‘em 1,000 times.' "
McCray-Penson sat at Staley’s feet, which the team was not a fan of. They thought Staley’s feet were horrible, she said. So Staley started snapping her toes together, flicking them, trying to crack them to make noise next to McCray-Penson.
As Fortner preached, McCray-Penson's shoulders started shaking, fighting a wave of inevitable laughter. Delisha Milton-Jones, who was stretched across the bed, started squirming.
"Nikki is gonna say, ‘Excuse me, Nell,' " Staley said, laughing as if she can see it like a movie scene playing in her head. "She interrupts Nell, right in the middle of her story, and she just pointed down at my feet. So, I got myself together, because I was about to laugh, too, because I’m looking at them. So I’m like, 'What?' Then she’s pointing like, 'Your – your feet!' and I’m like, 'What, Nikki?' "
It was nearly impossible to get the room back under control after that.
That day is just one of countless memories Staley holds of McCray-Penson's laugh, her joy and her unforgettable smile. The former Lady Vols star died July 7, and those close to her are still in disbelief. She was 51.
Staley can picture her when they first met playing for the U.S. national team. McCray-Penson was everyone’s baby – young, innocent, bubbly.
"She was just ... just pure," Staley said. "She just said what was on her mind, no matter what it was. At first, you don’t know how to take her, and then when you get to know her, it was just Nikki. It was just Nikki being Nikki."
Nikki McCray-Penson's ability to empower as a coach
McCray-Penson stood at the whiteboard in front of a locker room full of South Carolina players.
They were hours away from upsetting Purdue to make their first Sweet 16 appearance under Staley in 2012. McCray-Penson, then an assistant coach, had the scout. Former guard La’Keisha Sutton remembers every player being completely locked in, hanging on every word.
"You can literally hear her voice cracking because she said, 'You guys, believe. You have to believe that you belong,' " Sutton said. "It was almost as if she was about to start crying. Because we were about to play a game that no one in America thought we could win."
Sutton, who was Staley’s first South Carolina recruit, went to Columbia when they were the underdogs. But she always made Sutton feel like she mattered and showed appreciation for the first group of players that set the foundation for the national powerhouse it is now.
"Everyone thinks of Dawn Staley when they think of South Carolina," Sutton said. "But it is Nikki McCray, it is Lisa Boyer, it is all of the assistants that stand alongside of her."
Building confidence and empowering players was one of McCray-Penson's strong suits. She went out of her way to watch film with players and work out with them. She went out of her way to check up on them and had "a human side about her that she was unapologetic in showing right away," Sutton said.
She had an awareness of players' needs and was instrumental in building Markeshia Grant’s confidence as a scorer. She always knew when Grant needed to hear her nickname Guc, short for Gucci.
"She would just look at me if I'm struggling or if I need a little confidence boost," Grant said. "She would just say, 'Guc!' and then I would know, I can do it, I can shoot well, I can do what I need to do."
McCray-Penson took all the things that made her a great player – being a tireless worker, a great teammate and ultra competitor – and translated that to her coaching style. It’s rare for players of her caliber to do that as seamlessly as she did, Staley said. She had a way of getting the best out of players, because she shared her knowledge and experience without making it about herself.
She also got on people’s nerves, Staley said, but it was because she couldn’t let players fail to achieve what she believed they were capable of.
"If you tell her you want something, she's going to see it through, even when you decide to jump off," Staley said. "If you're going to tell her, she's going all out, and some players didn’t like it when she was willing them to be great and successful. But you think a player not liking her for a moment stopped her? No ma’am. It is the discipline that she put in as a player and continued to develop as a coach that was her separator."
How Nikki McCray-Penson inspired others as a mother
Grant was a senior when McCray-Penson gathered the players to break the news: she was pregnant.
The room exploded with excitement – but not for McCray-Penson. It was for her husband, Thomas, who she called Honey.
"We're like, 'Yes, Honey!' " Grant said. "We're all excited for her husband, and she’s like, 'Yo, what about me?' And we were like 'Oh, congrats, too.' But we like, 'Yes, Honey. Honey finally got his child.' "
McCray-Penson fought being a mom for a while, Staley said. But Thomas wanted a son so badly, and Staley told her all the time she had to give him a son. McCray-Penson always said she wasn’t ready.
But once she got pregnant and had Thomas Nikson, she put all the energy she gave to basketball into him, too.
“Everyone was just excited through the roof, because we knew that this kid was one of the luckiest freaking kids in America,” Sutton said. “But that just opens up another side of people, just this whole other level of passion and love that she also poured into us.”
Las Vegas Aces president Nikki (Caldwell) Fargas, who played at Tennessee with McCray-Penson, always cherished the bond they shared as older mothers. Being a wife and mother was McCray-Penson's joy, Fargas said.
"One of the things as a coach is that you're a mom to 12 to 15 other young ladies, and you don't want to miss that opportunity," Fargas said. "It was just such a blessing ... because we were the example of being those older moms, the moms who are having their children close to 40 years old. And so that to me was special, too."
Thomas was always with his mom, whether he was on the sidelines at practice or hanging out in the office. The way McCray-Penson was present and loved her family made an impact on Sutton, who has had custody of her niece since she was born.
As Sutton now coaches the George School girls basketball team, she leans on McCray-Penson's example of how to be a coach with a kid.
"A lot of times in this, really any profession, we get so caught up in our jobs and we’re on the go, on the computer, on the phone constantly. But when Thomas is in a room, it’s all eyes on Thomas," Sutton said. "I really love and enjoy how she created traditions with him, holiday traditions that I'm even going to carry into my family."
How Nikki McCray-Penson never let cancer define her
Boyer still has a video of it.
Right after McCray-Penson was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2013, South Carolina had a road trip to California for two games. Boyer, McCray-Penson and Staley were all in Staley’s bed at the hotel, and had an honest conversation about the diagnosis and all the research McCray-Penson had done. It was the kind of conversation that reminds you how fragile life is.
A few hours later, the team was out to dinner. None of the players knew of the diagnosis, and McCray-Penson was never one to dim the mood. They were outside and there was live music – and McCray-Penson was dancing.
"That’s Nikki," said Boyer, the South Carolina associate head coach. "You would not have known unless you knew."
Boyer and Staley went to every single chemotherapy treatment, and McCray-Penson talked about basketball through each one. Cancer never slowed her down. When McCray-Penson had her first surgery, it was on a Wednesday or Thursday, and there was a running bet in the office on when she’d come back to work.
"She came back on that Monday," Staley said. "So, she took the weekend."
Cancer didn’t define McCray-Penson. She never allowed it to steal her joy, and while it became part of her life, it never controlled her. Fargas was always met with the same smile when they ran into each other on the road.
"I do think that because of basketball, her fight was much longer than probably the average person, because of basketball, because she had focus," Staley said. "Because she wanted to see her little Thomas grow up, because she wanted to impact lives.
"She knew she had things to do, and she had no time to be messing around with cancer. And it invading her mind and her soul and her spirit – she had no time for that."
The legacy of Nikki McCray-Penson
Thomas Nikson stood on the Washington Mystics logo at center court Aug. 20, wearing a black T-shirt with a pink No. 15 and breast cancer ribbon on it.
McCray-Penson's 10-year-old son counted down from five. Then the curtain fell. Hanging in the rafters was the Mystics’ Hall of Fame list, his mother’s name the newest addition.
McCray-Penson's playing career earned her a spot in several halls of fame, including the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. But her impact goes further than her two SEC Player of the Year awards, her two Olympic gold medals, her 2,550 career points in the WNBA and her ABL championship.
Her legacy lies in the South Carolina program she helped build from the ground up. It lives on in every single player she coached who will never forget her. It was shown in the outpouring across social media when the news of her death spread. It’s ingrained in the foundation of the WNBA and the modern game.
"She's one of those foundational pieces that we'll always remember, because you don’t get this product and type of skill level without players like her," Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon said postgame on July 12. "Even though we play fast, or we play different, it's a natural evolvement and she's part of that foundation, those foundational pieces early on in women's basketball really when it was just starting … she was a part of the (1996) Olympic team, inaugural season in the W.
"I mean, her fingerprint and legacy is all over this league."
McCray-Penson's influence isn't easily summed up. From her playing days to coaching at Western Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi State, Old Dominion and Rutgers, she left an indelible mark on people.
"What happens when you meet great people, is that they leave it better than when they got there," Fargas said. "Everywhere she went, every person that she touched, every game that she played and every team that she was on, she left it better. And that's a testimony to who Nikki McCray-Penson is."
We may never be able to fully grasp McCray-Penson's impact on women’s basketball – only that it will be felt for decades to come.
Perhaps it’s best summed up by Sutton.
"She loved competing. She loved her teammates. She loved to win. She loved people. She loved to really encourage," Sutton said. "With her coming out publicly with breast cancer, she still was the biggest smile, the loudest voice in the room. So I think of love and just strength, no excuses. She didn't want anybody to feel bad for her. She just – she was who she was."
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Dawn Staley, Nikki Fargas and others on Nikki McCray-Penson's legacy
