A secularist legal group is urging the University of South Carolina to take action against its women’s basketball coach over her comments about belief in God following her team’s strong performance in the NCAA Tournament this year.
Speaking to reporters after her University of South Carolina Gamecocks advanced into the Final Four for this year’s NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament Sunday, Coach Dawn Staley reflected on “the devastating loss that we had last year.” She said it “pulled us back here with a totally different team,” adding, “If you don’t believe in God, something’s wrong with you.”
“I’m a believer because … He makes things come true,” she said. “When you’re at your worst, He’s at His best.”
These comments did not please the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based legal organization that advocates for a strict separation of church and state.
In a letter to University of South Carolina President Michael Amiridis Monday, FFRF staff attorney Christopher Line cited the remarks as an example of “Staley’s ongoing promotion of her personal religious beliefs and her denigration of non-Christians through the women’s basketball program.”
“Current and future non-Christian and nonreligious players should feel welcome and respected as part of the women’s basketball team, not be told by their coach that they are on a team that is representing Jesus and that ‘if you don’t believe in God, something is wrong with you,'” wrote Line.
The line called on the university to “take action to protect its student-athletes and to ensure that Staley understands that she has been hired as a basketball coach and not a pastor.”
The attorney recommends the school’s leadership inform Staley of “her constitutional duties under the Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and remind her that she “may not promote religion in her capacity as head coach.”
Additionally, Line requested “notification in writing of the actions the University is taking to ensure that Staley will not continue to proselytize to her players.”
In a statement, FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor insisted that “Coach Staley is coercing her students to adopt religion even beyond the ‘pray to play’ notion,” adding, “Her insults to all those who don’t believe in her particular religion cannot be countenanced by a public university.”
In separate remarks delivered after her team’s 70-58 victory over Oregon State in an “Elite Eight” matchup, Staley described it as “pretty cool” that her team’s athletic achievement took place on Easter Sunday, the holiest day on the Christian calendar.
At the same time, she stressed that “we just don’t celebrate on the victories.”
“Last year, I thank God for even the loss,” she asserted. “I don’t want to be one-sided … and to give Him the glory … is only befitting for wins.”
