Prominent women’s basketball coaches are reluctant to stand up for women’s sports

Welcome to eclipse day 2024, everyone. By the time you read this, the eclipse will likely have already happened. Which presumably means that a large portion of my audience will be raptured, because from what I understand, based on my research on Twitter, the rapture is scheduled for today as well. If you’re reading this, it means that you, like me, have been left behind to walk the Earth and await your eternal destruction. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that you still get to watch the premier of my new show “JUDGED” tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. EST. You may not be in the mood for judgment related shows, given the circumstance, but you might as well watch it anyway.

WATCH: ‘JUDGED by Matt Walsh’ on DailyWire+

Now, for today’s topic. Dawn Staley is the head coach of the NCAA champion South Carolina Gamecocks, a gold medal Olympian several times over, and a Hall of Famer who’s widely considered one of the best players in the history of the WNBA, as low as that bar might be. This is a resume that sports journalists describe as “historic.” She’s supposedly a basketball icon, a role model, and one of the greatest coaches alive.

What’s often left unsaid, even though everyone knows it’s true, is that Dawn Staley’s resume would have looked a lot different if she had been forced to compete against men at any point in her career. If it weren’t for Title IX and the creation of exclusive sports leagues that barred men from competing, Dawn Staley would probably be selling insurance or conducting tedious DEI workshops somewhere. Instead, she’s a multimillionaire, and you’re instructed to think she’s an impressive person.

All this is to say, if anyone should be an evangelist for women-only sports leagues, Dawn Staley fits the bill. Without these leagues, Staley would have precisely zero professional accomplishments to speak of. But Leftism is an ideology that necessarily involves a lot of ladder-pulling. Once they get to the top, it’s vital for Leftists to deny that they received any kind of special help based on their “identity” along the way.

We see this all the time, from Elizabeth Warren to Kamala Harris. And the other day, in a comical press conference ahead of the NCAA national championship, we saw it from Dawn Staley.

A reporter from OutKick asked Staley a simple question. He wanted to know what she thought about the idea of men competing against women in sports, particularly in college basketball. Here’s how Staley responded:

South Carolina women’s coach @dawnstaley says men pretending to be women should be able to play women’s basketball. Great question by @RealDanZak. This is what real reporters are supposed to do. Ask real questions, get real answers. pic.twitter.com/Kf9WKk6ylm

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 6, 2024

The first thing you notice about that reply is how nervous Dawn Staley is. She takes a big gulp of water, drawing laughter from some of the other reporters. Then she says, “Damn, you got deep on me” — even though it’s really not a deep question at all. She stutters for a few more seconds until she finally delivers maybe the least grammatical sentence she possibly could have: “I’m under 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.”

I’m not sure what “vice versa” refers to in that sentence. If you’re a woman and you want to play sports, or vice versa. So if you’re a woman and you want to play sports, or if you’re a sport and you want to play women? Is that what she’s saying?

Incoherence aside, if Dawn Staley actually believed what she was saying, then there would be no nervousness whatsoever. She would confidently tell the reporter that yes, she has no problem with men competing against her all-women’s team. She would demand that the Olympics and the NCAA change their current policy on trans-identifying athletes, which sets sets some arbitrary testosterone threshold that prevents many men from competing. There would be no need for any of the stalling or stammering.

But Staley did stall and stammer, because she doesn’t believe a word of what she just said. That’s why her answer makes no sense. She lumps “women” and “people who consider themselves women” into the same category. But in doing so, she’s acknowledging that they are indeed different categories. Actual women don’t “consider themselves women.” They’re just women. If you feel the need to add the “consider themselves” qualifier, then you obviously recognize that they are not women. There’s something very different about them — something that we recognized for all of recorded human history until about 15 minutes ago, which is why Dawn Staley had the career she did.

WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show

But Dawn Staley doesn’t want to admit this anymore. At the end of her answer, she suggests she’s being brave, because she’s going to anger all the Right-wing “barnstormers” on social media, whoever they are. But it’s not hard to see what she’s actually worried about. Staley knows that the NCAA has already said that it, “firmly and unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports.” She knows the NCAA has already bent the knee to activist groups like GLAAD. And she’s aware that the NCAA is now being sued for Title IX violations by female athletes like Riley Gaines for allowing men to compete against them. On top of that, the University of South Carolina has trans pride flags all over its website. So if she affirmed that biology is real, there’s a good chance she’d be fired, or at least lose her status as America’s favorite female coach. She knows exactly where she’s supposed to stand on this issue.

And indeed, with her answer, Dawn Staley predictably received a bunch of fawning headlines from Left-wing activists. GLAAD posted a thank-you note and declared that Staley is the “best in the business.” Pink News declared that Staley’s response was “legendary.” The Advocate called her “transformative.”

By contrast, here’s how supposedly conservative media outlets responded. Fox News ran this headline: “South Carolina’s Dawn Staley draws strong reactions over remarks about trans participation in women’s sports.”

At this rate, Dawn Staley could announce a roster of 5 men next year, and Fox News would applaud her. Maybe that’s the plan. In any event, this is the dynamic that weak people like Staley respond to. She knows she’ll be applauded for saying the opposite of what she knows is true. And she would be condemned, or worse, if she said what was actually true.

In that respect, she wasn’t alone. Iowa’s coach, Lisa Bluder, took a similar approach. Here was her response to the same question from the same reporter:

Here’s the video and transcript of Bluder’s response:

“I understand it’s a topic that people are interested in. But today my focus is on the game tomorrow, my players … and that’s what I want to be here to talk about. But I know it’s an important issue for another time.” pic.twitter.com/TRJuAONvPr

— Lindsay Gibbs (@linzsports) April 6, 2024

This is an answer that’s worse in some ways than Staley’s. At least Dawn Staley said something, as insane as it was. Lisa Bluder is too afraid to even do that. She says she’s focused on the big game. But if men could compete against women in college basketball, then there would be no big game. All women’s sports would cease to exist.

Both of these coaches know that, if they had to compete against any of the top-ranked men’s teams, or any of the men’s teams at all, then they’d be destroyed. But somehow that doesn’t concern Dawn Staley or Lisa Bluder. They can’t bring themselves to say the obvious. So the nonsense continues.

There’s a lot of that going around lately, as you may have noticed.

A few days ago the reporter Jonathan Choe broke the story that in Seattle, a mentally imbalanced man with comically enhanced breasts has been working as a public defender for several years. If you remember the Canadian wood shop teacher with the size-Z prosthetic chest, it’s a bit like that, except in a courtroom instead of a high school. And this guy is 70-years-old. Watch:

Due to popular demand, I’m posting the extended cut of my interview with public defender Stephanie Mueller. The transgender attorney is representing one of the far-left activists charged with disrupting a council meeting in February.
Otherwise, this is Seattle. What’s the big… https://t.co/rYo4nrj9Wu pic.twitter.com/fuTP4qObvu

— Jonathan Choe (@choeshow) April 5, 2024

So, just because the guy is 8 and a half feet tall and has a voice deeper than James Earl Jones apparently, it hasn’t stopped him from trying to be a woman. Now just imagine this for a moment. Imagine you show up to court to meet your public defender. Naturally, you’re going to have low expectations. You get what you pay for, and all that. And then this guy shows up, like a character out of “Portlandia.” How would you respond? How would the judge respond?

Apparently, in this case, everyone just acted like this was normal. The defendants didn’t have an issue with it. And that’s not entirely surprising, since they’re Left-wing activists in Seattle accused of interrupting a city council meeting to yell something. They probably requested the trans lawyer, which might not be a bad strategy in a Seattle court. After all, you have to win your case if a trans lawyer is representing you. Otherwise it would be transphobic.

Needless to say, the judge had no issue with this, either. A man shows up with skin-tight leather pants, boots, and fake eyelashes — not exactly courtroom-appropriate attire — and the judge doesn’t say a word about it. Of course, ironically, if he had actually been a woman, there would likely be an issue. Even in Seattle, courtrooms aren’t burlesque shows. It would be frowned upon for a woman to come dressed like some sort of cartoonish hooker. But because this guy says he’s transgender, it’s magically acceptable.

I’ve mentioned the Rebel News reporter David Menzies in the past. A few months ago, he was the only journalist in all of Canada to report on the fact that a 50-year-old man was allowed to compete against teenage girls in various competitions throughout the country. For reporting like that, Menzies has been arrested multiple times by the Canadian government. Just this weekend, he was assaulted and arrested again by police, for covering pro-Hamas protests in Toronto. It’s all on video. But Menzies persists anyway.

It’s quite a contrast with what we’ve seen this week in this country, which is story after story of cowardice. Think about it: If there was ever a weekend for women’s sports to have its “moment,” it was this one. Instead, the coaches of the top two teams declared at a press conference that they don’t even know what women are. They also made it very clear, from their ambivalence, that they don’t really care if women’s sports stick around anymore. They’ll probably change their mind when the money dries up. When they lose their jobs and are made irrelevant. But it requires some foresight to see that, and courage to speak up about it. Sadly, those two things are in short supply.

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