UNCASVILLE, CT – Dawn Staley can still hear the way Nikki McCray-Penson's voice sounded when the exhaustion started to creep in, when her breaths got shorter from defending the opponent's ball handler for 94 feet on every possession. McCray-Penson was renowned for her defense when she star guard for Lady Vols basketball from 1991-95, and she was a crucial piece of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team. She was everyone's little sister, Staley said, and naturally, she wanted a bigger role than the one she had. But with a gold medal on the line, Staley wasn't letting anything slide. "When she played with me on the floor and she got tired, she used to whisper to me and say, 'Hey, can you pick the ball up?' " Staley, now the South Carolina women's basketball coach, said Aug. 14. "I was like, 'No, that's your job. That ain't my role. Pick up 94 feet, right?' "
So that's what McCray-Penson did, although she managed to carve out an offensive role, too. She averaged 11.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists while shooting 71% from the field in the last six games of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. And that was while playing alongside legends like Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes, who were the go-to players on the squad. "Nikki would just kind of look at me, give me the nod to throw a backdoor pass. I'm like, 'Nik, that ain't your role, baby. OK, you got to defend 94 feet – I'm not gonna make that pass, because I'm trying to stay in the game,' " Staley said, smiling. McCray-Penson will have her place in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a member of that 1996 U.S. national team, which will be enshrined Aug. 15 (7 p.m. ET, NBA TV) at Symphony Hall in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Olympic gold-medal winning team also included former Lady Vols star Carla McGhee, Oak Ridge native Jennifer Azzi and former Tennessee assistant coach Nancy Darsch, who was legendary coach Pat Summitt's first full-time assistant coach from 1978-85. McCray-Penson went on to win another Olympic gold medal in 2000, played in the WNBA until 2006 and had an 18-year coaching career before she died July 7, 2023, after a battle with breast cancer. She was 51. Staley said she's forever grateful for her friendship with McCray-Penson, who was her assistant coach at South Carolina from 2008-17, helping lead the Gamecocks to their first national championship in her final season. McCray-Penson gave birth to her son, Thomas, and battled breast cancer while on Staley's staff, and she never took a day off for treatment, bringing her laptop to work on scouting reports. When McCray-Penson underwent surgery, there was a running bet on how many days she'd take off. Staley predicted she'd be back by that Friday after having surgery two days earlier. McCray-Penson came back Monday. "You always want the best for the people that you know worked hard. Nikki worked hard for our game and for young people, like really hard, and again, a lot of times, you don't get rewarded," Staley said. "So fortunately for us, we had a historical national Olympic team, and you know, maybe she gets in a little bit later. But for right now, for this weekend, we pulled Nikki into the hall. Forever grateful." Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee women's athletics reporter for Knox News. Email: cora.hall@knoxnews.com; X: @corahalll; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social. Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks: subscribe.knoxnews.com/offers This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Why Dawn Staley is 'forever grateful' Nikki McCray-Penson is in Basketball Hall of Fame