Dawn Staley is an icon in women’s sports, from leading the University of South Carolina women’s basketball team to three NCAA championships to her own playing days winning three Olympic gold medals. Now, she’s taking her dedication to keeping girls in sports to a new level.
According to Essence, Staley has joined the Dove Body Confident Sports Program, a non-profit from the hygiene products company that offers girls resources to build confidence and keep competing on the court or field.
“The game is ours,” Staley says. “The Body Confident Sport Program are ways in which we’re teaching everyone who has a hand in girls playing a sport. Coaches, teachers, mentors, trainers, everybody needs to know exactly how to combat it (low body confidence).”
The Dove Body Confident Sports Program aims to reduce the number of girls who quit sports due to insecurities about their body type. Recent statistics claim that 48% of the girls who quit their sport do so because they are told they have the wrong body type and 45% leave due to low body confidence.
“We need joy to be louder than the criticism, because there’s been a lot of criticism around women’s basketball and women’s sports. Just as loud, I want my voice to be heard on the joy part of it,” Staley says. “I hope that young girls who play a sport understand that it really doesn’t matter how your body looks.”
Adding Staley to the Body Confident Sports Program, Dove has enhanced its presence in the women’s sports landscape. Girls coaches can download the organization’s Body Confident Sports toolkit to learn new coaching methodologies to encourage their young female athletes, and girls teams can apply to win a Dove-sponsored trip to the Women’s World Cup in Brazil.
A portion of Dove’s profits are dedicated to the Body Confident Sports Program, adding funding to the promotion and research work that keeps girls in sport.
Says Staley, “Be comfortable in your skin, continue playing and don’t allow anybody to shame you to a point where you want to stop doing something that you love…Body shaming is out the door, let’s build our confidence up in who we are and what we look like, because God gave us this physique.”
