Riley Gaines rips Dawn Staley over stance on men in women’s sports

Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer, criticized Dawn Staley’s position on transgender women (men pretending to be women) in women’s sports following the South Carolina basketball coach’s statement that individuals who identify as women should have the opportunity to compete on women’s teams.

Speaking on “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Gaines, who contributes to OutKick, questioned Staley’s sincerity in her remarks. Staley’s undefeated Gamecocks recently clinched the women’s national title by defeating Iowa on Sunday.

“In three years at South Carolina, she’s won two championships. I think her record is 109 and three. That’s unprecedented, so clearly she’s great at what she does, and she’s developed many incredible athletes whom I admire, but she’s either proving herself… to be entirely incompetent or a sellout, and personally… I don’t think she believes what she said,” Gaines told Brian Kilmeade. 

“If you watch the video, her silence, the hesitation and that drink of water, I think it spoke volumes. I think she knew she had to be politically correct, and I know about as good as anyone that that pressure exists and it’s real.” 

Gaines asserted that Staley missed a “once-in-a-lifetime” chance and lacked the “courage” to support female athletes.

“The bottom line is she knows perfectly well that men’s basketball is a totally different sport than women’s basketball,” Gaines said. 

“That’s obvious by the speed of the game, the size of the ball, the sheer amount of layups in women’s basketball compared to dunks when a player gets a fast break in men’s basketball, the distance of the three-point line, the list goes on.”

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her and she blew it, and truthfully, my guess is she’s okay with it until her team [is] defeated by one or more men playing on the opposite team.”