‘I cried tears of joy’: Griner’s former coach discusses WNBA star’s newfound freedom

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• Judy Woodruff:

  And now we hear from a vocal advocate for Brittney Griner and one of the most prominent voices in women's basketball.

  Dawn Staley is the head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks and a Hall of Fame player. She coached Griner and her teammates when they won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics last year, and she's tweeted in support of Griner daily throughout her captivity.

  Amna Nawaz spoke with her earlier today and asked for her reaction to the news of Griner's release.

• Dawn Staley, Head Women’s Basketball Coach, South Carolina Gamecocks:

  I cried tears of joy, tears of joy.

  I'm like, my boy — I got a dog that sleeps in the bed with me. He was looking at me like, what is wrong? Like, what's going on?

  (LAUGHTER)

• Dawn Staley:

  And I just — I just told him, Brittney is coming home,

• Amna Nawaz:

  why do you think you cried? Why do you think it felt so strong in the moment?

• Dawn Staley:

  For nine months, for 293 days, I thought about Brittney every single day.

  And I didn't get emotional. I didn't worry. I just prayed. And I just forced myself to be strong for her, because I know, during those nine months, that she had to have weak moments. I'm sure she did. So I wanted to be her strength.

  And to be able to uphold somebody up for nine months, to now know that she's coming home, it's a weight that's lifted, that only the people who were in this journey with Brittney could feel. And there's no more room. Like, there's no more room to feel. There's no more strength to be had. It's just more of thankfulness, thankfulness.

  Thank you, God, that he allowed this to happen for her and her family.

• Amna Nawaz:

  You wore a pin every day with the hashtag #WeAreBG. You posted about her every day. You gave interviews. You kept talking about her, making sure people did not forget her name.

  But you were part of a larger network, other WNBA players and coaches. And we should note the WNBA has a really strong history of advocacy and speaking out. Tell me about that network of support, that mission of coming together.

• Dawn Staley:

  Here's what I have known, like — and I can identify what strong women look like. I grew up in a household with a mother who was incredibly strong.

  And I always equated my mother's strength to having the strength of 10 men. And when us women, us strong women, when we forge and when we link up for something that we believe in, we know wholeheartedly that it's going to happen. So, a lot of strong women, the women of the WNBA, the women in the White House, the women in all these organizations that advocate for people who are wrongly detained in a foreign country, and we can't do it alone.

  President Biden, God love him. I mean, he wanted this to take place. Secretary Blinken, all those people, really, we lifted up in prayer, we lifted up his strength to make sure that they had the knowledge and the fight and the strength to do the right thing. And that is to bring Brittney Griner home.

  Unfortunately, there is another party that's involved in bringing Brittney home, and that's the Russian government. They decided that only Brittney is on the table. And that leaves Paul Whelan and his family in a position of where we were all in nine months ago.

  But with belief and hope and prayer, the same God that brought Brittney home, we hope will bring Paul home sooner than later.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And, Coach, I got to ask you. Brittney Griner is a superstar. She's a seven-time WNBA All-Star. She's a two-time Olympic gold medalist.

  And there are those who said over the past several months, if this was LeBron, he would be home by now. Do you buy that?

• Dawn Staley:

  I mean, I really don't care. I don't — I don't really — I never commented on it, because all of my strength and all of my desires to bring really home were for Brittney.

  I don't want to compare. I don't want — I mean, there are a lot of places in which things aren't equitable here in the States with men, women or whatever, Black, white. That argument is for another time. We wanted to put all our synergy into bringing Brittney home.

  Now that she's home, let's have — let's have it all. Let's talk about it all. Do I think that if it was a LeBron, a Tom Brady or somebody else, I think — I think we would probably be moving a little bit quicker. And that's not on our doing. That's not on our doing.

  I do think it's all predicated on Russia and their unpredictability in how they — how they operate. I do think Brittney coming home, and them relinquishing Brittney, has a lot to do with her actually playing in their country. And it may be showing her a little bit more grace than some other prisoners.

  So, I mean, I think you have to — you have to — you have to think about that as well. But when I say I pray for all of our prisoners, our American citizens who are wrongfully detained or detained in another country, if we can get them home. I pray that they get home to their loved ones.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Coach, you worked with Brittney. You have coached her for years on the Olympic team. You know her fortitude. You know her heart.

  How do you think she got through those unimaginable months in Russian detention?

• Dawn Staley:

  Here is — Brittney is a Black woman, and she's an outwardly gay woman.

  When you have to endure those two things in our country, it prepares you to be able to handle the ordeal that she went through, the mental fortitude that she needed to have to get through. And the people, her supporters, the people who were on the ground advocating for her were lifting her up.

  So, with all of that allowed Brittney to make it through 293 days. So, I mean, I'm happy for her that she doesn't have to endure that, actually being there. But we know there's — there's a lot of decompressing and there's a lot of probably therapy that she has to go through to get back to equal footing. And I don't know if she will ever get back to that.

  So I do think her heart's desire will be pushed towards helping people who were in that — in that situation abroad and here in our country.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Coach Dawn Staley, thank you so much for joining us today.

• Dawn Staley:

  Thank you.

• Judy Woodruff:

  A lot of gratitude there.

  And you can watch more of Amna's interview with Coach Staley online at PBS.org/NewsHour.