How Dawn Staley Is Redefining Internationalization in College Sport

Internationalization is becoming a strategic priority in college athletics. 

Dawn Staley has been global.

Her presence in Paris for Fashion Week and the 2024 Olympic Games was not the result of a university initiative. It was a reflection of who she is and how she moves through the world.

Staley has long occupied global spaces with ease, credibility, and cultural fluency.

Her influence traces back decades, including one of the most iconic moments of her career, when she carried the USA flag at the 2004 Olympic Games.

This moment solidified her status as a sports diplomat – someone whose global influence transcends the court and shapes how Black women's leadership is recognized worldwide.

This context matters when we talk about internationalization in college sport.

Let’s walk.

Sport is becoming one of the most visible and effective vehicles for internationalization in higher education, often moving faster than traditional academic partnerships or diplomatic efforts. Through competition, recruitment, media, and mobility, sport is creating global pathways that universities are still learning how to recognize and leverage. In the University of South Carolina’s case, global reach did not begin with a partnership agreement or a Gamecock Athletics marketing plan. It flowed through Dawn’s leadership and her vision for women’s college basketball.

On November 9, 2023, I presented at the CIEE Study Abroad conference in Paris on leveraging sport to shape the future of global education. Three days prior, I scanned my ticket into Halle Georges Carpenter arena to watch the Gamecocks women's basketball team open their season as part of the inaugural Aflac Oui Play series.

Both the conference and Aflac Oui Play game were held in Paris, France. 

What stood out was not simply that the game was played overseas. It was how seamlessly the program competed in an international setting. South Carolina did not look like a team making a one-time appearance abroad. The Gamecock FAMs were not hyperfocused on the novelty of the location. Instead, they showed up to support their team the same way they would in Colonial Life Arena. 

Together, South Carolina looked like a program using sport as an entry point for global connection, visibility, and relationship building. 

Paris became an extension of their Gamecock women’s basketball community. 

A living example of the framework I had presented.

Sport as a vehicle for internationalization includes athlete mobility.

Coach Staley visited France again in October 2025 – this time as part of a recruiting trip. 

On the visit, the athlete Staley came to see was wearing A’Ones, the signature shoe of A’ja Wilson, a Gamecock legend and future Hall of Famer. This moment could not be engineered more perfectly.

In fact, this moment reflected how legacy travels across borders through sport.

A’ja’s influence reached a French athlete long before Coach Staley arrived, shaping how international prospective athletes imagine possibility through NCAA basketball. South Carolina’s brand did not arrive through deliberate advertising. The Gamecock brand arrived through a person. 

That athlete is now officially part of the program.

Dawn recently signed Alicia Tournebize, a French international athlete set to join South Carolina in January 2026. Her commitment reflects how sport functions as a conduit between national systems of development and higher education. But Tournebize's signing represents more than one roster addition. It establishes a visible pathway that will influence how other French and European athletes view the NCAA as a destination.

Recruitment rarely happens in isolation.

Families talk. Coaches talk. Athletes talk. 

When a highly regarded French player chooses South Carolina, that decision sends a message to other athletes, club programs, and national federations across Europe. It provides a clear example of how a European player can transition into NCAA basketball, compete at the highest level, and maintain professional relevance on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Tournebize becomes a reference point, making the pathway visible and desirable for the next generation of European talent.

This is how recruiting pipelines develop.

The success of Kamilla Cardoso increased South Carolina's credibility in Brazil. Laeticia Amihere did the same for Canada. Tournebize now has the potential to do this for France and, more broadly, for Europe. Her presence signals that South Carolina understands international athlete development and is committed to it over time.

When the Gamecocks return to Paris for the 2026 Aflac Oui Play game, the moment will carry layered meaning. For Alicia, it will be a homecoming. For South Carolina, it will be a chance to compete internationally with an athlete whose identity bridges French basketball and the NCAA system.

The return to Paris also intersects directly with the realities of NIL.

Playing in France creates a rare opportunity for French brands to partner with a French athlete competing for one of the most visible programs in women’s college basketball – an idea Dr. Hope predicted back in April 2023 as part of Walk With TFB’s inaugural Internationalization and Athletics Summit. These partnerships represent a practical example of how international athletes can engage commercially with home markets while competing in the United States.

Staley’s track record recruiting and developing international talent offers a blueprint for how global engagement through sport can be done responsibly.

Current Gamecock Madina Okot (Kenya) is averaging career highs in points, rebounds, assists, and blocks. Sixth overall recruit Agot Makeer (Canada) is finding her rhythm in her first college basketball season. Former Gamecocks Amihere and Cardoso both thrived under her leadership and became WNBA draft picks. Their success reflects an environment that understands the academic, athletic, and personal dimensions of international athlete mobility. When Cardoso’s family had never seen her play in person, Staley worked with Rep. James Clyburn D-S.S. to secure visas to help bring them from Brazil to South Carolina. This act underscores how sport can foster belonging across borders.

Columbia, South Carolina already maintains formal sister city relationships across the world. But through Gamecock women’s basketball, Soda City has effectively gained an informal sister city in Paris. This relationship exists not through legal documents, but because sport creates sustained global connections rooted in people, presence, and shared experience.

What remains to be seen is how university leadership chooses to recognize and build around this relationship. When sport is used as a vehicle for internationalization, the question is no longer whether these connections matter, but whether institutions are prepared to respond. 

International offices, study abroad units, enrollment management, and academic leadership all have a role to play. Athletics is not operating at the margins of internationalization.

Sport is functioning as the front door.

An entry point that will only magnify as we progress through the US Decade of Sport.

Ignoring these relationships risks leaving opportunity on the table, while integrating them could unlock new pathways for global learning, student mobility, and institutional partnership that extend far beyond competition.

Recognizing these connections is one thing. Building infrastructure around them is another.

Through Walk With TFB, I work with athletic departments and institutions to build the infrastructure that translates global visibility into institutional outcomes. There is real potential to create pathways for college athletes to study abroad, to deepen international student recruitment, and to establish research partnerships that connect faculty, athletic programs, and international institutions around shared questions in sport, education, and global mobility. 

This is what internationalization in college sport can look like when sport is treated not as entertainment alone, but as a strategic and relational medium for global engagement.

The future of the NCAA is global.

Walk With TFB is leading it forward. 

It’s happening. We walking! 

TFB

P.S. Forever to Thee!