INTERVIEW: Dawn Staley Talks 'Uncommon Favor,' WNBA; MiLaysia Fulwiley, Caitlin Clark Vs. Angel Reese + More

DJ Envy (0:02)

The Breakfast Club Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne tha God. We are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:12)

The icon living.

DJ Envy (0:13)

Dawn Staley. Welcome back.

Dawn Staley (0:14)

How you feeling? Thank you, thank you, thank you. I usually come back, I'm invited when we win the championship. We lost this year, so thank y'all for.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:22)

You're always invited.

DJ Envy (0:25)

Don't you start that. You're always invited. Well, the new book, Uncommon Favor, is out right now, Basketball North Philly, My Mother and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three, is out right now. How are you feeling?

Dawn Staley (0:36)

I'm feeling great. I mean, my friends have received their books and they have nothing but great things. Like, my cup runneth over.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:45)

Yeah, and you had a lovely place yesterday.

Dawn Staley (0:47)

Yeah, they did. I got to give you a shout out. And you sparked the conversation. So many people have asked me to write a book and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right?

But it came from so many different people. And then when I came on the show in 2022, we talked about it and you just, you kept the conversation going. You were real persistent with it. And that's what I'm attracted to most, is somebody that actually is in...

DJ Envy (1:13)

Consistent, persistent.

Dawn Staley (1:14)

Yeah, persistent and know the process. Like, you knew the process. I don't know if you knew my story, so to speak, but you knew enough to know that this book will be received well, and I appreciate that.

Charlamagne Tha God (1:28)

Well, people like you don't come around too often, Dawn. Like, you are once in a generation or just person, you know? And you really learn that when you read the book, not even just as a coach, but as a basketball player, but more so as a child of Philadelphia, man.

Dawn Staley (1:42)

I mean, it's... I mean, I had fun. Like, the process was fun. It's liberating. It is, you know, you don't really know how you're gonna be received, but every person... Like, I'm actually waiting for a critic. Like, I'm waiting for somebody to say, what didn't go right in the book? And then we have yet to get to that point. And I just, one of my friends was, you know, listening, had a long road trip, listened to the entire book yesterday. And she was like, I'm in tears. I'm laughing. I get it. Like, the leadership part of it. Like, I mean, the emotions that are in the book. And it's me. So some of it is emotional me. Some of it is just, I'm able to just get it out because I remembered most of it. And I had to call on my siblings to kind of fill in the gaps. But it's me. Like, it's so me. It's so relatable. It's so just, it was an easy process. So was it therapeutic at all to do it? No, it was just natural. It wasn't like, it was natural. And I think sharing my story is just relatable to people. It's not like, you know, I don't think it's a, you know, like an, we don't overdo it with the accolades. It's like the accolades are intertwined. And everybody's accolades won't be like Olympian National Champions. But on a certain level, like if you graduate high school, it's relatable. If you graduate college, it's relatable.

If you can pull yourself out of the projects of any city, it's relatable. And there's no wrong path. Like there's no, like you can get off, tiltered, but then you got to come back by like habits, come back by, you know, the lessons in the book are just, just it relates to every single thing that you would want to accomplish in life. And I'm not just saying that to pump the book, but it really is. It's like, I'm only giving what other people are giving me, the feedback they're giving me. And it's cool to hear people just relate to the book.

Charlamagne Tha God (3:54)

The beautiful thing about Uncommon Favor is you get to tell your own story. So when you're writing the book, what part of your story did you want to tell because you think people misunderstood it or are overlooking it the most?

Dawn Staley (4:07)

Well, one is when I speak on things that are controversial, you know, racial things, like it's my perspective. Like a lot of times people can't see what you see because it's not their experience. Their experience is only hearing you and commenting on how you feel about certain things when anybody can feel strongly about certain things. I feel strongly about everything in this book because it happened to me. Like it's personal and it's my perspective, but it's not harmful. Like allow people to tell their stories without hurting your feelings.