IN PHOTOS: South Carolina HC Dawn Staley smiles ear to ear as she poses with Megan Rapinoe, Jess Sims, and more at Paris
Dawn Staley is enjoying her time at the 2024 Paris Olympics and has had the opportunity to meet some of the biggest names in women's sports. On Instagram, the decorated South Carolina women's coach shared photos of herself next to Sha'Carri Richardson, Wanda Sykes, Tammi Reiss, and more.
On Thursday, Staley attended sports journalist Jessica Sims' birthday party where she met with former USWNT star Megan Rapinoe and track & field coach Diljeet Dosanjh Taylor.
Sims, who turned 36, shared snapshots of the guests from her special day on Instagram. Staley was all smiles in the photos, looking relaxed as she attended the star-studded gathering in the City of Lights.
"I still can’t believe that the world’s best athletes came together just to throw me a birthday party in Paris this week [...] So in the meantime…thank you for the memories that I’ll never forget ❤️🫶🏽and shout out to @instagram for finally giving me the ability to post 20 photos in the carousel," Sims captioned the post.
Staley, a four-time Olympic gold medalist, is representing Team USA at the Paris Olympics as a member of the presidential delegation. She led the U.S. Women's Basketball national team to a gold medal win at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Aside from coaching, she also won three gold medals as an athlete and became the first basketball player to be an Olympic flag bearer for Team USA in 2004.
Dawn Staley gets starstruck meeting NFL legend Tom Brady
Out of all the famous people, athletes and celebrities that Staley met at the Paris Olympics, the one person who left her starstruck was none other than legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady.
The Gamecocks head coach had a special moment with Brady in Paris on Sunday, and she shared on her X (formerly Twitter) account how memorable it was.
"Yall I can not lie to you….don’t you ever ever look directly into @TomBrady eyes……this man is seriously beautiful," Staley said. "And I shook his hand….the Super Bowlssss hand. And the hand was just as gorgeous. Ok I’m done but for real."
Staley's post gained a lot of attention on social media and was even shared by SportsCenter on their Instagram account. Brady responded to Staley's post with a string of laughing emojis in the comments.