“It’s hard to think about Nikki’s passing because all I can see is how fully she lived,” Staley said in a statement. They were gold-medal teammates at the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Olympics. She was part of the Gamecocks’ first national championship in 2017. She joined coach Dawn Staley as an assistant at South Carolina from 2008-17. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013.
McCray-Penson was an assistant women's basketball coach at Rutgers last season and the school on Friday confirmed her death. Two-time Olympic gold-medalist and former Tennessee star Nikki McCray-Penson has died.
