{"id":240195,"date":"2026-03-28T01:59:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T01:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/240195\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T01:59:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T01:59:22","slug":"south-carolina-womens-basketball-playing-in-sacramento-is-extra-sweet-for-assistant-coach-wendale-farrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/240195\/","title":{"rendered":"South Carolina women’s basketball: Playing in Sacramento is extra Sweet for assistant coach Wendale Farrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the NCAA tournament bracket was announced on Selection Sunday, South Carolina\u2019s placement in the Sacramento region drew groans from people dreading the cross-country trek. But first-year assistant coach Wendale Farrow was elated.<\/p>\n

For Farrow, playing in Sacramento for the regional means coming home. He grew up in North Highlands, about 20 minutes north of the Golden 1 Center, which is hosting the regionals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my home, my hometown,\u201d Farrow said. \u201cI\u2019m very happy and proud to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

NEW! Message board for South Carolina Women\u2019s Basketball<\/a>! \ud83c\udfc0<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old Farrow has spent most of his life on the West Coast. He spent two years at Eastern Michigan as a player, and one at Vanderbilt as an assistant coach, but the rest was in California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Farrow worked at UCLA under Cori Close and then at Cal and Southern Cal under Lindsay Gottlieb. When Dawn Staley expressed interest in hiring Farrow last offseason to replace Winston Gandy, convincing him to come east was the first challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHis name came up, and I reached out. We had a conversation. We went back and forth a little bit. I just needed him to get to campus,\u201d Staley said. \u201cHe\u2019s a West Coast guy. Part of me didn\u2019t think we would get him because he\u2019s such a West Coast guy. Then the other part is, if we got him to campus, if he could be around our staff, if he could work out one of our players, if our players could meet him and all those things happened, I think it just lined up.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Staley called Gottleib to express interest, Gottleib and her son were going through security at Disneyland.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiterally, my son went in right before me, and he\u2019s looking at my phone. He goes, mommy, Dawn Staley\u2019s calling you. I\u2019m like, no, she\u2019s not. He goes, no, mom, Dawn Staley is calling you. Oh, she sure is. She\u2019s at the Final Four. So it went to voicemail,\u201d Gottlieb said. \u201c(She said) hey, I don\u2019t know if you know, but I have a coaching opening, I want to talk to you about Wendale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farrow wasn\u2019t the only person excited when the bracket was released. Gottlieb\u2019s son Jordan immediately spotted that Southern Cal was headed to Columbia.<\/p>\n

\u201cDelly is like my family. He\u2019s Uncle Delly to my kids, so obviously that relationship always goes beyond basketball. He\u2019s just a great human, and proud of what he\u2019s doing in his career and as a person,\u201d Gottlieb said. \u201cYou know, I wasn\u2019t shocked to be necessarily sent here, but definitely when it popped up, that resonated for my son, who said, oh, you\u2019re going to South Carolina, is that Uncle Del? Obviously, that\u2019s what comes up first.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my nephew,\u201d Farrow said. \u201cI\u2019ve been with Lindsay for a large portion of my career. That\u2019s family to me, that\u2019s like a big sister. I\u2019m indebted to her for so much, and Reesie (sp?) and Jordan are my niece and nephew. Her husband, Patrick, is a great man, they\u2019re definitely family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farrow has a way of making everyone feel like family, and that is one of his biggest skills as an assistant coach. He is able to build relationships with recruits, like future Gamecocks Kaeli Wynn and Jerzy Robinson, and current players.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gottlieb says that Farrow\u2019s background makes him relatable. Farrow grew up in Section 8 housing, where a family of five or six people would share two bedrooms. He had to go to junior college out of high school, and played his way into a scholarship at Eastern Michigan, where he eventually earned a master\u2019s degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a terrific human, first and foremost, and I think just has all the right priorities in life,\u201d she said. \u201cCame from a place where he had to struggle to get exactly where he is and always thinks about giving back. Had an incredible mother that was really influential in what he\u2019s done, and I think he has a servant\u2019s heart, does a ton of community service when nobody\u2019s looking. And I think he\u2019s just poured his life into women\u2019s basketball, studies the Xs and Os and finds creative ways to relate with players, and he\u2019s just a great guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfc0 GamecocksW newsletter: WBB coverage delivered straight to your inbox<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Farrow has worked his way up the coaching ranks in the same manner. He started as a video coordinator at UCLA, doing whatever was needed. He was an assistant for one season at Vanderbilt under Melanie Balcomb, who was fired at the end of that season (Balcomb spent the ensuing season as an offensive analyst at South Carolina).<\/p>\n

Then, Farrow linked up with Gottlieb first at Cal, where he stayed under Charmin Smith when Gottlieb coached in the NBA, and then at Southern Cal.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of young people kind of relate to the struggle, you know, relate to the grind,\u201d Farrow said.\u201dI just want to be a reflection on my community and make our people proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farrow describes his role as a coach as a \u201cvehicle.\u201d At 6-7, Farrow can practice with bigs and match their height, and demonstrate things that other assistants may not be able to do. His personality and easy-going attitude can sometimes soften the bloc of harsher coaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re essentially a vehicle, right? You want to take the messaging from your head coach to the players, and get those players across that bridge to success,\u201d he said. \u201cSo when you have young people who want to be successful, you\u2019ve got to hold them accountable, give them a level of discipline and a level of confidence. All of our young people have that, and I think it\u2019s on us as assistant coaches to reflect what Coach has and make sure that we can, you know, bring them to where they want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s getting used to the Eastern time zone. Even if it still feels a little weird.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a Cali dude, a high sock-wearing, a taco, burrito, avocado type of man,\u201d Farrow said. \u201cSo I\u2019m super happy to go home. I haven\u2019t been home in a while, so just to get the California sun, the palm trees, get my favorite eats. It\u2019s going to be really, really cool. But I\u2019m thankful being in the South, you know, there\u2019s a level of culture here that has really shaped me and my adulthood, so I\u2019m thankful for both experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked Farrow where to eat while in Sacramento, and he said there are plenty of choices. But he also knows his favorite order by heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my neighborhood, we go to Adalbertos,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a taco spot, we get a 24 burrito with sour cream and a pink lemonade.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the NCAA tournament bracket was announced on Selection Sunday, South Carolina\u2019s placement in the Sacramento region drew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122,8859],"class_list":["post-240195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}