COLUMBIA, S.C. — From the arena in Minneapolis to the streets of Downtown Columbia, enthusiasm over the South Carolina Women's Basketball National Championship Win is omnipresent.
State and local leaders are hopeful the impact will go beyond the court.
"A national championship, it puts Columbia top of mind. It makes people want to research it and find out what’s going on there and perhaps, and we hope, come into town. Stay in our hotels. Eat at our restaurants," Charlene Slaughter with Experience Columbia, the city's tourism branch, said.
Already, she said they're considering ways to build on the win.
"Making sure we have activities to do. Making sure our neighborhoods are thriving," Slaughter said. "It’s a community effort and so I know that our districts and our restaurants and so fourth, we have people that are thinking about ways to capitalize on this, ways to bring people in.”
Scott Verzyl, Vice President of Enrollment Management at USC, is hopeful some of those to come will be new students, building off their previous successes.
"I do think we’ll see, of course, interest from students. We will see more alumni engagement. We’ll probably see more alumni giving as a result of things like this. It's the kind of thing that follows success," Verzyl said. "It really does have an uplifting type of effect across the whole campus and really across the whole state. The Women’s Basketball team, they’re great ambassadors for the university, but they’re also great ambassadors for the state of South Carolina as well."
As celebrations continue, a parade is planned to honor the Gamecocks. The details have yet to be announced.