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Charlotte Smith has already become Elon University’s all-time winningest women’s basketball coach in just 12 seasons at the helm there, but she joins several other outstanding women’s coaches who are enshrined in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. “When she said that I was gonna take the shot, my heart really sank because it’s a lot of pressure — national championship game, everything hanging in the balance off of a shot,” said Smith, admitting that she’d never been more nervous in a game. Following the ABL's cessation of operations in 1999, Smith participated in the 1999 WNBA Draft, where the Charlotte Sting chose her with the 33rd overall pick. During offseasons, she interned with the Sting's front office, worked with US Sport Management, Inc., played a second winter season in Italy in 1999–2000, and served as an UNC women's basketball assistant coach for several seasons.
Former UNC star Charlotte Smith finding own success on sideline as Elon coach
Charlotte Smith (born August 23, 1973)[1] is a retired American professional women's basketball player for the Charlotte Sting, Washington Mystics and Indiana Fever in the WNBA, and for the Colorado Xplosion and San Jose Lasers in the ABL. She is currently the women's basketball head coach at Elon University. Thompson also told her that repeating as NCAA champion will be twice as hard as winning the first time. "Everyone will be gunning for you," said Thompson, whose Wolfpack failed to make the tournament as defending champions his senior year.
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Her teams were ACC regular season champions in 2005, 2006 and 2008 and claimed the ACC Tournament title in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. Smith was a part of two Final Four teams while on the North Carolina staff. For all her competitive spirit and promising genes, Charlotte's future as a basketball player looked bleak at the outset. Her parents, who were both good players in high school, laugh when they recall her first games in junior high. But Charlotte worked hard on her shooting, camped out in the high school's weight room and was soon scoring about 80% of her team's points.
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The following season would feature another career high scoring average (20.1) for Smith, as he continued to serve as the Hawks' main option on offense. Smith played well against Detroit and held his own against Michael Jordan and the defending champion Chicago Bulls, who defeated the Hawks in 5 games in the semifinals. The following season would be similar to Smith as he once again averaged 20.1 points a game, but this time managed to be named an NBA All-Star as he scored 14 points in 16 minutes of action in the 1998 NBA All-Star Game. The Hawks would disappoint in the playoffs yet again however, this time losing to the Charlotte Hornets 3 games to 1 in the conference semifinals despite a 24.8 ppg scoring average by Smith for the series. Which is one reason why no one in the North Carolina huddle blinked when, during the timeout with .7 remaining and the Tar Heels trailing Louisiana Tech 59-57, coach Sylvia Hatchell appointed Smith to deliver them from their nearly hopeless situation. So what if there was barely enough time for a sharp intake of breath?
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She was an assistant with several USA Basketball teams and spent nine seasons as an assistant at her alma mater. One was her idol, Michael Jordan, the basketball legend who hit the game-winner in the Tar Heels’ 1982 NCAA title game against Georgetown. As a young girl growing up in Shelby, N.C., Smith wanted to “be like Mike” even though her uncle is N.C. State’s great David Thompson and Dereck Whittenburg, who played on the Wolfpack’s 1983 title team, is her cousin. When she was in Italy, Smith met many women's college basketball stars that she never had the opportunity to see play stateside.
"A lot of people don't recall this, but I couldn't throw the ball in the ocean in the first half of that game. I had zero points, and I took quite a few shots. "I've gone back and watched that game quite a few times," Smith said. "You get down to the last 4½ minutes of the game, and we're right there. Then we let a player get loose in transition twice for 3-pointers. After being the star of her Shelby High school team, she headed to the University of North Carolina. Yow, a native of Gibsonville and a graduate of East Carolina, has a kinship with Smith in terms of career, as Yow was also the head coach at Elon from 1971 to ‘75.
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Remembering former UNC coach Dean Smith on the anniversary of his death - Charlotte Observer
Remembering former UNC coach Dean Smith on the anniversary of his death.
Posted: Thu, 07 Feb 2019 08:00:00 GMT [source]
R.L. Bynum, co-host of the weekly “Bleav in Heels Hoops” podcast, spent 27 years in the newspaper industry in sports and news. Read his insights about running (he’s run 53 marathons) on the Running Commentary blog. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @RL_Bynum and on Threads @r.l.bynum. Smith said that the team, which included future Olympic star Marion Jones, had plenty of chemistry from the start of that season. Home game against William & Mary, so she’ll likely arrive at Carmichael Arena early in the Tar Heels’ game against the Cavaliers. She looks forward to seeing all of her teammates, although they talk often.
Atlanta Hawks
Kamryn Doty returns for redshirt freshman season - Elon News Network
Kamryn Doty returns for redshirt freshman season.
Posted: Fri, 02 Dec 2022 08:00:00 GMT [source]
So what if Smith, then a junior, had made only eight of her 31 three-point attempts during the regular season? As she and the other Tar Heels headed back onto the floor for that last fraction of a second, Smith had 17 points and a women's-championship-game-record 23 rebounds against the Lady Techsters. Smith started in 59 of 78 games for Atlanta and averaged 16 points during the regular season and 19 points in the playoffs, as the Hawks lost in a first round sweep to the Indiana Pacers.
The Spurs featured superstars Tim Duncan and David Robinson, and were attempting to win another championship as they had in 1999. Smith would be utilized as the team's starting shooting guard, averaging 11.6 points a game in 76 starts while leading in the league in three-point shooting at 47 percent for the season. Smith would average double figure scoring in the Spurs' first round win over the Seattle SuperSonics, including 17 points in a game 1 victory, but struggled against the defending champion L.A. Steven Delano Smith (born March 31, 1969) is an American former professional basketball player who is a basketball analyst for Turner Sports. He won a championship with the Spurs in 2003.Smith was widely regarded as an excellent three-point shooter, and is one of three players to make seven 3-pointers in a quarter.
Portland would suffer another loss to the Lakers in the playoffs, this time in a three-game sweep in the first round. Following the season he would be traded to the San Antonio Spurs for Derek Anderson and Steve Kerr. However, all pales in comparison to that April 1994 day in Richmond where Smith and her Tar Heel teammates became legendary. “You only get one shot to win a national championship, and we accomplished our primary goal,” she said. The 1998–99 season would be limited to 50 games as a result of a league wide lockout, and in 36 games Smith averaged 18.7 points a game and led the Hawks to another 5 game first round victory over Detroit. The Hawks had no answer, however, for the New York Knicks, and again the Hawks were eliminated in the semifinals.
Gosling plays a stunt man in “The Fall Guy,” which kicks off this year’s summer movie season in theaters on Friday. Gosling and Day debuted their live-action take on the animated characters on “Saturday Night Live” last month, causing cast member Heidi Gardner and several other performers to break into laughter during the sketch. The bit, with Beavis and Butthead sitting in the audience of a panel discussion about artificial intelligence, has been viewed more than 13 million times on YouTube. Gosling, who stars in “The Fall Guy” opposite Emily Blunt, walked the carpet twice Tuesday during the Los Angeles premiere.
Smith said taking over at Elon has helped her appreciate Hatchell even more. The Phoenix are 7-2 thus far, with losses to Iowa of the Big Ten and Wake Forest of the ACC. Elon has defeated SEC foe Alabama and is coming off a victory over fellow mid-major Davidson on Wednesday. The Phoenix took that mindset into the NCAA tournament's first round against West Virginia, the Big 12 tournament champion, before falling 75-62. Her jersey hangs in the rafters at Carmichael Auditorium as the first UNC Women's player to have her number retired.
"It is amazing to see so many things have come to fruition with our program," Smith said. "A lot of that starts with the way we talk and think about the program. My thing is, you win in your mind before you win in real life. Then she took over at Elon, and had winning records her first five years. But everything came together last season, when the Phoenix went 27-7. As the North Carolina Sports Hall of Famer tells her players, "You win in your mind before you win in real life." [applause] Her incredible performance of 23 rebounds and 20 points and her buzzer-beating three-point shot led UNC to victory in the 1994 NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.
When she visited Thompson and his family in Charlotte this summer, Smith got a tour of his trophy collection and found she and her uncle had some honors in common, including first team all-ACC and Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. "He told me the one I really ought to get is the Naismith award for national player of the year," says Smith, who is a preseason candidate for the prize. His Airness might not have spoken to the Tar Heel of the moment, but another member of the order—the charter member, in fact—did. David Thompson, Tobacco Road's premier aerialist, who felled Bill Walton and UCLA while leading North Carolina State to the 1974 NCAA crown, sent Smith flowers and candy immediately after her big shot and called a few days later. But then, he's her uncle, the youngest brother of Smith's mother, Etta.
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