Katie Smith is one of the Columbus area's best-known basketball players. She gained recognition for her talent while at Logan High School, leading the Lady Chieftains in the Ohio Division I championship game her senior year with 26 of the team's 46 points before ultimately losing to Pickerington. She was named a High School All-American by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and Gatorade's National Player of the Year.
Smith signed to play college basketball with the Ohio State University Buckeyes under Coach Nancy Darsch from 1992 to 1996. In her freshman year, Smith helped lead the team to the NCAA national championship game in 1993, a first for the Buckeyes , who were ultimately defeated by Texas Tech. Smith had 28 points in the championship game and was named Sports Illustrated's National Freshman of the Year and a Kodak All-American First Team member in 1993. She was a Kodak All-American again in 1996.
Smith broke the Big Ten Conference scoring women's record for points scored in a college career, and won the Big Ten Player of the Year award in 1996. She finished her Buckeyes playing career with 2,578 points. In 2001, her first year of eligibility, she became the first women's basketball player inducted into the OSU Athletics Hall of Fame and her jersey was retired.
After graduating college with a degree in zoology, Smith originally planned to become a dentist like her father — who was also a star athlete in his younger days — and applied to Ohio State's dental school. At the time, no path existed for women to play professional basketball. But the 1996 USA women's basketball team changed everything.
Before that team won the gold medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games, Sheryl Swoopes and the rest of the team had gained a significant fan base. Inspired by this interest, the now-defunct American Basketball League (ABL) formed in late 1995, and the WNBA was formed immediately after. Women basketball players suddenly had opportunities, and Katie Smith was graduating from OSU just in time to play professionally. She decided to play in the ABL, joining the newly formed Columbus Quest.
Although the ABL paid its players better, they had few other advantages. Ultimately, the support of the NBA gave the WNBA better marketing, televised games and arena access. The ABL folded in its third season. Before things went sour, however, the Columbus Quest played amazing basketball at Battelle Hall in Columbus.
Under coach Brian Agler and later player-coach Tonya Edwards, the Quest won both the ABL's national championships for the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons, and were the leading team on Dec. 22, 1998, when the league shut down.
Smith and several of her Quest teammates ended up following their former coach Agler to the WNBA's Minnesota Lynx, where she continued her career. After a trade to Detroit, Smith and the Shock won the WNBA championship in 2006 by defeating the Sacramento Monarchs, making her the only player to win the championship in both women's pro leagues. Smith and the Shock won the WNBA championship again in 2008, defeating San Antonio. Smith was named finals MVP, leading Detroit in scoring at 21.7 points per game.
Smith was a U.S. Olympian and a member of the gold medal-winning teams in 2000, 2004 and 2008. She was also a WNBA All-Star from 2000-2003 and again from 2005-2006.
Smith accumulated a total 7,885 points as a professional women's basketball player (6,452 of those in the WNBA) before retiring from the New York Liberty in 2013. That same year, she became an assistant coach with the team. She was promoted to assistant head coach in 2016, and was the Liberty's head coach for the 2018 and 2019 seasons. She joined the Minnesota Lynx as an associate head coach in 2022, and the team has made the playoffs in four of her five seasons there.
Smith was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
On Nov. 11, 2024, Smith returned to her alma mater and joined Ohio State women's basketball head coach Kevin McGuff as an assistant coach.
Megan Sheeran is a librarian with the Columbus Metropolitan Library.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Katie Smith, one of Ohio's best-known basketball players, is back home
