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Varsity girls volleyball coach Theresa Smith wins 300th career game
Coach Smitty cheers on varsity girls volleyball players during practice. She has won 300 games as a coach.
Upper school varsity girls volleyball coach Theresa “Smitty” Smith won the 300th win of her coaching career at Harker on Oct 10., where the girls won against Sequoia High School and placed second at the Belmont 2015 Tiger Cup Varsity Volleyball Tournament.
Smitty has been working at Harker for the past 26 years, in which she has coached the upper school volleyball team for 17 years.
She played volleyball as a high school student at St. Francis High School. She played for De Anza College for two years and California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) for three years, one of which was a redshirt year. A redshirt year is a season in which the athletes do not participate in games in order to lengthen their eligibility to play for another season.
Smitty reflects upon how she felt when she found out that her 300th win was coming up.
“I felt pretty good actually,” she said. “Tired, but good. It was brought to my attention this season that I was nearing 300 wins and it was at that time that it dawned on me that it was a pretty cool accomplishment.”
Defensive specialist Taylor Iantosca (11) reflects on the season so far and how she feels about Smitty’s win.
“Our team has improved a lot this season and I’m really happy that we were able to get Smitty her 300th win,” Taylor said.
Smitty also attributes her success to the help of her assistant coaches, Alex Jones, Stephanie Coleman and Yagmur Ilgen, as well as the players on the teams she has coached.
“[It is] certainly not all about me,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of very good players come through this program and have had a lot of talented assistant coaches that make me look good, so the credit goes to all of them too.”
Smitty enjoys helping the girls learn to compete and developing long-term friendships as a result of playing the sport.
“My favorite part about coaching [is] getting a group of girls to compete and enjoy doing it,” she said. “Also the lifelong bonds you develop with most of your players.”
The next game for the girls volleyball team will take place tomorrow at 5:45 p.m. at the Blackford campus, where the girls will face off against Menlo School.
Raveena Kapatkar (12) is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Harker Aquila. She is a senior and this is her fourth year on staff. As a freshman, she was a reporter...