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Acclaimed sportswriter Michelle Smith has been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, with the longtime Dublin resident’s name revealed on Friday among four winners of the 2025 Curt Gowdy Media Awards.
Lauded as “a trailblazer in the industry” by Hall of Fame officials, Smith has covered women’s professional and collegiate sports for decades, including holding the distinction of becoming ESPN.com’s first-ever regular women’s basketball columnist in the 1990s. The reality of her international recognition is still setting in for Smith, who is now a freelancer – with a new book due out soon – after shifting careers into government media relations and completing a recent stint of elected service in her local community.
“I got a call on Wednesday and it popped up on my phone in Springfield, Massachusetts, and I answered and it was the president of the Basketball Hall of Fame telling me that I had won the Gowdy Award,” Smith told the Weekly.
“I have had friends and colleagues who won this award in the past and they are some of the best to ever cover the game. All you can do is take a deep breath and be grateful,” she added. “I know this award is based on longevity of covering women’s basketball, but I hope it’s also a reflection of the quality of the work and the care that I have for the game.”
The Hall of Fame and National Basketball Association announced Smith’s name, along with three other media winners and the list of on-court finalists including retired players under consideration for the full Class of 2025, on Friday afternoon as part of the NBA All-Star Weekend festivities being hosted in the Bay Area by the Golden State Warriors.
“The Bay Area has been a homebase for so much of the growth of the game, from the greatness of the programs at Stanford and Cal to home of local talent, such as Sabrina Ionescu, Chelsea Gray, Jayne Appel. The excitement around the new WNBA team in the Bay Area is palpable,” Smith said, referring to the upcoming debut season of the Golden State Valkyries.
“During my time working at Bay Area newspapers, I was always fortunate to work for people who prioritized women’s sports coverage,” she added.
Smith’s journalism career included time at ESPN, the San Francisco Chronicle, AOL Fanhouse and ESPNw, Hall of Fame officials noted — in highlighting the resume “dedicated to elevating women’s sports coverage” that helped her win the Curt Gowdy Print Media Award.
Crediting Smith’s tenure as ESPN.com’s inaugural women’s basketball columnist for “shaping national coverage of the game”, Hall of Fame officials said, “Her insightful reporting and compelling storytelling have spotlighted generations of athletes, coaches and programs, contributing to the growth and visibility of women’s sports.”
Smith currently freelances for the website The Next Hoops and recently finished a new book on former Stanford University women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer and the legacy of the Cardinal program. She said the book is set to be published early next year.
Living with her family in Dublin for more than three decades, Smith in recent years moved full-time into public relations amid the changing news media landscape.
She now works at her alma mater San José State University as senior director of media relations — a role that has seen her quoted in the news, instead of writing it, in particular with the Spartans’ women’s volleyball team catapulted into the national political discourse on transgender athletes.
Smith also served as director of communications and public affairs for the Alameda County Office of Education during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. And she held elected office between 2019 and 2022 on the Zone 7 Water Agency Board of Directors.
She is a member of the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame (2015) and the United States Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame (2024).
Joining Smith in earning a 2025 Curt Gowdy Award on Friday were George Blaha, play-by-play announcer for the Detroit Pistons; Clark Kellogg, CBS Sports college basketball analyst; and Adrian Wojnarowski, former NBA insider who worked most recently for ESPN.
Smith will officially be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame along with the rest of the Class of 2025 during the weekend of Sept. 5-6.
Editor’s note: Throughout her sportswriting career, she has been credited as Michelle Smith; although in her media relations jobs and prior Zone 7 service, she has used her full married name, Michelle Smith McDonald.
Well done, Michelle! Congratulations!
Congratulations Michelle!!