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| Basketball coach helps build winning teams, homes for Katrina victims |
The Stanford women’s basketball
team has had some great years recently and Charmin Smith (BS 1997, MS
2000 CEE) has been there for many of them. As a player (1994-1997) she
appeared in three Final Four rounds of the NCAA Tournament. For the past
two years she has been an assistant coach for the highly ranked Cardinal
women’s team. In the interim she spent several years playing in
the WNBA, two years working for the NBA and a year as an assistant coach
for the Boston College Eagles.
Basketball is Smith’s passion but she also retains a strong connection
to her civil engineering education. She remains acutely aware of the need
for affordable housing, an interest she says CEE Professor Boyd Paulson
helped inspire. Smith has unified these two aspects of her life in an
effort to help raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. She has organized
the Katrina Assist Pledge Program: every assist by the team raises money
for Habitat for Humanity to build homes for storm victims. |
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What makes
the team so good again this year? |
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We have two really phenomenal players
in Candice Wiggins and Brooke Smith and we knew that they were going to
be the focus of every one of our opponents coming in. What’s allowed
us to be successful is the fact that you have people like Krista (Rap) Rappahahn,
Jillian Harmon, Rosalyn (Ros) Gold-Onwude, and Kristen Newlin really helping
out so that people can’t just zero in on Candice and Brooke every
time. And to have Jillian and Ros especially as freshmen be able to contribute,
that’s been huge. Every one is really excited for Rap. This is her
senior year and this is the first opportunity that she’s really had
to play. She is one of the best three point shooters in the country. She’s
really had some daggers for our opponents in making some really huge shots.
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Is it hard to be a student
athlete, especially an engineer athlete, at Stanford? |
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Stanford athletes are so disciplined
and self-motivated. I know in some schools you have a mandatory study hall
and you have to check in every week about your grades but I never had that
when I was here at Stanford and our players don’t have that now. They’re
really focused. They will declare challenging majors. Shelley Nweke is an
engineering major. We have a couple of human biology students and a biology
major. We have a broad spectrum of degrees that people are pursuing.
[Through three Final Fours] I had to really struggle to stay focused with
the winter exams because we were always traveling. The thing that makes
it doable is definitely the Stanford professors. I think that we’re
in a unique situation where faculty understand that we are indeed student
athletes and not the reverse. We are here based on merit and student athletes
deserve to be in the classroom with the other Stanford students. And with
Stanford students, whether you are an athlete or not, you’ve got something
else going on in your life or else you wouldn’t be here. We have students
that are publishing things and working with professors. Students have patents.
They’re in all the music activities that go on here. There is not
a student here that I’ve met who is just a bookworm and that’s
it. So it’s easier for a professor to understand, “Hey, we’re
going to be in the regional championship game and I’m going to miss
this exam.Can you work with me?” Especially if you’re doing
well in your class and showing up for your classes as opposed to [being]
that so-called “jock” in the class who doesn’t want to
be here and now wants to leave because he or she is a good basketball player.
I always had professors who were very understanding and willing to work
with me. I’d say something to my professors and they’d say,
“All right, good luck, I’ll be watching it on TV.” |
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Have you found any parallels between engineering
and athletics? |
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Definitely. There’s no way I could have made it through the engineering
program here at Stanford doing everything on my own. Physics — whoah.
If I didn’t have group study sessions and certain group projects that
we did together there’s no way I would have made it. The whole concept
of team building and problem solving is embedded within athletics. That’s
what you learn being an engineer here. The Construction Engineering and
Management Program was my Masters program. Learning how to manage and how
to be managed, that’s all in basketball. Especially in coaching now,
it’s working with people and learning how to motivate these student
athletes who do have so much going on in their lives. I think I’ve
learned a lot of that through my graduate and undergraduate program at Stanford.
Problem solving is definitely key. That’s what we have to do as coaches.
If we have someone go out with an injury, we can’t panic. How do we
fix this and get through it until we get someone back or how do we make
adjustments in games? |
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Please describe the Katrina Assist program
— what it does and why you started it. |
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I was just extremely frustrated in watching the events and watching so
many people lose their homes — basically lose their lives. Tara [Tara
VanDerveer, head coach] and I would talk about it a lot and she said, “You
know, people need to do something.” I get frustrated with myself when
I complain, complain, complain and then I never end up doing anything. I
really felt we shouldn’t just talk about what this person should have
done or the nation should have done. Let’s try and do something. And
I thought about it for a while and threw some ideas out to some people and
came up with the Katrina Assist Pledge Program. Basically we’re taking
pledges for each assist that we get this season. All of the money is going
to Habitat for Humanity’s Operation Home Delivery. They’re building
homes in different areas around the country and then shipping them to the
Gulf Coast region.
There’s another part to this story. My involvement with habitat stems
from both my graduate and undergraduate programs and my relationship with
Professor Boyd Paulson. Boyd Paulson has always been an inspiration for
me in just my awareness of affordable housing and the need for more. That’s
always been a passion of mine.
Professor Paulson recently passed away so this has become even bigger for
me since that happened. I really don’t know if I would have done this
had I not had his influence and the things that I learned during my graduate
studies.
We’ve raised over $14,000 so far. That’s estimating we have
500 assists and last year we had 573 assists. So it could be even more.
The more pledges we get, the number keeps going up. We also have gotten
Cal involved. We’re definitely excited to have them join in the effort. |
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Before we wrap up, would you talk about your
career in the WNBA? |
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I loved it. Minnesota and Seattle were the places I had full seasons.
I had a couple of stints at other places but my first year was in Minnesota.
It was incredible. I was on a team with some of the best players. Katie
Smith was on that team. I was fortunate enough to have Kristen Folkl there
who was one of my teammates here and has been a teammate of mine since we
were 10 years old. We played together at every level.
After that year in Minnesota I was picked up by Seattle in the expansion
draft, Seattle was a new team in 2000. I ended up starting several games.
It was just a great experience to be able to play basketball and get paid
to do something I love doing. To go up against Cynthia Cooper and Lisa Leslie
and Sheryl Swoopes, was incredible. It’s the life. But unfortunately
it doesn’t pay enough to make it a life unless you are a Sue Bird
or a Lisa Leslie.
Still, I would have done it for as long as I could but with my knees, unfortunately,
I can’t play anymore at that level without pain. I did it as long
as I could. I love engineering but basketball is my passion right now so
I’ll keep doing what I’m doing until I feel something else would
make me happier. |
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