Sportswriter Michelle Smith, a longtime resident of Dublin, addresses the audience upon her enshrinement into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame during the ceremony Sept. 5, 2025. (Photo courtesy Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame)
Dublin’s own Michelle Smith, a pioneering writer and reporter known best for her coverage of women’s professional and college sports, was etched forever into hoops history on Friday evening with her induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
Smith, who helped blaze the trail for national coverage of the WNBA when she became ESPN.com’s first-ever regular women’s basketball columnist in the 1990s, told the Pleasanton Weekly that the enshrinement experience has left her feeling “incredibly gratified and grateful”.
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Michelle Smith during the weekend of Hall of Fame festivities. (Photo courtesy Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame)
“That the Hall is beginning to recognize the journalists who cover the women’s game is such an important step,” Smith said in an email interview Monday morning. “We aren’t at this moment in women’s basketball right now without the media members who have been shining a spotlight on the game for years. I hope there are many more people who follow me.”
“Recognition is amazing, but for me, the time I’ve spent covering the game has been about building relationships and it is what’s kept me coming back for more than 30 years,” Smith added.
The recipient of the Hall of Fame’s 2025 Curt Gowdy Print Media Award, Smith’s sports journalism career included time at ESPN, the San Francisco Chronicle, AOL Fanhouse and ESPNw.
In recent years she transitioned into government media relations full-time – she now works as a senior director at San José State University, her alma mater – but still covers women’s sports as a freelancer. She also has a new book due out in February, a biography of legendary former Stanford University women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer entitled “Life’s Work”.
“To be able to share this moment of recognition with my family and with so many people who I have covered and admired along the way was unforgettable,” Smith said. “Being in the room on Saturday night for the Enshrinement ceremony was a who’s who of the sport and it was a little mind-blowing to see Julius Irving chatting with Shaq and LeBron James congratulating Sue Bird. And Tara VanDerveer sitting next to Rick Pitino. It was quite something.”
The star-studded Hall of Fame Class of 2025 included Bird and fellow retired WNBA stars Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles, former NBA players Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard, the 2008 USA Basketball Men’s National Team and longtime NBA reporter-insider Adrian Wojnarowski among its 15 inductees.
Smith and the other media award winners were honored during a gala at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn. on Friday, while the players and on-court contributors were enshrined during a ceremony Saturday night in Springfield, Mass. – the home of the Hall of Fame.
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