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Michelle Smith-McDonald Photo Gallery

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Michelle Smith-McDonald, Jake Wade Award
by Barb Kowal, CoSIDA Director of Professional Development and External Affairs
 

Taking a look at long-time national sports journalist Michelle Smith-McDonald's Twitter account, you notice that in her Twitter bio she lists "Busy life."

By all standards, that's an understatement when talking about Smith-McDonald. She has had a prolific career covering pro, collegiate and amateur sports, coupled with raising a family and committing to an amazing amount of community service work.

A native Californian residing in the Bay Area, Smith-McDonald has shown passion and dedication to covering college sports - particularly women's basketball - for the past 27 years. This has made her a prominent national voice and one of the West Coast's most influential media members.

For these reasons, Smith-McDonald is the recipient of the 2017 CoSIDA Jake Wade Award which is presented annually to an individual in the media who has made outstanding contributions to intercollegiate athletics.

"I have always been most comfortable in the college sports space because I love talking to student-athletes," notes Smith-McDonald, currently a contributor to espnW, Pac-12.com and WNBA.com. "As I now have kids in this age bracket, I am so enamored with the idea of helping to tell about their experiences beyond the wins and losses. I love shining a spotlight on kids who might not get a lot of attention in their sports otherwise. I love the student-athlete experience, the lifelong connections that are made."

"I am notorious for getting misty at Senior Day ceremonies, because I know how much this experience means to these young people and I also know, as a grown up, that it will never be like this again for them."

Sports and sportswriting has always been part of Smith-McDonald's world. She caught the writing bug at an early age.

"I would run copies of hand-written newspapers off on the ditto machine at my elementary school." she said. "In high school, I was the editor of my school newspaper and played softball. At San Jose State, I was the Spartan Daily editor, choosing not to work in sports because I wanted to try something different. Yet, I ended up right back in sports, so it was destiny."

Gaining her San Jose State degree in journalism and mass communication in 1990 (summa cum laude, by the way), Smith-McDonald started her sportswriting career at the  Hayward Daily Review and the Oakland Tribune. She experienced her first breakthrough in women's sports coverage in 1994, earning an APSE Award for co-authoring a series on female athletes and motherhood.

After her son Matt was born in 1996, she freelanced for two years before writing at the San Francisco Examiner then the San Francisco Chronicle (they merged in 2000). She was the beat writer for Stanford and University of California sports. She covered Stanford football for seven years and had the college women's basketball beat for a decade. Widening her base of women's basketball coverage, she also detailed the journeys of the programs at Santa Clara, San Francisco and San Jose State, among others.

Along the way, her opinions and features were found in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated for Kids, NCAA.com, Lindy's Sports Annuals, AOL Fanhouse.com and Washington Post. She also penned four children's books that have introduced kids to top female athletes and their inspiring stories.

When asked about her most notable coverage and accomplishments, she noted that "I love covering the Women's Final Four every year. It's such a great showcase for our young female athletes. It was a career highlight to cover the 2011 Women's World Cup in Germany. I've been thrilled to cover the college football national championship game and honored to be part of milestone events, such as (Stanford basketball coach) Tara VanDerveer's 1,000th coaching win this season."

Basketball Hall of Famer VanDerveer appreciates all Smith-McDonald does in her media coverage.

"Michelle has been great for women's basketball and West Coast college sports, and this Jake Wade Award is a well-deserved honor," noted VanDerveer. "She is so enthusiastic and passionate and that's conveyed in all of her stories. She is someone who is easy to talk to for both coaches and players.

"Michelle is very knowledgeable about the game of basketball and is an excellent writer, so it's fun to read her work," VanDerveer concluded. "Every article is really well thought out and insightful."

West Coast athletic communications professionals are quick to acknowledge the contributions of Smith-McDonald.

"It was obvious that Michelle had a bright future in sportswriting during her college days at San Jose State," commented long-time Spartan Athletics Media Relations Director Lawrence Fan, now in his 37th year at SJSU. "Her professionalism as a student reporter was impressive. She had an inquisitive nature, and a clear and clean writing style. Dating back nearly 100 years, San Jose State has produced exceptional sportswriters with regional and national followings. Michelle certainly is among them."
 

"Michelle's passion for college sports, especially women's basketball, is evident in her writing and when you talk to her. She has an amazing amount of clout and has built a tremendous following. I've heard from so many that when she writes something, people gravitate to it and read it," said Natalia Ciccone, Pac-12 Conference assistant commissioner of communications.

"Michelle is a great storyteller and she is incredibly respected for her long-time contributions to West Coast college sports coverage. We are thrilled that Michelle is receiving the Jake Wade Award."

Smith-McDonald and her husband, Jerry McDonald, another longtime sportswriter who covers the NFL for the Bay Area News Group, reside in Dublin. They have two children, daughter Annie, a 2016 Santa Clara graduate who works in local government, and son Matt, a sophomore baseball player at Linfield College (Ore.).

Currently, she balances writing assignments while serving as the Public Information and Community Relations Officer for the fast-growing East Bay School District in the San Francisco area.

All this with an abundance of community work. Smith-McDonald can be described as a "serial volunteer and organizer."

"I am a heart-on-my-sleeve person," she says. "One day, I told my husband, "If I have an opinion, it must be expressed" and he's never let me forget it. This has led to my community work."

A strong believer in community, Smith-McDonald is "all in" when it comes to volunteering.

"I apparently have leadership qualities and suffer from a hyper-sense of commitment. And an inability to say no," laughs Smith-McDonald. "I volunteered a lot at schools early on, and now I'm serving in new ways."

Those new ways include involvement in local Democratic politics; appointment to the Dublin Parks and Community Services Commission; and serving as a Commissioner with the Alameda County Commission on the Status of Women doing advocacy work for women and girls around domestic violence, employment, education, human trafficking, and STEM education issues.

"My work as Commissioner is very empowering. My one wish is that people would say yes to volunteering more. They would get more out of it than they think," she noted.

"Michelle is admired for how she balances her work with being an involved parent and community activist. She's been known to drive up and down the coast to watch her son play baseball and take 6 a.m. flights back from the East Coast after covering games so she can be with her family," Ciccone finished. "And, she gives 100 percent to organizing things and she champions causes because people around her know she will get it done."

Her community efforts were recently recognized when she was inducted into the Alameda County Women's Hall of Fame in 2015.

Speaking of awards, Smith-McDonald notes that she is greatly appreciative of receiving the Jake Wade Award.

"I'm incredibly humbled to receive the Jake Wade Award, especially considering the list of illustrious writers and broadcasters who are past recipients and who I admire greatly," said Smith-McDonald.

Passion and commitment reign supreme in all facets of Smith-McDonald's life. She continues to be driven to interview student-athletes and coaches who are changing the face of sports.

Because, as she says, "there are ALWAYS great stories to be told."





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