W. Basketball Coach Earns National Position

Her team’s season may have concluded almost a month ago in Manhattan, Kansas during the first-round of the NCAA Tournament, but Harvard women’s basketball coach Kathy Delaney-Smith’s off-season got a bit busier today. Delaney-Smith was named an assistant coach of the 2003 USA Basketball Championships for Young Women, to be held this summer from July 25 to August 3 in Sibenik, Croatia.

Though the team will consist solely of players 21 or younger, it is unlikely that Delaney-Smith will have the opportunity to coach any of her own Crimson players this summer. For her part, Delaney-Smith was excited about the chance to coach the national team.

“I am thrilled beyond belief,” she said in a prepared statement.

She will be joined by fellow assistant and Hofstra coach Felisha Legette-Jack and the national team’s head coach Jim Foster from Ohio State. Foster has known Delaney-Smith for years and was pleased with her addition to his coaching staff.

“This is a great opportunity to work with one of the best coaches in the country in Kathy Delaney-Smith,” said Foster from the Olympic Training Center. “Year in and year out her teams perform at a very high level and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to work with her.”

Delaney-Smith has compiled a 319-229 (.582) overall record, including 194-92 (.678) in the Ivy League.

Perhaps the most famous of her 319 colegiate victories came in 1998, when Delaney-Smith’s No. 16 Crimson knocked off No. 1 seed Stanford in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. That victory was the first win by a No. 16 over a No. 1 ever.

Serving as an assistant national team coach this summer will be another first for Delaney-Smith, but history has proven she hasn’t had much trouble breaking precedents.