Issue link: https://catalog.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1163127
35 P eople notice when a 6-foot-1 seventh grade girl walks the halls of her school. Especially if one of those people is a basketball coach. Tangela Smith was 12-years-old when a junior high basketball coach invited her to try out for the team. At the time, all Smith wanted to be was a model. "Everybody would tell me I was so tall, thin, and pretty and I should be a model," Smith said. "at stuck in my head, I didn't think about basketball." She obliged, the try-out went well, Smith continued to grow to 6-3, and the sport of basketball continued to grow on Smith. From 1994-98 at the University of Iowa, she scored 1,598 points with 859 rebounds and 235 blocked shots. A native of Chicago, Smith enrolled at George Washington High School, where she averaged a triple-double as a junior (16 points, 12 rebounds, 10 blocked shots). Nearly every college in the country was interested in signing Smith, who had home visits from 18 coaches. Iowa's C. Vivian Stringer stood out. "Coach Stringer got to me and I fell in love with her," Smith said. "I saw a basketball game on TV when (Iowa) went to the Final Four (in 1993). I visited campus and felt the vibe. I was young at the time, I needed another mother figure, because I was so close to my mom, and coach Stringer fit that for me." Smith ranks third in Iowa history in career blocked shots, seventh in rebounds, and 10th in points. e Hawkeyes won Big Ten regular season championships in 1995-96 and 1997-98; they won the 1997 Big Ten Tournament. "ose were the best years of my life," Smith said. During the 1997-98 season, Smith averaged 19.2 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 1.9 blocked shots per game and was named the Big Ten Conference Most Valuable Player. She was the 12th pick in the 1998 WNBA Dra by the Sacramento Monarchs. In 15 seasons with Sacramento, Charlotte, Phoenix, Indiana, and San Antonio, she averaged 10.9 points and 5.0 rebounds in 463 games. Smith won two WNBA championships with the Phoenix Mercury and was an All-Star while playing for the Charlotte Sting in 2006. Not bad considering when Smith began playing basketball as a pre-teen, she called her style awkward. "I couldn't play at first, but I stuck with it," she said. All these years later, Smith is still making a career out of basketball. Aer the WNBA, she began a mobile sports and fitness program for children. Smith sold that business when she joined Western Michigan as an assistant women's basketball coach in 2014. She begins her second season as assistant coach at Northwestern. "e weird part is going back to Iowa being part of a different team," Smith said. She has done that twice: in 2017 with Western Michigan (a 79-56 win by Iowa) and in 2019 with Northwestern (a 74-50 win by Iowa). "e fans (in Carver-Hawkeye Arena) are still so amazing," Smith said. "When I played, the fans were so loyal and they continue to be loyal to this day."