For Jennifer Smith, other than having knee replacement surgery the day before she received a call from Great Lakes Christian College saying they were interested in her for their women’s basketball head coaching position, the timing was perfect.
Smith wanted this. She’d been thinking about an opportunity like it for a while. Her two children, 13 and 10, were the right age to handle sharing their mom with a commitment like coaching college basketball.
“I think I’m fully equipped and ready for it,” said Smith, who was hired this past week as Great Lakes’ new coach. “I’ll still be able to be there for my kids’ games and potentially still try to coach them, as well. But also, my first priority is going to be GLCC, and they’re at an age where they understand that, and they’re super excited for mom, and they’re ready to be a big part of the GLCC family, as well.”
Smith has been coaching since she her playing days — as a DeWitt legend, a University of Michigan star, and a WNBA and European professional. She’s coached high school basketball and her children’s AAU teams. Now she’ll take over a program in west Lansing that’s risen quickly in the National Christian Colleges Athletic Association Division II ranks, reaching the national tournament each of the last two seasons, after winning a total of nine games in the two seasons before that.
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Smith takes over for Katy Shannon, who stepped down this spring to attend law school after leading the Crusaders on those two runs. Smith learned of the job opening from an acquaintance and player development coach for the Great Lakes men’s basketball team, Chad Wilkerson, who was officiating one of her son’s games this spring and asked if she was interested in coaching yet at a higher level.
“Everything just fell into place nicely,” Smith said.
That is, other than her current lack of mobility, as she recovers from surgery three weeks ago to replace a knee that didn’t have any cartilage left after multiple surgeries during her playing career. One of the first things she told Great Lakes athletic director Jacob Leyrer was that it would be a minute before she could physically be on campus regularly.
That wasn’t at all a deterrent in hiring her.
“We appreciate what Katy Shannon built here over the last few years in our women’s basketball program, but we’re really looking to see if we can take it to that next level,” Leyrer said. “We want to keep leveling up, getting better. … At the end of (the interview process), Jen had just shown that she was the person for the job. Obviously, her background in basketball speaks for itself.
“The biggest thing for me was, one, her ability to communicate, her leadership skills and she’s very humble. She didn’t talk much about her playing skills. I had to kind of pull it out of her. … And also what stood out is that she loves the community. I mean, she loves DeWitt. She’s close. Her kids are in school. She does not want to pull them out of the community. She’s a person that’s going to be around and be able to build something for hopefully a long career. And so we’re just excited about that, excited about her vision of staying in the local area and to start on this journey of coaching college basketball.”
So is Smith. This sort of career move was the plan when she returned from playing overseas and went back to the University of Michigan to get her master’s degree in sports management.
Smith said she’s had conversations with the returning players and incoming recruits and they’re all still on board — which is important, because there wouldn’t be much time to remake a roster at this point.
“Meeting the players and having these initial conversations with them, I am completely blown away by their work ethic,” Smith said. “Like these are some amazing girls that are extremely hard working and have reached out to me several times already wanting to get in the gym and wanting to do some strength and conditioning. I couldn’t ask for more.”
Smith was a star around here and at Michigan before most of her new players were even born. But they know she played at U-M and in the WNBA and Europe.
“In our conversations, I just try to let them know I’m going to bring all of that experience, and expectations are going to be at a really high level,” Smith said. “And, you know, things might change a little bit, but we’re all going to have fun and we’re going to work hard.”
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
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