For years, Barbara Smith has been one of the most frequent presenters at the annual Barton College Athletic Hall of Fame and Bulldog Club Banquet. But in 2001, she was standing at the podium again, with one big exception; as an inductee. Smith was honored for her 24 years of coaching women’s tennis, directing the intramural program and teaching countless young men and women the ins and outs of physical education and health.
Smith coached Hall of Famers Joan Adams Jones, Annika Andborn Hedlund and Susan Maxwell Bane, and recruited another, Sheila Milne, during her 15 seasons (1972-1986) as tennis coach at Atlantic Christian (now Barton).
What Smith did do was teach – on the courts and off – and she did it well for a very long time. She has touched so many lives with her knowledge and her passion for Barton College, and she made sure everyone had a fair chance to succeed.
She stands proud, along with 2000 inductee Carole Mewborn McKeel, for helping women find their place in the once male-dominated intercollegiate sports world.
Smith, born on February 15, 1939, grew up in a competitive environment as one of 10 siblings of Mason and Lucy Parker Brown in Rose Hill, S.C. However, she really took a hands-on interest in sports at Kernersville High School, where she lettered for four years in basketball.
She attended Wake Forest University, where she played no intercollegiate sports but earned a double major in physical education and biology in 1961.
It was during her junior year of college that Smith fell in love with tennis. She was paired with Alan White (Elon College AD) in an intramural mixed doubles tournament.
She received her Master’s Degree in Education from East Carolina University in 1961 and a Master’s Degree in Administration and Physical Education in 1963. She later completed 30 hours of non-degree MR certification at ECU in 1988.
While she was going to school at East Carolina, Smith began her teaching career at Charles L. Coon High School in Wilson, where she taught P.E. and Health to ninth graders. She took on duties as an Assistant Professor of Physical Education and Health at Barton in 1963 and continued that role until leaving the school in 1986. She was also the intramural director from 1963-67. All that education must have rubbed off on her children, Kelly and Myra, who are both teachers at Rocky Mount Senior High.
In the early ‘70s, Smith “saw the need for competitive sports for women. I told Carole, ‘I’ll take tennis if you take basketball.’” They pitched the idea to athletics director Ed Cloyd, and he went for it, “so I basically hired myself to coach the first team,” said Smith.
Tennis was really an intramural sport for four seasons. Smith’s first team in 1972 post a 5-3 record. Some members of that squad were Julia Upchurch, Patricia Cloyd, Beverly Lewis, Gay Robertson and Fon Faulkner. It wasn’t until the 1975-76 season that tennis received funding from the Athletic Department and was a member of the N.C. Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (NCAIAW). The first player offered a partial scholarship for tennis was Tracy Eubank in 1978-79. By 1983-84, Smith had assembled a really strong team, and the Lady Bulldogs earned their first trip to the NAIA Nationals and a ranking of No. 36, finishing the year 13-6.
That was the first of three consecutive trips to Nationals before Smith left Barton to become an Adapted Physical Educator with the Wilson County Schools, a position she has held since 1986.
Smith and her former players stayed close until she passed away, and that’s a testament to the bond they formed during her tenure with the Lady Bulldogs. And, although she coached some very strong teams, it’s not the wins and losses that Smith remembers, it’s the people.
And for that dedication, she has been rewarded by becoming the 13th woman inducted into the Barton Athletic Hall of Fame, taking her rightful place alongside a handful of former players she helped achieve that same honor.
