Michele Mary Smith

Michele Mary Smith (born June 21, 1967) is an American, former collegiate All-American, two-time medal-winning Olympian, international professional left-handed hitting fastpitch softball pitcher and current sports commentator, originally from Califon, New Jersey. Smith played her college career for the Oklahoma State Cowgirls for the years 1986–89, where she set numerous records in the now defunct Big Eight Conference. She is also a double Olympic Softball gold medalist with Team USA, having played in the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics. She has been ESPN's lead college softball color analyst since 1998. Smith is a USA Softball Hall of Fame honoree.

Early life and education Smith started playing softball at the age of five. She attended Voorhees High School in Glen Gardner, New Jersey, where she set school records for wins, strikeouts and no-hitters. She continued her pitching career at Oklahoma State University, earning a Bachelor of Science in health and wellness.

For her junior year, Smith was named a National Fastpitch Coaches Association First-Team All-American to accompany her second top conference honors. She broke school records for strikeouts, shutouts and wins while also posting career bests in average, RBIs, hits, slugging percentage, walks and home runs, the latter of which she tied for the NCAA lead that year. Smith also pitched four no-hitters, the first coming on March 6 over the Sam Houston State Bearkats. She also attained a conference pitching Triple Crown for leading in wins, strikeouts and ERA, all being career bests. Her strikeouts, shutouts and strikeout ratio (8.5) totals were then new school records; the ratio was atop the NCAA list for that year. Smith added five more no-hitters, two of them perfect games; the total overall tied the second most for an NCAA season (now top-5) and gave her 9 overall to rank top-5 for an NCAA career. She is still tied for 10th most on the NCAA list.

Smith set a career and school high with 17 strikeouts in a 2–0 regulation win vs. the Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters on April 15. Following a shutout of the Arizona Wildcats the team lost back-to-back games on May 27, with the Fresno State Bulldogs eliminating them from the series. Smith would earn All-Tournament honors for her performance.

Smith graduated with the school record for wins, strikeouts, shutouts, innings pitched, no-hitters, RBIs, home runs and triples for a Cowgirl career, as well as ranking top-5 in numerous other categories. She still holds the record for wins, no-hitters and perfect games.

Personal life Smith has also played basketball and field hockey. Year W L GP GS CG SHO SV IP H R ER BB SO ERA WHIP 1996 2 0 2 2 2 0 0 14.0 8 3 3 3 23 1.50 0.78 2000 0 2 3 2 1 0 0 27.2 9 4 0 5 37 0.00 0.51 Totals 2 2 5 4 3 0 0 41.2 17 7 3 8 60 0.51 0.60

Honors New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Hall of Fame (1998) Shasta County, California Sports Hall of Fame Amateur Softball Association Hall of Fame (2006) Eight-time Japan Pro Softball League champion and MVP Toyota Shokki (Japanese Professional Softball League), 1993–2008