National Girls and Women in Sports Day
Keynote Speaker: Michelle Smith
Michele Smith has been on softball fields in every corner of the world. Her career
started in her hometown of Califon, New Jersey. She is a 1990 graduate of
Oklahoma State University where she was named to the Academic All-Big 8 Team and
the MVP of the Big 8 Softball Championship Tournament. Her collegiate pitching
career yielded an 82-20 record with 46 shutouts. The highlights of her
national and international amateur career include 1993, '94, & '95 ASA
National Championships with the Rebels of Redding, California. She has
been honored with the coveted Bertha Tickey Award four times as the most
valuable pitcher in the ASA National Championship Tournament. She
has established herself as a vital force on the pitching staff of USA softball
for the historic decade of '90's. Every place the United States has gone,
Michele has been with them. Since 1992 Michele has helped the USA Team
earn gold medals in international and world championships in the countries of
Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Holland, and China. She
was a member of the USA Team that won the 1995 and 1999 Pan Am Games
Championship. History was made in 1996 when softball was added as an
Olympic Sport in the games in Atlanta. Michele pitched the USA Team to a
6-1 win over Japan and a 3-2 victory over China posting an ERA of 1.50 and
throwing 23 strikeouts. The USA earned the Olympic Gold Medal and Michele
played in all nine games of the Olympic Competition. When she was not on
the mound, Michele was in the line-up as a hitter in the designated player
position collecting four hits and two RBI's.
Michele's success on the softball field has created many opportunities for her.
She is the only female softball player endorsed by Nike (and she has her own
shoe). She also serves as the official spokesperson for Little League
Softball with a membership of 600,000 girls and Little League Baseball with a
membership of 8,000,000. She has also served as a broadcaster for ESPN's
coverage of the Little League World Series. She conducts numerous
instructional clinics and has produced instructional pitching videos.
Michele plays softball professionally in Japan and was the league MVP in 1994,
'97, and '98 and she speaks fluent Japanese.