34 years after coaching her first varsity volleyball match, Adena's Laura Smith now has 700 career wins, thanks to the Warriors' 25-15, 25-23, 25-12 win over Paint Valley Thursday night.
That makes her only the third Ohio high school coach to reach that plateau. Chris Kern is first on the state's all-time win list with 762 at several different schools and Dan McKinstry's 710 wins entering this season have occurred at two different schools. All of Smith's wins have been at Adena High School, which is a state record for most victories at one school.
Dressing 8 freshmen, 2 sophomores, one junior and one senior, this Adena team is the youngest to ever play for Smith- who sees great potential for the future. "It will be a nice memory- that number 700 came with this group, because they are working hard and have so much to learn. But, I am looking forward to working with them to increase their volleyball knowledge and abilities".
She added that "This group is one of the many over the years that share in this honor, because the players are the ones that have put together what we have tried to teach them and made their learning equal our success".
Smith says the sport of volleyball has gotten much faster over the last three decades and says she wishes she had some of her past players back to work under the new rules and speed of today's volleyball. "I was watching a film of our 1993 state runner-up team the other day and I couldn't believe how much faster today's teams are comparing to then". She added, "I would love to have that team back to work with again with what we believe would have made that great team- even better".
Coach Smith says while the numerous championships and personal honors have been rewarding, some of the greatest blessings have been getting letters or cards from former players. "I keep these letters in what I call my feel good file". "I've had former players contact me years later to tell me how much they appreciated their time playing volleyball at Adena and I keep them, so when I need a confidence boost, I dig out that file".
Listed below are the career accomplishments Smith has as of August 30th.
Teams have accomplished the following:
23 Scioto Valley Conference Championships *21 in a 22 year span with a league record of (293-12) in that time-frame*
15 Scioto Valley Conference “Gold Volleyballs” for an undefeated league championship (SVC record)
98 straight SVC wins between 2005-2011 (SVC record for any sport)
29 Sectional Championships
26 District Championships
2 District Runner Ups
6 Regional Championships (1993, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2014)
2 State Runner-Up (1993, 2009)
16 Regional Runner-Up
142 straight victories at home between 1995-2012 (Area record)
Individual Honors:
OHSVCA State Hall of Fame 2009
OHSVCA State All Star Match Coach 1992, 1995, 2003, 2006, 2007
District 14 Div. IV or III Coach of the Year in: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016
District 14 All Star Match Coach at least 14 times
Coached 25 All Ohioans
Scioto Valley Conference Coach of the Year 18 times
Listen to our Vallery Ford Spotlight interview with Coach Laura Smith on our podcast link below. The interview will also be heard on the Accurate Heating, Cooling & Plumbing Scoreboard Show.