How Shelley Smith built USC soccer into powerhouse, reaching 300 wins along the way
Shelley Smith can’t really remember the first win she ever had as a head coach.
It’s been more than 23 years, and most of what the South Carolina women’s soccer coach remembers from back then, when she got her first gig at a Rhode Island program that had never had a winning season, was hitting the recruiting trail and working hard and long hours.
Her husband, Jamie, remembers it well. He wasn’t even there, but he can still name the opponent — Temple in 1997 — and place where he was — at dinner with the men’s team at Brown, where he was an assistant at the time. He remembers telling his players, and he remembers their reaction.
“The whole team erupted. The guys went nuts because it was their first win at Rhode Island. And so, I do remember that dinner because the guys were pumped,” Jamie said.
Shelley also can’t really recall her first win at USC. Those first few years in Columbia — for both she and Jamie, now her associate head coach — are mostly a blur now. It was a 4-0 rout of Davidson in 2001, the team’s spokesman reminds her.
“I think probably back at the time, our expectation was to go and win some of those games, you know, if you’re not playing an SEC opponent or a local ACC opponent that’s had success. Our goal was to take care of business where we should and prepare ourselves for SEC play,” Shelley said.
Of course, she can obviously remember her 300th career win. It was the Gamecocks’ Oct. 25 game, a 4-2 victory over SEC rival Florida. But she didn’t realize its significance in the moment.
“To be honest, someone told me 299 last game and that the next one would be 300, and I completely forgot about it. ... I’m not thinking about that at all when we go into a game. And so after the game, when they said congrats, I really didn’t know,” Smith said.
Building a family
When the Smiths first came to South Carolina in 2001, they didn’t anticipate staying for the next two decades, building a premier program with SEC championships and a College Cup berth. The former players-turned-coaches had both spent most of their lives in the Northeast and had precious few connections to the Palmetto State. Shelley’s sister had gone to Clemson, and that was about it.
“I was wondering why she wasn’t so excited for me to get the the job,” Shelley joked.
The couple took over a program that was coming off a 4-16-0 year with off-field issues. What’s more, they were working together on the same staff for the first time. Shelley had been an assistant for the Dartmouth women’s team before taking over and building up Rhode Island, while Jamie had coached men at Dartmouth, Vermont and Brown.
Going to South Carolina meant being together more — a lot more.
“We were just afraid that if we were both in coaching, how do you do it and stay together? We were always apart dating and we were always apart when we first got married because we weren’t at the same schools, weren’t seeing each other,” Shelley said. “So this was a step to where we never saw each other to seeing each other all the time. That was what we had to transition into.”
Add with their first of two sons born in 2003, and it’s little wonder that their memories from that time are a little fuzzy. One moment did stand out in Shelley’s recollection, however. In 2002, the Gamecocks defeated SEC power Florida for the first time in program history, 1-0 in overtime.
“That was just an amazing day, something that no one expected us to do. So that’s probably my first true memory of a win,” she said.
For the most part, though, those first few seasons were up and down — some winning, some losing, no NCAA tournament berths or finishes higher than third in the SEC East. But during that time, the Smiths were building up the program in their image. From the beginning, both Shelley and Jamie said, they had a vision of what they wanted, built on lessons they had learned throughout their careers.
Years later, defender Kaleigh Kurtz, now with the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage, still remembers the heart of those lessons.
“They were just extremely uplifting at the same time as motivational, at the same time (conveying) the result doesn’t truly matter,” Kurtz said. “What matters is that we give it our all. And so they’re very much based on performance and effort and just overall quality, other than getting the result.
“Obviously the result’s very nice ... but it’s also really nice to have a coach that doesn’t harp on just making sure that you’re a winning squad. I think that’s big because every single day in practice, you want to perform and you want to get better, and you’re not going to get better if everything you’re talking about is just like, ‘We need to win this next game,’ instead of developing each individual player to become better.”
And that holistic approach extended off the field as well. Former players rave about a “family atmosphere” around the program, centered around the Smith family itself.
“Our team still is very family oriented and very committed to each other” years later, former goalkeeper Mollie Patton said. “And I think it’s just because that’s just something that’s been instilled since day one. Like there’s no other choice — we are a family. And I think it probably helps that they’re husband and wife and having the boys around.”
Patton committed to the Gamecocks early on in the Smiths’ tenure because she felt that atmosphere on her very first visit, she said. Plus, she wanted to help build up a program that had just one NCAA tournament berth in its first 12 years.
In the spring of her freshman year in 2006, though, Patton suffered a serious concussion in practice. One of her first memories in the hospital was Shelley and Jamie coming to visit her. In the aftermath, Patton, a pharmacy student, had to decide whether her playing career was done.
“The best part about Jamie and Shelley is ... if I made the decision that I wanted to medically (retire), they were still gonna support me, and I was still going to be a part of the team,” Patton said.
Patton played again, breaking into the lineup as a junior and setting an SEC record as a senior with 15 solo shutouts. That 2009 season also marked the program’s first Sweet 16 berth. From 2007 on, the Gamecocks missed the NCAA tournament once in 13 years and advanced to at least the round of 16 five times, reaching the program’s first College Cup in 2017.
That on-field success can’t be separated from the program’s off-field culture, Shelley said.
“Team dynamics are important for success on the field for sure,” Shelley said. “And so, that’s always been our philosophy, is that the best you can bond as a team and show respect for each other and care for each other, that carries over to the field of play. And so we’ve always led that way and believed in it and worked at it, and .... maybe comes a little more naturally since we’re like parents of a team.”
And as that culture has built up over the years, it’s become easier to maintain. Goalkeeper Mikayla Krzeczowski, now playing professionally in Japan, remembers hearing stories from friends in high school or on club teams who endured rocky transitions to the college game. By contrast, the Smiths’ approach at South Carolina has yielded stability that transcends class years.
“Everybody just takes the newbies under their wings and the freshmen, even if they transfer in,” Krzeczowski said. “Everybody just takes you right in and they show you the ropes and from there, they treat you like an adult and they show you your way. And then you kind of make it your own, so that’s always really, really nice.”
‘We love her, and she loves us’
As each class has built on the next, the alums stay in touch and feel connected with what they helped build, they said. And when this year’s team lost its season opener to Georgia, Krzeczowski was sure it wouldn’t knock them off course.
“It takes a lot to really rattle that program, and Shelley’s the reason for that,” Krzeczowski said. “She’s very, very composed, very, very confident in what her and Jamie are doing and what they’re creating.”
Sure enough, the Gamecocks proceeded to rattle off five consecutive wins after that defeat, including Sunday’s rain-soaked victory over Florida to make Shelley Smith just the 27th coach in NCAA history to record 300 wins at the Division I level.
And even if she didn’t put much stock in the significance of the milestone in the moment, Smith’s players did.
“(Winning today) was obviously something we were trying to do for Shelley,” junior defender Sutton Jones said. “We love her, and she loves us. She’s done so well with this program and going into today, it was something we really wanted to do for her. It was just super special.”
One day, Smith said, she’ll reflect on it all and the accomplishment will sink in. For now, there are still two games left in the regular season, plus the SEC tournament where South Carolina is the defending champion.
And if pressed on what games do stand out in her memory even now, she won’t point to personal achievements, but to contests that pushed the entire program forward, like the Gamecocks’ upset of No. 1 North Carolina to open the 2007 season.
“That was just a huge change in the program ... we could kind of build on, and that was a difference. It’s the kind of a change you sometimes need when you’re building, and all of a sudden, you get that break, and it helped us continue forward,” Shelley said.
South Carolina earned Shelley Smith’s 301st career victory with a 2-0 win Friday against Mississippi State.
And for those closest to her, passing 300 wins is a moment to celebrate her and all that she’s built.
“To be able to raise two boys and do what she does and be selfless and, I mean, a lot of head coaches don’t allow their staff to do their jobs. And Shelley is a really good manager of people in that she allows people to do their jobs so they can be successful,” Jamie said. “So to be that person, and to do everything she does when no one sees her at home, like around the house and keep our boys in line and all that kind of stuff and drive carpool and I mean everything else .... you have a good appreciation for working women in general, but for her to get to that point is very cool to see.”
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 2:37 PM.
