Price-Smith To Receive Distinguished Alumni Award
09/27/2001 | 12:00:00 | Track and Field
Sept. 27, 2001
CARBONDALE, Ill. - Southern Illinois University women's track and field head coach Connie Price-Smith will be honored as an SIU Distinguished Alumni during homecoming activities Friday and Saturday, Oct. 5 and 6.
Price-Smith, a four-time Olympian and former Salukis track and field and basketball standout, will be one of five prominent graduates to be recognized during homecoming weekend. The group will be honored publicly at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 5 at a reception in the Student Recreation Center's Alumni Lounge. Their framed photos will be featured on the University's Distinguished Alumni wall in the Student Recreation Center.
Price-Smith, who graduated from SIU in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in recreation, recently returned to SIU to take over the women's track and field program from her former coach Don DeNoon. The 1990 SIU Sports Hall of Fame inductee started her career as a powerful 6-foot-3 center for coach Cindy Scott's basketball team before taking up the shot put and discus during her senior season on the urging of graduate assistant coach John Smith, who she would later marry in 1990.
"Those alumni that receive the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award are selected because of their outstanding professional accomplishments and because of the superb way they continue to represent SIUC,'' said Alumni Association Executive Director Edward Buerger. "Not only is Connie a highly respected world-class athlete as exemplified by her numerous athletic accomplishments, she is equally respected because of her many attributes as a person. Connie has always taken great pride as a Saluki, which was most recently underscored by her decision to return to SIU as the women's track and field coach.''
Price-Smith quickly began dominating in both the shot put and discus her senior year despite her lack of experience. She currently ranks third all-time in the SIU record books in the shot put (49 feet, 11 1/2 inches outdoors, 48 feet, 9 1/2 inches indoors) and second in the discus (165 feet, 1 inch). Price-Smith earned Missouri Valley Conference Indoor and Outdoor Championship titles in the shot put in 1985. Price-Smith was also an all-MVC selection that season and led SIU in points with 192, earning team-MVP honors.
On the hardwood, Price-Smith averaged 11.9 points and 6.9 rebounds per game in her Saluki basketball career, scoring 1,271 points in 107 games played, placing her sixth on the SIU career list. She is also seventh career rebounds (744), second in career field goal percentage (.571), seventh in field goals (511), and fifth in free-throws made (249). She set a school record and led the nation in field goal percentage before being injured during her junior season. Her .650 shooting percentage in the 1982-83 season is the second best all-time in MVC history. She was an all-Gateway Conference selection in 1983 and honorable mention in 1984.
Price-Smith's list of achievements only grew after her college career ended. Price-Smith went on to compete in the 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000 Olympics and was a 25-time national champion in the shot put and discus before she retired this September. She accumulated 18 outdoor national titles, six indoor national championships and five Olympic Trial championships. She is the only U.S. thrower (man or woman) to have won four double national championships in the shot put an discus. She has won eight international competition medals, which exceeds any other female thrower in history, and is the only four-time Olympian in SIU history.
With world rankings in the shot put in 1995 (6th), 1996 (5th), 1997 (6th), 1998 (3rd) and 1999 (7th), she became the first woman to be world-ranked five consecutive years in the shot put in U.S. history. In 1992, Price-Smith became the first woman to win both the shot put and discus at an Olympic Trail in 32 years. She also became the only U.S. woman to win a medal in the shot put in a World Championship competition in 35 years (1995). Price-Smith had the highest finish by a U.S. woman since 1960 in the shot put, missing a bronze medal by just four inches in the 1996 games. Price-Smith, a native of St. Charles, Mo., has made 34 international teams and has personal bests of 64 feet, 3-3/4 inches in the shot put and 212 fee, eight inches in the discus.
The other 2001 SIU Distinguished Alumni are: Jim Bitterman, CNN senior news correspondent in Paris, Chris Bury, an ABC news correspondent and substitute anchor for Ted Koppel on the late-night news show "Nightline", Charles W. Groennert, retired vice president of organization development for Emerson Electric in St. Louis, and Donald McHenry, a distinguished professor in the practice of diplomacy at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and president of the IRC Group, an international consulting firm.
All five distinguished alumni plan to attend the ceremony.