Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Price-Smith to be inducted into MVC Hall of Fame
08/17/2011 | 12:00:00 | Track and Field
Aug. 17, 2011
By Bill Ford
SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The Missouri Valley Conference announced Wednesday Southern Illinois head track and field coach Connie Price-Smith will be inducted into the MVC Hall of Fame.
Price-Smith will enter the Hall as an "Institutional Great" when the league conducts its annual induction ceremony March 2, 2012 in St. Louis. She joins a 2012 class that includes Missouri State's Charlie Spoonhour, Louisville's Denny Crum, Northern Iowa's Joey Woody, Creighton's Paul Silas and Evansville's Fred Schmalz.
"I am truly honored to be selected for such a wonderful award. To be selected among such an illustrious group of individuals is such a privilege," Price-Smith said. "I am very grateful to the selection committee and I would like to congratulate all the other inductees."
A four-time Olympian and one of the most decorated athletes Saluki track and field has produced, Price-Smith enters her 11th season as head coach at her alma mater. After spending her first three years as the head women's coach, Price-Smith took over the combined men's and women's program in 2004-05 and has since kept SIU track and field among the top programs in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Under Price-Smith, a 1990 SIU Hall of Fame inductee, the Saluki women's team has won four conference titles and finished a program-best ninth in the nation at the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. A four-time MVC Coach of the Year, Price-Smith has coached SIU athletes to a combined 38 All-America honors and three individual national titles. Also, SIU athletes have won a combined 130 MVC individual titles with Price-Smith at the helm.
Price-Smith's affiliation with SIU began as a student-athlete on the women's basketball team from 1980-84. A two-time All-Gateway Conference selection, Price-Smith scored 1,271 points and pulled down 744 rebounds during her basketball career. She still ranks in the top 10 in school history in career scoring, rebounding, rebound average, field goal percentage, free throws made and free throws attempted.
Price-Smith threw the shot put for the first time as a senior at the urging former SIU track and field standout John Smith, whom she married in 1990 and now coaches alongside. She quickly became dominant in the shot put and discus, winning MVC indoor and outdoor titles in the shot put in 1985. She ranks fifth in SIU history in the discus, eighth in the outdoor shot put and ninth in the indoor shot put.
She went on to compete on 34 international squads, reaching some of the highest levels ever achieved by an American woman. Her fifth-place finish in the shot put at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics is the best finish by a woman from Team USA since 1960.
In addition to being inducted into the SIU Hall of Fame in 1990, Price-Smith also received the SIU Distinguished Alumni Award in 2001 and was named the Administrative/Professional Woman of Distinction in 2007.
