Hall of Fame
A native of St. Charles, Missouri, Connie Price-Smith is a four-time Olympian and one of the most decorated women’s track and field athletes in Southern Illinois history.
A collegiate basketball player, she became the most dominant track thrower in the United States and represented the USA at four Olympic Games (Seoul in 1988, Barcelona in 1992, Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000).
Although Price-Smith did not medal at the Olympics, she had the highest finish by a U.S. woman shot putter since 1960, missing the bronze medal by just four inches at the 1996 Games.
She became the initial U.S. woman to be world-ranked five consecutive years in the shot put with world rankings in 1995 (sixth), 1996 (fifth), 1997 (sixth), 1998 (third) and 1999 (seventh).
In fact, she claimed first place in the shot put in five-straight U.S. Olympic Trials and became the first woman in 32 years to win both the shot put and the discus at an U.S. Olympic Trial in 1992.
Throughout her career, she had been on 34 international squads, four Pan American Games teams (1987 bronze in the discus, 1991 silver in the shot put, 1995 gold in the shot put and 1999 gold in the shot put), and six outdoor and seven indoor World Championship teams.
A 25-time national champion in the shot put and discus, she collected 18 outdoor national championship titles and six
indoor national championship crowns.
Before track and field, Price-Smith was best known as a powerful 6-foot-3 center on the SIU women’s basketball team. She set a school record and led the nation in field goal percentage (.650) in 1982-83.
Price-Smith threw the shot put for the first time as a senior in college at the urging of former SIU track and field standout John Smith -- whom she married in 1990 -- and won the 1985 State Farm MVC Indoor and Outdoor Championship titles in the shot put.
She retired from a 14-year plus professional career and currently serves head track and field coach at SIU.
From 1999 to 2001, she was a volunteer assistant track and field coach at The Ohio State University.
In 2002, her first year as head coach at SIU, she led the Saluki women’s squad to a fifth-place finish at the State Farm MVC Indoor and Outdoor Championships.
She led the 2010 women’s outdoor track program to an MVC championship and a ninth-place finish at Nationals, the highest in school history. All told, SIU athletes have won a combined 117 MVC track and field titles and earned 35 All-America honors under Price-Smith.
A four-time MVC Coach of the Year, she was inducted into the SIU Sports Hall of Fame in 1990 and received an SIU
Distinguished Alumni Award in 2001. Additionally, she was honored as the Administrative/Professional Woman of Distinction at SIU in 2007.
Price-Smith has also been involved in coaching at the international level for USA Track and Field, including serving as the women’s throws coach at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She will serve as the head coach of Team USA’s women’s squad at the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Daegu, South Korea (Aug. 27-Sept. 4), and the women’s throws coach at the 2012 London Olympics.