EAST STROUDSBURG – Maureen Smith has been named the head women's basketball coach at East Stroudsburg University, Director of Athletics Dr. Tom Gioglio has announced.

Smith brings 17 years of coaching experience, including nine as an assistant at the Division I level, to her second stint with the ESU women's basketball program. She was the graduate assistant coach during the 1994-95 season when the Warriors advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament and won the only PSAC championship in school history.

Smith takes over a program that was led by acting head coach Justin Potts during the 2009-10 season. Potts will return to his full-time position as assistant coach for the Warriors' men's basketball program, which won a school-record 24 games, the PSAC East regular season championship and was selected to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in school history last season.

“I am excited to be back in the area after 16 years and return to the program at ESU,” said Smith, who is a native of Blairstown, N.J. and played scholastically at North Warren High School. “ESU provides an outstanding opportunity in my coaching career and I'm looking forward to getting started and making an impact in the PSAC.”

“Coach Smith is a proven teacher of the game, knowledgeable and focused on how to return the ESU women's basketball program to a championship level. I am confident that she will be able to sell the entire athletic and academic experience to recruit high-quality student-athletes to ESU and then guide them to success on the court,” Gioglio said.

Smith was an assistant coach at University High School in Orlando, Florida last year after three seasons at the Division I Junior College level at Seminole State College in Sanford, Florida. Her University High School team won a school-record 26 games and conference and district championships.

At Seminole State, Smith was named the Mid-Florida Conference Coach of the Year in 2007-08 after guiding the program to a 27-4 record and the conference title. The team finished the season ranked second in Florida and 14th in the nation in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA).

She compiled a 56-33 record in three years at Seminole State, including a 21-15 record in conference play. Her teams were 17-13 in 2006-07, tying for third in the conference, and 12-16 in 2008-09.

While at Seminole State, she coached three NJCAA All-Americans, two Academic All-Americans, 18 all-conference and eight academic all-conference performers. Her student-athletes achieved a 100 percent matriculation rate and full scholarships from schools including Division I Alabama, Florida and Florida Atlantic and Division II Clayton State and Dowling College.

Prior to her first head coaching position, Smith was an assistant at four Division I programs over nine seasons.

She coached at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan for two years, which included a four-month stint as the interim head coach prior to the 2005-06 season. She was part of a program that set the school record with 22 wins in 2004-05 while competing in the Mid-Continent Conference.

Smith also held assistant coaching positions at Southern Illinois University, the University of Central Florida and Bradley University (Ill.) at the Division I level and Elmhurst College (Ill.) and Cedar Crest College in Division III.

She was at Southern Illinois in 2003-04 after a four-year tenure at Central Florida, which culminated with the 2002-03 Atlantic Sun championship as the Golden Knights went 19-11 and posted a conference record of 13-3.

She coached at Bradley in 1997-98 and 1998-99 and Elmhurst in 1995-96 and 1996-97 following her year as the graduate assistant at ESU, where she earned her Master of Education in Sport Management with a 4.0 GPA. She began her coaching career at Cedar Crest in 1993-94.

Smith was a two-year starter during her college career at Florida International University, which won the Trans America Athletic Conference regular season and tournament championships and played in the Women's National Invitational Tournament (WNIT) during her senior year in 1991-92. She matriculated at FIU after two years at Broward Community College, where she was a 1990 Florida Junior College All-Star and a two-year starter.

Smith, who is transitioning from Florida to the Poconos with her husband Chris and their dog, Luke, holds a bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing degree from Florida International in 1992. She also earned an associate of Arts in Business Administration degree from Broward in 1990, along with her graduate degree in Sport Management from ESU.

Her additional experience includes serving as assistant director at the Horsholm Invitational Camp in Horsholm, Denmark in 2009 and assistant coach positions in golf at Seminole State and softball at Elmhurst.


Maureen Smith – Coaching History

1993-94 - Cedar Crest, Assistant Coach
1994-95 - East Stroudsburg, Graduate Assistant
1995-96 - Elmhurst (Ill.), Assistant Coach
1996-97 - Elmhurst (Ill.), Assistant Coach
1997-98 - Bradley (Ill.), Assistant Coach
1998-99 - Bradley (Ill.), Assistant Coach
1999-00 - Central Florida, Assistant Coach
2000-01 - Central Florida, Assistant Coach
2001-02 - Central Florida, Assistant Coach
2002-03 - Central Florida, Assistant Coach
2003-04 - Southern Illinois, Assistant Coach
2004-05 - Oakland (Mich.), Assistant Coach
                (Interim Head Coach, June-October 2005)
2005-06 - Oakland (Mich.), Assistant Coach
2006-07 - Seminole State (Fla.), Head Coach
2007-08 - Seminole State (Fla.), Head Coach
2008-09 - Seminole State (Fla.), Head Coach
2009-10 - University HS (Orlando, Fla.), Assistant Coach