BERKELEY – Entering her second season as head coach and 14th overall with the program, Cal women's basketball coach Charmin Smith has been named one of 100 Influential People in Women's College Basketball by Silver Waves Media.
 
Highly-regarded throughout the coaching ranks at both the collegiate and professional levels, Smith has played a key role in building Cal into one of the premier programs on the West Coast, first as an assistant then associate head coach for 12 years and as head coach in 2019-20. During her tenure, Cal has had 10 20-win seasons and has made nine trips to the NCAA Tournament, including the program's first Final Four appearance in 2013. Furthermore, she has helped sign 13 of the 15 all-time McDonald's All-Americans who have joined the program. The Golden Bears have also put together five top-20 recruiting classes under Smith, including three in the top 10 (2009, 2011 and 2020). Her most recent 2020 class is ranked No. 7 by ESPN and is the school's highest ranked class since 2009.
 
Smith experienced a number of successes in her first year as head coach during the 2019-20 season, leading the Bears to three wins over higher-ranked opponents. The first came in the form of a four-point victory over No. 20 Arkansas on Nov. 24, followed by a win at No. 13 Arizona in the regular-season finale. The Bears completed their second upset in the same week, as just four days later, they defeated fifth-seeded and No. 22-ranked Arizona State in the opening round of the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas. The win over the Sun Devils made Cal just the second 12 seed to win a game in the history of the tournament. Smith's efforts also saw three players named to the Pac-12 Winter Academic Honor Roll and another three receive All-Pac-12 honors. Most recently, she was named West Region Director on the WBCA Board of Directors after spending the previous three years serving on the board as the Assistant Coach Director.
 
Smith is one of three coaches to make the list from the Pac-12, which also includes Kelly Graves from Oregon and Tara VanDerveer from Stanford.