By Rina Rossi
Cal alumna and distinguished athlete Kristen Smyth has been
beaming with success. Smyth first arrived at UC Berkeley from Hawaii in 1988 and graduated in 1993. Despite being a highly decorated gymnast, her talents are far from strictly centered around gymnastics. Smyth was full of energy as a youngster, and played soccer, T-ball, and swam on the swim team, ultimately sticking with gymnastics as she became serious about the sport at 12 years old. She also danced professionally after her college gymnastics career!
Inducted into the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008, Smyth led the Golden Bears to their first ever NCAA championship appearance in 1992 and was named Golden Bear Gymnast of the Decade. With the support and love from her family, and the commitment of her teammates and coaches, she is also a two-time NCAA participant, and in 1992 was an All-American finishing on the second team for the floor exercise and all-around, as well as on the first team for vault. While she excelled in all four apparatuses, her favorite event was the floor exercise.
At Cal, Smyth earned her degree in mass communications and loved the broad curriculum that the major offered. She calls Cal a “magical place” and describes the university as accounting for some of the “best years” of her life. “From looking out over the bay from Memorial Stadium, to studying in Doe Library, to tooling around Telegraph Avenue —Berkeley was, and is, a magical place. I was challenged in the classroom, I was toughened by earthquakes and fires at the time, and...Rick Starr crooning on the way to class —Berkeley gave me perspective,” she says. Choosing Cal because it was “the best of both worlds,” since she had the opportunity to study at one of the best universities in the world and be a part of its renowned gymnastics team, Smyth also applauds Cal for its celebration of diversity and inclusion, which becomes important for students who are beginning to explore new fields and shape their views.
In addition to diversity and inclusion, women’s empowerment is also very important to Smyth, and she is proud and honored to be a part of the 150 Years of Women’s Project. Being an NCAA gymnastics coach for over 21 years at both Stanford University and Arizona State University, her main goal was to help with the growth and development of future leaders. At Stanford, where she was the head women’s gymnastics coach for 16 years, she led her teams to qualify for 16 NCAA championships, win three Pac-10 team titles and advance to the NCAA Super Six seven times. For Kristen, coaching is about building relationships and leading athletes to be able to find their own unique gifts. Interestingly, she says that her “most successful teams weren’t necessarily the best on paper, but they had the strongest culture” and inspiringly notes that “there is nothing more empowering than the intersection of mind, body, spirit, and that is often where we find ourselves in sport. Peak performance requires tending to the physical, mental and emotional readiness — and to be ready for big moments on the competition floor you need a team of empowered women that have prepared with all of that in mind.”
Smyth’s most memorable experience at Cal was qualifying for the 1992 NCAA Gymnastics Championships, which was the Golden Bears’ first appearance at the competition. Notably, she met her husband, Scott Green, at UC Berkeley, as he was the captain of the Golden Bears’ men’s gymnastics team at the time. Kristen’s athletic footprint lives on, as her daughter is currently a sophomore attending UC Berkeley and is also on the women’s gymnastics team! Despite graduating in 1993, Kristen still considers her Golden Bear teammates her family and is still in contact with them 30 years later!
Currently, Kristen works in mentoring and life coaching and teaches yoga. She applies the tools and techniques that she used in coaching for over two decades, empowering the people she works with -- by prioritizing their health and wellness -- and focusing on nourishing their bodies, hearts and minds.
