The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Smith-Knight to be inducted into Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame
10.10.2006 | Women's Basketball
DALLAS -- Another Longhorns women's basketball great will be recognized for her achievements in November when Annette Smith-Knight, former All-America star who is the basketball program's all-time scoring leader, is inducted into Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, Nov. 11.
Ceremonies for the 11th annual Hall of Fame banquet will be held at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, beginning at 7 p.m. (Central), with all proceeds benefiting the education programs and exhibitions of the African American Museum (located in Dallas) which houses the Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame.
Smith-Knight, who played under her maiden name (Smith) as a star-studded All-American for Jody Conradt's powerhouse basketball squad from 1981-86, will be among the four former athletes, six coaches and one team inducted into the Hall.
The Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame was established in 1996 to honor coaches and athletes of high character and athletic achievement, who are either Texans by birth or by athletic participation (collegiate or professional) and who have made a recognizable contribution to African American culture and/or history.
"Here I am, working at UT now, raising my family and getting ready to turn 44, and one day in September I get a phone call telling me about my induction into the Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame," noted Smith-Knight, who grew up in Bay City, Texas and was inducted into the UT Women's Athletics Hall of Honor in 2002. "It was both shocking and moving to get this call, since my playing days have been long over and I've been focusing on my family and career for quite some time."
"I am very appreciative of this award," said Smith-Knight, who continues a long association with UT Athletics, now serving as the community services coordinator for the department. "When I went online and looked at the previous inductees, the first thing I said was 'Wow!' It made me feel very honored to be a part of this incredible group of people.
"I look forward to the induction and viewing the museum and seeing the collections," she concluded. "This really is a big honor. I continue to be blessed."
A sample of those remarkable athletes and coaches who Smith-Knight will be joining in the Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame include UT football's own running back Earl Campbell, the 1977 Heisman Trophy winner who went on to acclaim in the NFL; her former Texas teammate, six-time National Player of the Year and Olympian Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil; football greats Tony Dorsett and Rayfield Wright; baseball legend Ernie Banks; basketball stars Elvin Hayes, Rolando Blackmon and Spud Webb; women's tennis great Zina Garrison Jackson; 1992 USA Olympic women's track and field coach and former Prairie View A&M coach Barbara Jacket; and 1976 Olympic sprint gold medalist Fred Newhouse.
Campbell (inducted in 2001) and current UT women's basketball assistant coach Davis-Wrightsil (2003 inductee) are two of the three Black Sports Hall of Fame members with ties to Texas Athletics. Former UT football assistant coach Prenis Williams, who was on Darrell Royal's staff from 1974-76 and starred in the state in his own right, was inducted in 2002.
The Class of 2006 is impressive as well. Smith-Knight will be inducted into the Hall with Ed "Too Tall" Jones, a Pro Bowl defensive end standout for the Dallas Cowboys in the last 1970s through 1989; Ira Terrell, former SMU basketball standout who played in the NBA from 1977-79; and six members from the 1966 Texas Western College (now known as Texas-El Paso, or UTEP) men's basketball team which won the 1966 NCAA championship with an all-black starting lineup over the all-white Kentucky Wildcats, thus breaking an unspoken sports barrier: Orsten Artis, Harry Flournoy, Nevel Shed, Willie Cager, David Lattin, and Bobby Joe Hill (posthumously).
Other inductees include Jackie B. Carr, basketball coach at Houston's Wheatley H.S.; Eugene Young, track coach (Kimball & Spruce H.S., Dallas); James "Bo" Humphery, Houston's Jones HS football coach; Curtis Calvin Cooksey (posthumously), former football coach at Longview's Weldon H.S.; Blenden "Bo" Johnson, UT-Arlington track and field; and Elwood Plummer, former Prairie View A&M University men's basketball coach.
"Annette was truly the first impact player in our program," Conradt stated. "When she came in as a freshman we became a team which could compete with any other. Her work ethic, competitiveness and talent were apparent immediately. When Annette got hurt and was a medical redshirt in 1984-85, her presence and drive and leadership that year, and in 1986 when she came back, were immeasurable for us."
Smith-Knight was a first-team All-American and the two-time Southwest Conference Player of the Year as a sophomore and junior who also won a gold medal for USA Basketball at the 1983 World University Games. She led Conradt's squad to the 1982 AIAW Championship runner-up spot and to two NCAA Elite Eight showings (in 1983 and 1984) as well. This all culminated in 1986 when Texas earned the NCAA national title with a splendid 34-0 run to the national crown. That year, as a fifth-year senior, Smith bounced back from reconstructive knee surgery and was the foundation of the team.
Smith-Knight continues to be the all-time leading Texas men's or women's basketball scorer with 2,523 points. In the record books, she also stands second in career scoring average (19.3 ppg), second in free throws made (419), fifth in rebounding (966), and holds the UT record for consecutive games in double-figure scoring with a remarkable 33 straight.
Following her stellar career, Smith-Knight moved into the coaching ranks and spent time as an assistant coach for Conradt's program in the 1990s. After the birth of her second child, daughter Alisa, Smith-Knight turned her attention away from coaching and into an athletic support staff position.
Smith-Knight's family includes her husband, Curtis Knight, a former basketball standout at UCLA who currently teaches math and coaches basketball at nearby Round Rock High School, and her "two angels," as she proudly states, son Curtis Knight III (known simply as Trey), now 9, and daughter Alisa, who turns four on Oct. 18.
Her current role as community services coordinator for UT Athletics is quite a rewarding position for Smith-Knight.
"In this position, I am responsible for handling all the community service work and request appearances for our men's and women's athletes," said Smith-Knight. "I work with our compliance staff and handle all the requests that come in for our student-athletes to make appearances in high schools and middle schools, to speak at banquets and to do volunteerism."
"I also coordinate community service projects for class credit and for teams who wish to do group projects on their own time," Smith-Knight added. "I am proud to say that last year, our athletic department completed over 13,000 hours of community service."
"Since her playing days, Annette has been an important part of Texas Athletics as she has served our department in numerous roles. We value her work, time and effort and she is doing some really wonderful things right now with our community service program," Conradt said.
Throughout her playing days for Conradt's squad, Smith-Knight and her teammates were involved in community outreach, spending time with children at the Ronald McDonald House and with at-risk children in the Austin community.
Now, in her position, she not only directs the community service efforts of the Longhorns student-athletes, but continues her theme of "giving back" as well.
"It's been eye-opening for me personally as I go out into the community with our athletes," Smith-Knight continued. "We are working with the elderly at Seton Hospital, and having our athletes volunteer at the Gardner-Betts Juvenile Detention Center in Austin, and this has affected me as well. It's made me feel a real urge to give back and help others in need. We don't stop to realize what is happening to other people and how very blessed we are. I think our student-athletes are realizing that as well."
And, speaking of being blessed, Smith-Knight will give you her warm, broad smile when she talks about her blessings -- her family.
The Smith family is a talented bunch. Smith-Knight's sister Audrey played at Texas from 1982-86 alongside her, while their brother, LaBradford, starred at the University of Louisville before being chosen in the NBA's 1991 first round draft by the Washington Bullets. LaBradford played in "The League" for three seasons for Washington and the Sacramento Kings before going to Europe to continue his pro career.
"People who followed me as a Texas player and coach will remember my parents, Dorothy and Jim Smith from Bay City. They now make special trips to Austin to watch Trey in football and basketball -- as do his uncles and aunts from the Bay City and Dallas areas," Smith-Knight noted proudly.
"We all support each other, and every one of my three sisters and two brothers lives in Texas, except LaBradford," she continued. "He was drafted before finishing up his degree at Louisville, and he made a commitment to my parents that he would go back and finish that degree -- and that is what he is doing today. I am really proud of him that he kept his word."
"And Audrey and I are really really close, and I am happy that she lives in Fort Worth," said Smith-Knight, speaking about her younger sister who also played in Europe after her UT playing days and who now is a loan officer for Affinity Financial. "She is like a second mom to Alisa and Trey and is always on phone with them."
Like Annette, Curtis Knight stays involved with young kids, helping mold them and give them guidance. When not coaching his own Round Rock High School basketball squad or watching his son play, Curtis is a fixture at all UT sporting events along with his wife.
"Curtis has spent 20 years teaching and coaching at the high school level," Smith-Knight noted. "He left an outstanding program in California to come to Texas with me a long time ago, and now he is at a school where he is squeezing every little ounce of effort and talent out of kids in a program which really has not had a lot of success. I tell him, "Curtis, THIS is your calling. You have the ability to work with young boys who aren't the most gifted athletically and who look to you as a father figure.' Those kids will run through the wall for him."
And two more youngsters who will run through walls -- literally and figuratively -- are Alisa and Trey Knight.
"Alisa plays tackle football in the house with Trey all the time, and he is teaching her how to be tough and take care of herself," laughed Annettte. "Trey is a phenomenal athlete, and although both Curtis and I played basketball and coach, we find ourselves just looking at each other sometimes when we watch him in amazement. He just loves to play and practices all the time on his own."
"The thing I am the proudest of with Trey is that he is very humble and a leader, which is hard for a nine-year old kid these days when all he sees the pro athletes be anything but that," Smith-Knight remarks. "He studies film of Vince Young and basketball tapes on his own.
"When he scores a touchdown, he finds an official and gives him the ball. He will turn down a shot and feed a teammate who had not scored, and you will see him jump up and down and scream when a teammate does something good."
"Of course," Smith-Knight says, in all seriousness, "in our house, we would have it no other way."
Indeed.
Trey Knight already is helping those around him get better, while being competitive, blessed, family-oriented and humble.
Like mother, like father, like son.
With athletic achievement and high character -- exactly what the Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame states are the keys for enshrinement.
And her former coach and colleague on the UT sidelines -- Jody Conradt -- states it the best.
"The Hall of Fame could not have chosen a better person to enshrine than Annette."
Congratulations to one of UT's finest -- Annette Smith-Knight -- who justly deserves to be inducted into this special Hall of Fame.
