The former WNBA champion transitions from Wildcats coach to Phoenix Mercury assistant.
Tangela Smith, who spent eight seasons with the Northwestern women's basketball program, is heading back to the WNBA, where she built her legendary profile.
According to the Phoenix Mercury's announcement on X, the former Wildcats' associate head coach will join the Phoenix Mercury's coaching staff as a new assistant coach, where she won two WNBA Championships as a player in 2007 and 2009.
Her path to professional basketball was equally decorated. After earning Big Ten championships at Iowa in 1996 and 1998 and claiming Big Ten Player of the Year honors as a senior, Smith graduated from George Washington High School on Chicago's East Side before going on to dominate in the Big Ten and eventually the pros.
After being selected in the 1998 WNBA Draft by the Sacramento Monarchs, she carved out a 15-year professional career with stops in Charlotte, Phoenix, Indiana and San Antonio before retiring in 2012. Her time in Phoenix has marked her career prime, where she captured two WNBA titles in 2007 and 2009 with the team's all-time legend, Diana Taurasi.
Smith retired as one of the league's all-time leaders in points, rebounds, blocks and minutes played, becoming just the seventh player in WNBA history to eclipse 4,000 career points.
Following her retirement as a player, Smith transitioned to coaching, spending four years at Western Michigan with a 74–56 record before returning home to join Joe McKeown's staff at Northwestern in Evanston.
August 28, 2010; San Antonio, TX, USA; Phoenix Mercury players (from left) Temeka Johnson and Tangela Smith and Diana Taurasi and Kara Braxton and Penny Taylor wait for the start of the second quarter against the San Antonio Silver Stars during the first half at the AT&T Center. Phoenix beat San Antonio 92-73. Mandatory Credit: Brendan Maloney-Imagn ImagesDuring her eight seasons with the 'Cats, Smith immersed herself as one of college basketball's premier post-player developers. Her fingerprints were visible throughout Northwestern's best stretch of program history, including a program-record 26-4 season in 2019-20 — cut short by COVID-19 — a WNIT runner-up finish in 2019 and an NCAA Tournament second-round appearance in 2020-21.
"Tangela's incredible success at every level of basketball speaks for itself," McKeown said to NU Athletics. "Each day she brings the same passion for teaching the game that she had for dominating on the court. Her wisdom and leadership are critical to our program's continued ascent as a perennial title contender."
Among her most notable developmental successes was Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah, a post player Smith helped cultivate into a professional who went on to play in Italy.
With McKeown's retirement closing a struggling season, where the 'Cats finished 9-18 this past season and missed the Big Ten Tournament for the second consecutive year, Smith leaves Evanston and pivots back to the WNBA, while the newly-appointed head coach Carla Berube takes the tenure with her coaching staff from Princeton.