Smith College has become one of Division 3’s premier women’s basketball programs, making six NCAA Tournaments, back-to-back national title appearances (2023–25) and winning six NEWMAC championships since 2020.
But it hasn’t always been that way.
Back in 2007, Smith needed a new head coach to take over the program. The team was coming off a 4-21 season and hadn’t been over .500 since the 90s.
Across the bridge, Lynn Hersey was finishing up her sixth season within the coaching staff at Amherst College. At the time, she was the women’s basketball team’s co-head coach, with an opportunity to build her own program piquing her interest.
Hersey grew to love the community in Hampshire County over her time in Amherst, making the decision to apply for the job at Smith an easy one. After earning an interview, she knew she had to make the most of the opportunity.
To say that Hersey prepared for her interview would be an understatement. The head coaching candidate did countless hours of research and planning to be able to convey her vision for how the program could turn around.
“Interviewing, to me, is like preparing for a playoff game,” Hersey said. “… I think it’s exciting. It’s also competitive. It’s really showcasing your ability to show the bandwidth of what you can do if you’re hired.”
The vision Hersey had revolved around how to improve recruiting, which included embracing how “different” Smith College is.
At a small women’s college in Western Massachusetts, building a powerhouse wasn’t obvious. Hersey saw it differently — a campus where basketball is the marquee sport, with its own gym and a program built entirely around women athletes.
Hersey knew that even though the community’s support for Smith basketball wasn’t anything shocking when she started, with a winning program, the support would follow.
“It’s a great challenge to build a program to be a winning program, but it’s another challenge to build a program that can win and can be an element of the community that is impacting the youth in a positive way,” Hersey said.
After earning the job, now it was on Hersey to follow through with the plans she had mapped out in her interview. Right out of the gate, she brought in an impressive recruiting class, including eight new players on the roster.
Finding players willing to play at Smith wasn’t an easy task, with approximately two percent of female high school seniors even considering attending a women’s college. Hersey was aware of the challenges, facing them head-on.
“If you can recruit at Smith, you can recruit anywhere,” Hersey’s former assistant coach, Chessie Jackson, said.
Despite next to nothing in terms of a recruiting budget in the early days, Hersey was insistent on bringing in players who fit the mold of her program. Unfortunately, with such a small pool of candidates to choose from in the northeast, finding players in other parts of the country was a necessity to truly turn things around.
But Hersey was confident that if she got the right players in the building, the payoff would be worth any struggles along the way. Through the first chunk of years as the team’s head coach, Hersey took her assistant coaches on trips across the country, finding a number of players who ended up spending their college careers in Northampton, Massachusetts.
The program’s budget didn’t cover the recruiting trips that helped build a solid core of players, with Hersey paying out of pocket to make sure her staff was doing all they could to set the program up for success. Flights, hotels and food costs added up, but Hersey’s extreme confidence overshadowed any sense of “rational thinking.”
In cities across the country, the coaching staff spent nights on couches of friends and family members, not caring what it took to be there.
“In those early days, our motto was always, ‘Do a lot with a little,’” Jackson said. “We just had to do what we had to do to get it done.”
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On March 1, 2013, Smith played its first NCAA Tournament game, six years into Hersey’s rebuild.
The opponent, Southern Maine, was a perennial power — and a program Hersey grew up around.
Hill Gymnasium in Gorham, Maine, was sold out, with a full student section wearing all white. Before tip-off, the student section tossed powder into the air, emulating LeBron James, coating the court and delaying the game.
Hersey called her team over, not knowing what to say.
“Alright guys, let’s get back to the game plan,” Hersey said to her team. “These are things we’re doing—”
“Coach. We’ve got this,” Her players cut her off.
Despite Hersey’s nerves, her players were calm.
As the game officially got back underway, junior Rosa Drummond received a pass several feet behind the three-point line, right in front of the student section. Without hesitation, she rose up for a jumpshot, knocking it down with ease.
Hersey looked on in disbelief as Drummond stared down the sideline, silencing the once belligerent crowd. Immediately, the head coach knew the game was hers to lose.
Smith’s moxie carried on through the rest of the ballgame, with the final buzzer putting an end to a dominant 80-58 victory, the first NCAA Tournament win in program history.
Everything that Hersey had coached her team to do had come through in that moment, finally showing her that the hard work and preparation she had put in for years was paying off.
“It’s one thing to get there,” Hersey said. “… It’s another whole thing to build a culture of edge, and build this belief in— ‘We may be the underdog, but we’re going to make ourselves known.’ And that team, in that moment, honestly made me think, ‘It’s endless possibilities, because if we can do that, we can win [any game].”
One of the players who made the decision to move across the country to play basketball at Smith was Jessie Ruffner. The 5-foot-8 guard grew up in Rocklin, California, and was hesitant about the thought of going to Smith at first.
Ruffner first connected with Smith through AAU recruiting, but it was a camp in the Bay Area that sold her. To her surprise, the head coach and assistant coach she’d been in communication with over texts, emails and letters were there at the check-in table to greet every recruit.
When Ruffner came up to the table, Hersey’s face immediately lit up. The junior couldn’t believe the effort that the coach had put into recruiting her, with their first meeting being the cherry on top.
“How rare is that for the head coach and the assistant coach to be at the table checking in the players?” Ruffner said. “… It just felt great. They’d been reaching out to me for a year, and to see the excitement on her face to finally get to meet me; I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment.”
That moment helped solidify Ruffner’s decision to join the team, immediately hitting the ground running once she got to campus. After four impactful seasons at Smith, Ruffner graduated after the 2023-24 season with an outstanding resume.
Ruffner was named a WBCA First Team All-American, a D3hoops.com All-American and the Region 2 Player of the Year in her senior year. She was also named the NEWMAC Player of the Year, leading Smith to its fourth conference championship in as many years.
With players like Ruffner in the building, the culture began to shift in Northampton. Smith began winning games on a regular basis, consistently ending the season as one of the top teams in the NEWMAC conference.
Hersey has always had a near-unhealthy amount of confidence in herself, as well as her teams. Through countless hours with her players, her edge had worn off on the group, pulling through in the biggest of moments.
“She is somebody who, if she feels like you’re underestimating her, she’s going to prove you wrong,” Jackson said. “… I think that’s part of what makes her such a good coach. She just has a really great way of modeling what she wants from the athletes.”
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Smith’s next wave of success began during the 2018-19 season, but in the 2021-22 season, Hersey guided them to yet another level. During that year, Smith earned a trip to its fourth NCAA Tournament, taking on Wisconsin-Whitewater on the road at its home gym in the Sweet 16.
Both teams battled throughout the contest, finishing the fourth quarter with the score tied 65-65. With just five seconds left in overtime, the game again was all knotted up at 76-76, with Smith in possession of the ball coming out of a timeout.
Hersey prepped her team for the play she wanted them to run, working without two of her main contributors who fouled out. With less experienced players in the game, Smith’s in-bounds play did not go according to plan.
The Warhawks stole the pass then nailed a shot as the buzzer sounded to take the lead and move on to the Elite Eight. After the nail-biter of a win, the Warhawks went on to lose in the National Championship.
“There are these moments that push you one way or another,” Hersey said. “You either run from it or run toward it. That was really one of the most difficult losses we have had here. It really matured me real quick.”
This year’s squad continued along the same trajectory as usual, finishing the year 28-2, winning a sixth NEWMAC Championship in a row. In the NCAA Tournament, Smith traveled to Bates College, easily handling its first round matchup before a tough, 74-70 overtime loss to the host Bobcats in the second round.
Despite the loss, the program continued to be a powerhouse on the court, with fan support still at an all-time high.
With the community behind her, Hersey has done her best to give back as much as possible.
Where many coaches would give themselves a pat on the back for what they’ve done to turn a program around, Hersey stays as motivated as ever, still dumping endless hours into watching film, recruiting and preparing her team for success.
Winning transformed the atmosphere surrounding the program. Ainsworth Gym now fills regularly, turning games into the place to be on Saturday nights.
“Smith basketball games are like a community event now,” Smith College’s athletic director Kristin Hughes said. “… It has really brought a lot of folks together, and it gives everybody this place to come together and all cheer for the same thing… There’s a range of things that winning does, and they’re all just incredibly impactful beyond the two hours of the game.”
Raising young daughters of her own, Hersey knows how important having strong female role models can be. This inspired the head coach to create “The Playmakers Club,” a free club for girls, from kindergarten through eighth grade, that offers leadership development and self-confidence building workshops, basketball skills clinics, the opportunity to scrimmage at halftime during Smith home games and other fun and impactful activities.
The players Hersey recruits to Smith share her mindset on wanting to give back, with the team coming together to bring over 200 young “playmakers” into the program alongside them in its first two years of existence.
“It’s about giving back to a generation below you that right now needs your voice, needs your positivity, needs your leadership ability,” Hersey said. “Especially with social media, especially with all the negative things coming at young girls right now, they need an outlet from that.”
Hersey has always seen Smith as more than just a potentially great basketball school, knowing that the university’s history as a women’s college holds immense value.
When her players graduate after four years at Smith College, Hersey wants to know she left them in a better spot as women ready to take on the world, above anything in terms of wins and losses.
“DNA sessions” are another creation of Hersey’s, an idea where she can educate her players on things outside of the X’s and O’s of the basketball court, to become more well-rounded human beings.
Hersey teaches her players everything from financial independence and negotiating contracts to cultural standards and expectations. Even during COVID, Hersey continued her DNA sessions through Zoom, helping players like Ruffner stay involved with the team despite not being on campus.
“I believe over time it changes how our players, how they are able to view their worth, their ownership of what they’re good at,” Hersey said. “It does play a huge role in their mindset, of how they’re filling themselves up. And whenever you have a bunch of players who feel really, really fulfilled in a lot of parts of who they are, they’re going to bring the best part to the court for you.”
Winning basketball games has and will always be a major priority for Hersey for as long as she coaches, but her ability to never be complacent has allowed the Smith College basketball program to become so much more over time.
She constantly stays motivated, evolving the program over the years to something completely unrecognizable from what it was when she first entered the building.
Luckily for Smith, Hersey doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
“There isn’t a better job than the job I have right now,” Hersey said.
