a top teacher

Southern Living, Oct 2004 by Vanhooser, Cassandra M

Accomplished coach Barbara Smith has taught more than 10,000 people to play golf. Now that's one heck of a legacy.

Barbara Smith's house on Fayette Street in Farmville, Virginia, brims with the mementos of a life well lived. Bags of golf clubs sit in the dining room, in the halls, in her office. Golf balls, pins, and banners can be found amid the books and stacks of mail. In fact, she owns so much golf paraphernalia that she was forced to buy a shed to hold the overflow.

Yet when you enter the house, the first thing Barbara gravitates to are the photographs. There's her mother peering from an old black-and-white photo, a darkhaired sister who died too young, the smiling faces of nieces and nephews who bring her so much joy. And there are snapshots of lots of babies, most belonging to the players she coached at Longwood College.

Before she even settles down to discuss golf, the South Carolina native reveals the secret to her phenomenal success: She genuinely cares about people.

Success Breeds Success

In her career at Longwood College (now University), Barbara led her team to three national championships. She's earned Coach of the Year honors from both the NCAA and the LPGA and was inducted into the National Golf Coaches Association Coaches' Hall of Fame. Four former Lady Lancers currently play on professional tours.

Though she started her job at Longwood in 1962 (she was originally hired to teach swimming), Barbara didn't launch a golf team until 1967. Her girls went undefeated for seven and a half years. "When I first started the team, I just prayed that they would break 100," Barbara recalls. "A year or two down the road, I was praying that they would break 90. Three or four years after that, I would get angry with them if they didn't break 80."

She laughs and adds, "Well, not really angry, but you know what I mean."

Setting the Standard

Even now, Barbara has the strong hands and confident step of a lifelong athlete. Yet she is so nice, so Southern, it's hard to imagine the fierce competitor that lies beneath her sunny disposition.

"A great coach sets the ground rules from the very beginning," Barbara explains, "and never wavers. I always told the team what I expected of them and what they could expect from me."

As the years passed, the collegiate game underwent a great transformation. Where they had once played golf the whole year, the NCAA set limits on the number of rounds. In the early years, the team only played other Virginia schools, and then they began to travel.

Though there are many highlights, Barbara says there's nothing like a winning a national championship. "It's the thrill of a lifetime," she says.

hot-Shot Athlete

A music lover who attends the symphony in Richmond, Barbara says she now regrets that she didn't spend more time playing the piano like her mother wanted, but she just couldn't keep her mind off her horse. "I was very athletic," she says.

By the time she left for college, Barbara was the top female basketball player in the state. A physical education major, the naturally gifted athlete breezed through the other sports-until she was required to take golf. "All the other sports were easy for me," she says. "Golf wasn't as easy as it looked. I've been trying to conquer it ever since."

When she graduated from Limestone College in 1955 (where she currently serves on the Board of Trustees), Barbara took the set of clubs she got for graduation and set out to teach in Savannah. She went on to get her master's degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her doctorate at UNC-Greensboro. She had migrated north to Wheaton College in Massachusetts when she got the call from Longwood.

The Golden Years

Barbara retired in 1992 and is teaching more than ever. She also serves as an instructor at North Carolina's Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club, which is owned by Peggy Kirk Bell.

Most recently, the LPGA honored Barbara with the Ellen Griffin Rolex Teaching Award. She was deeply touched. Ellen Griffin had directed her doctoral thesis at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Because her life is so full, Barbara says she rarely stops to think about what it would have been like if she had taken a different path. "There was a time I thought, 'If I had the opportunities these girls have today, could 1 have made the Tour?'" she admits. "But that I'll never know, and I don't dwell on it. I don't feel like I've worked a day in my life because I've enjoyed every minute of it."

CASSANDRA M. VANHOOSER