A standout collegiate coach and decorated student-athlete at Kent State, Chenel Harris-Smith enters her seventh season as the head coach of Colby Women’s Basketball for the 2025-26 season. Harris-Smith comes to Colby from St. Francis College in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she was associate head coach.
In the 2024-25 season, Harris-Smith led the Mules to the conference championship game following a 7-3 conference record and 15-11 overall record (most wins in a season since 2015-16). Colby claimed victory over Middlebury in the quarterfinal round with a historic double overtime win 100-97 (first team to score 100 in a NESCAC tournament game) and taking care of Trinity in the semifinals 90-69.
To closeout the 2023-24 campaign, Kate Olenik was named NESCAC Rookie of the Year earning All-Conference second team status for the Mules first All-NESCAC selection since 2017-18.
Harris-Smith’s coaching career has included assistant roles at the University of Arkansas, Stony Brook University, and Binghamton University. As an assistant coach with Binghamton in 2017, Harris-Smith helped the women’s basketball team to a new record for season wins, 20, en route to the program’s first postseason tournament invitation and victory.
Harris-Smith has a strong record of recruiting student-athletes to highly competitive Division I programs, like the University of Arkansas and Binghamton University, and developing their skills to achieve high levels of athletic success.
She has recruited and/or coached more than a dozen all-conference players during her career, including Binghamton’s standout guard Imani Watkins, who was the America East Conference Player of the Year in 2017-2018 and became the school’s all-time leading scorer.
As a player, Harris-Smith earned all-conference accolades during her career as a forward at Kent State, where she was team captain during her senior year in 2010-2011. Harris-Smith was also captain of the Trinidad and Tobago national women’s basketball team in 2011.
A native of Mississauga, Ontario, Harris-Smith has a bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Kent State and a master’s degree in Athletic Leadership from Rider University of New Jersey.
She and her husband Sean Smith are parents to twin boys, Elijah and Emmanuel.
