This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Smith chapter.
Director of Athletics: Lynn Oberbillig
Hometown: Des Moines, Iowa
How long have you been working at Smith?
24 years at Smith.
Did you play sports growing up?I played sports all the time growing up in the neighborhood. There were no teams for girls when I was growing up in the 1960s. My first experience on a team with a coach was in 8th grade when my homeroom teacher’s husband agreed to coach a girls softball team. He was an auto mechanic and we joined a league in Des Moines. After that when I went to high school I played on several teams. High school started at 10th grade …I played on the first ever girls volleyball team for one year, on the first ever basketball and softball teams for two years, and on the golf team for 3 years. I also played softball and basketball in college at the University of Iowa.What is an average day for you?I come to work early, around 8:00 am so I can get a head start on emails and also the paperwork that needs completing for the day. I try to get myself organized before others start arriving around 9:00 am. I often teach a class during the day in our master’s graduate program for coaching. A typical day would have several walk-in short meetings with people all during the day, maybe 10-20 of these a day as well as longer scheduled meetings, maybe 1-2 each day with various people on campus. My days end with more emails, phone calls, and planning for the next few days as well as attending Smith athletic events.What’s your favorite part about working at Smith?The students. I really like interacting with students especially around sports and competition. It is the fun time of day for all of us. I enjoy teaching as well, which includes my time coaching with the softball team. I love to see that light bulb go off when students learn something new or perform something new.Do you face any challenges working at an all women’s college?I think the biggest challenge at a women’s college is figuring out how to create enthusiasm around sport. With men, this happens easier…they are more boisterous, willing to be crazy, and will watch sports differently than women. It is also much harder to recruit women athletes to a women’s college. When you realize that less than 2% of girls in HS will consider a women’s college and then they have to be smart and athletically talented, you realize how hard our coaches work to recruit to Smith.But it is often easier to just have women’s sports; women athletes do better academically and don’t get themselves into as much trouble elsewhere with disregard for rules and regulations.What’s your vision for the coming Year?We are working really hard to make sure athletics is integrated into the entire college…So that we know what is happening on campus and the campus knows what is happening in athletics. We have been granted much in athletics lately, and we want to make sure that the investment in us is paying off. We want athletes who are working hard, especially with our new strength and conditioning coach and that coaches are selling all that is Smith to prospects. And we want to celebrate all that is great about Smith Athletics & Recreation and that will start with our Hall of Fame inductions in two weeks.