Flashback: Rhonda Smith Franklin, Class of 1992
Sport: Basketball
High-school rewind: The 6-foot-3 center starred for Franklin High from 1987 to '91, leading the Quakers into the state semifinals in '88 and '89.
After high school: Made All-Pac-10 first team three times at Washington, and was a Basketball America All-American in 1995. Overtaken this season by Giuliana Mendiola for second in Washington career scoring. Smith finished with 1,801 points and holds school records for points in a season (583 in '95), free throws made in a season and free throws made in a career. After playing professionally in China in 1995 and for the defunct ABL's Seattle Reign and Portland Power from '96 to '98, Smith was the first Husky drafted into the WNBA, when the Sacramento Monarchs made her their third-round selection in 2000. She retired after playing in Greece in 2001.
Personal: Married Mario Banchero, whom she met her senior year at UW. The couple, which lives in Seattle, has been married 4-1/2 years and is expecting a second child in late August. Smith and Banchero grew up only three blocks from one another and attended the same schools but never crossed paths until college. "I must have looked right over him because he was a late bloomer," Smith-Banchero said of her 6-4 husband.
Fast forward: Smith-Banchero works full-time as a software-licensing consultant at Microsoft and just completed her first season as assistant girls basketball coach at Holy Names.
"I love those girls like they are my children," said Smith-Banchero, who also is a TV color commentator for UW women's basketball.
Her 15-month-old son, Paolo, is already 3 feet tall and loves basketball. Doctors say Paolo could grow to 6-8 to 6-10. Having a family, Smith-Banchero said, opened her eyes. "After you've had a baby, you don't know what you were doing before that," she said.
— Gregg Glass