| Bianca Smith | |
| Position: | Coach |
| Bats: | Right |
| Throws: | Right |
| Birth Date: | [1] [2] |
| Birth Place: | Sewickley, Pennsylvania |
Bianca Smith (born March 1991) is an American professional baseball coach. During the 2021 season, she became the first African American woman to serve as a professional baseball coach, working in the Boston Red Sox organization.
Smith was born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and moved to Grapevine, Texas, at age 6 or 7.[3] Her father, Victor Smith, played college football at Dartmouth College from 1985 to 1987; her mother, Dawn Patterson (d. 2013), was also a Dartmouth alumna and an attorney.[4] [5] Her mother was a New York Yankees fan who passed her love of the sport on to Smith.[6] Her step-brother, Reggie Cannon, is a professional soccer player.
Smith attended Colleyville Heritage High School in Dallas, where she played softball and was a co-captain in her senior year.[4] She graduated high school in 2008. She next enrolled at Dartmouth College, where she played on both the varsity softball team and the club baseball team.[4] [7] [8] She graduated from Dartmouth with a bachelor's degree in sociology in 2012.
With an eye on pursuing a career as a baseball general manager, Smith obtained a J.D. degree and a MBA in sports management from Case Western Reserve University in 2017.[9] At the same time, from 2013 to 2017, Smith worked as director of baseball operations for the Case Western Reserve Spartans.[10]
In 2018, Smith was a volunteer assistant coach for the University of Dallas college baseball team, as well as an intern in the baseball operations departments of the Texas Rangers.[11] She also interned at Major League Baseball corporate headquarters. In 2019, she was a baseball operations trainee with the Cincinnati Reds.[11] In August 2019, she was hired as assistant athletic director for compliance and administration, and assistant baseball coach and hitting coordinator, at Carroll University in Wisconsin.[11] [8] [12] [13] Her coaching relied heavily on statistical metrics and data analysis.[14]
On December 31, 2020, The Boston Globe reported that the Boston Red Sox would hire Smith as a minor league coach, to be based in Fort Myers, Florida, working with position players.[7] On January 4, 2021, the Red Sox made the hiring official.[10] Per the Red Sox' 2021 minor league assignments, she became part of the coaching staff assigned to the team's Fenway South complex, led by manager Tom Kotchman.[15] With that assignment, Smith became the first African American woman to serve as a coach in a professional baseball organization. She received sponsorships from Nike, Oakley, and Topps.
In 2022, Smith returned as a coach at the Fort Myers complex,[16] and later served as a coach for the Scottsdale Scorpions of the Arizona Fall League.[17] In 2023, Smith declined an offer to remain as a coach in the Red Sox organization, opting to look for a new opportunity.[18]