Claire Smith, KLN ‘79, assistant professor of practice and founding executive director of the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media at Klein College of Media and Communication is a pioneer in the sports media industry. She was the first woman to cover Major League Baseball full time, the second woman to be honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame and the first Black woman to win the Red Smith Award. On April 12, 2025, Smith will be among the first three individuals to be inducted into the Black Sportswriters Hall of Fame.
"Smith has been a pioneer in so many ways that it's only fitting she would be in the inaugural class of inductees to be honored by the Black Sportswriters Hall of Fame," said David W. Brown, assistant dean for community and communication at Klein College. "She has opened doors for so many, and as an African American myself, I know how important it is to be recognized by your own community. This is such a fitting honor for Claire, who has never let the color of her skin define her or hold her back."
The Black Sportswriters Hall of Fame was founded by sports journalist Rob Parker to recognize and honor Black sports writers and editors for their significant contributions to journalism. It is housed at North Carolina A&T, a historically Black university.
The Black Sportswriters Hall of Fame is based on the Original Six. Consisting of Bryan Burwell, Thom Greer, Sam Lacy, Wendell Smith, Larry Whiteside and Ralph Wiley, these are trailblazers in the sports journalism world who set the stage for pioneers like Smith to break barriers.
“If it weren’t for their work, baseball might have been, still to this day, segregated into two leagues,” said Smith. “I like to think that they had their heavenly hands on my back, just making sure that I traveled in the right direction and remembered that one of my jobs was to represent the African American community. That not only refers to the African American communities, but women trying to break those glass ceilings, and LGBTQ+ [individuals]. Just to fight prejudices, subliminal or otherwise, and give people voices who might not have had voices, and that’s what these original, iconic inductees did. I know it rubbed off on me, and I hope that this career made them proud that I chose to follow them.”
This is not the first time Smith has been connected to Lacy and Wendell Smith. All three are winners of the of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America Career Excellence Award, and recipients of the Red Smith Award from the Associated Press Sports Editors.
“To keep crossing paths with them on this journey is just flabbergasting. It’s just such an honor,” Smith said.
Not only is Smith part of the inaugural class of Black Sportswriters Hall of Fame, but she is also the first, and so far, only woman to be inducted. She is no stranger to firsts and knows that much more work needs to be done to make sports journalism an accessible and inclusive space.
“I just pray that the next generation produces so many more [trailblazers] that I’ll just be an asterisk,” Smith said.
Smith is a legend in the sports media world, and someone that Klein College is proud to call its own.