Shelley Smith is an award-winning journalist and author of three books. She is well known for working as a reporter for ESPN SportsCenter. Having active in this field, Smith has reported the NBA Finals, Super Bowls, the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs, the BCS college football national championship game and motorsports.

Smith announced via Twitter that she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Smith took a leave of absence six months ago to battle breast cancer. After extensive chemotherapy, she announced that she was “basically cancer free” and returned to ESPN in April 2015.

Shelley Smith Early Life & Education

Shelley Smith was born in 1958, Princeton, New Jersey, the United States. She is the daughter of Luanne Smith and Ron Smith. Her mother is an author, who has published a book named “Running Wild: Anthology of Stories.” She attended the University of Nebraska in 1976, majoring in journalism and political science from there in 1981.

Shelley Smith Career

Shelley Smith began her career working as a part-time network. In 1989, she joined Sports Illustrated, after covering the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea for the magazine. She accompanied the first one-on-one conversation with Ben Johnson (on a Seoul-to-New York flight) after he experimented positive for steroids and was displaced of the gold medal.

After working part-time as a journalist for the network, she joined ESPN in January 1997. At ESPN, Smith gained a Sports Emmy in 1997 for her section on Magic Johnson as a member of an ESPN production on AIDS and Athletes.

Previously, she served for Pacific Stars & Stripes in Tokyo, The Associated Press, and The San Francisco Examiner, where she obtained a William Randolph Hearst Award in 1986 for her series on ‘Title IX in the Bay Area.’

Smith has penned and recorded hundreds of articles and covers on topics reaching from the Olympics to the O.J. Simpson trial. She has covered Super Bowls, the BCS college football national championship game, the NBA Finals, golf and tennis championships and the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs.

Shelley Smith as  an Author

As an author, Smith co-authored a book with Keyshawn Johnson, “Just Give Me the Damn Ball!”, a controversial book which was distributed in 1996. On August 2007, she published her second book “Games Girls Play: Lessons to Guiding and Understanding Young Female Athletes,” penned with sports psychologist Caroline Silby.

Her third book “You Play To Win the Game: Leadership Lessons for Success On and Off the Field,” with the New York Jets coach Herm Edwards.

Shelley Smith Personal Life

On October 2014, Smith announced via Twitter that she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Smith took a leave of absence six months ago to battle breast cancer. After extensive chemotherapy, she announced that she was “basically cancer free” and returned to ESPN in April 2015.

After months of circulation treatment, Smith was back on the air and cancer-free. She fought a courageous battle that so many others have lost and was back working the job she loved.

But something was missing in Smith’s return: her long flowing red hair. It was gone, every single strand of it. The radiation treatments made the red mane, which had been Smith’s most recognizable feature, disappear.

Smith showed up for her appearance on “NFL Live” straight bald. No wig, no shortcut, or even a little stubble. Smith was as bald as Kojak and boy, did it look beautiful. Oh, sure, Smith isn’t the first celebrity to appear on television without her hair.

ABC’s Robin Roberts lost her hair to cancer treatments as well. But this was something different. Smith was not reporting on herself but someone else. She was just doing her job, and she didn’t care one bit of how she looked without her hair.

On 14th May 2017, she experienced a stroke in the Warriors’ locker room after Game 1 of the NBA Western Conference Finals. She consequently reported on her progress via her Twitter account.

She has a daughter named Dylann Tharp. It seems she already separated from husband/ boyfriend. Her marital status is still unknown to us and her relationship status is single.

Shelley Smith Net Worth

Shelley Smith is the co-founder of the Magic Johnson Foundation newsletter. Moreover, she works for various organizations for “The Boys and Girls Club” of San Pedro and also works for many charity organizations, containing the Serra Project, which presents homes for AIDS victims. Her expected net worth is reported to be around a million.

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