Smiley Headed to Franklin Pierce in Fall

After a very successful basketball career at North Kingstown High School, senior Julia Smiley will attend Franklin Pierce University on a full scholarship in the fall.

“I got an academic scholarship, and then he [head coach Steve Hancock] added the rest of it so I ended up with a full ride,” Smiley said.  “Coming out with the bills that I would have had to pay forever, it’s totally worth it.”

Smiley has given a verbal commitment to the university, and will sign her letter of intent when it arrives sometime next week.

“It was a hard decision, but if you put it down on paper money was pretty much the determination that it was worth it,” Smiley said. “Putting all the comparisons down, me and my dad did that, what I would owe when I got out and with the way the job market is in Rhode Island right now, obviously I can’t pass that up.”

Tuition for the 2011-12 academic year including room and board at Franklin Pierce is approximately $40,000, and as Smiley noted, with the economy in the shape it is the offer was impossible to pass on.

“I was talking to a lot of my dad’s friends, older people that had that situation before and totally regretted not taking advantage of it, so I would have felt a little selfish if I passed that up,” Smiley said.

Most people may be questioning why this was a decision at all, who would not take a full ride to a $40,000 per year school?

Well, the short answer is Julia Smiley is not most people.

A free spirit who marches to the beat of her own drum, her passion is what separates her athletically and as an individual beyond her natural talent.

This past basketball season her competitive desire was certainly on display, as evident by the jubilation on her face after a big win or the agony following a tough loss.

Her zeal is what made this decision extremely difficult, for as much as she enjoys basketball, lacrosse is her favorite sport.

“It’s not like I hate basketball. I love them both, but I would have much rather played lacrosse,” Smiley said. 

This is where the recruiting trail started for Smiley, back in early October, and oddly enough at Franklin Pierce.

“It was one of the first schools I looked at, and I started looking at it for lacrosse,” Smiley said. “I went up and met with the team, and then saw a couple of other schools and decided it wasn’t my top choice anymore.”

Over the next few months Smiley visited a number of schools, eventually whittling her choices down to Virginia Wesleyan College and Sacred Heart University for lacrosse, or RIC for basketball.

Life has a funny way of testing you, however, and just like the SATs sometimes your first choice turns out to be the right choice.

“I kind of crossed it [Franklin Pierce] off the list, so then I was between three other schools,” Smiley said. “Then coach [Simeone] called me up and said that he had talked to the coach there, and that he wanted to meet me.”

So two weeks ago Smiley took a return trip to Rindge, NH, this time on a visit to check out the basketball program, and as fate would have it this would not be the last time she will see the school.

Between the scenery of the area, the recent success of the program and the players there, Franklin Pierce seemed like a viable landing place.

“It just didn’t really seem like the place I wanted to be at the time, but when I went up again and drove around it was such a pretty area,” Smiley said.  “All the girls up there are really passionate about the game, so it will maybe bring back my love for the game.”

It also did not hurt that over the past few seasons Franklin Pierce has been a major force in Division-II women’s basketball, making the Final Four in both 2009 and 2010 and earning the school’s first ever No. 1 national ranking in 2010.

After adding it all together, with the atmosphere, success of the program and amount of money awarded in scholarships, the other situations paled in comparison.

There was just one hang-up: Smiley would be unable to play lacrosse, the one sport that she had originally intended to play at Franklin Pierce.

“I would love to do both, but the coach [Hancock] said that they run so close together and overlap so much that I wouldn’t be able to do it,” Smiley said.

Not to mention that college coaches invest too much money in scholarships to risk their recruit get hurt playing another sport.

Unfortunately that is life, where sometimes you must make sacrifices for the greater good and recognize a positive situation when it comes along.

In a perfect world Smiley would be able to play both sports, but this world is far from perfect.

You are never going to get exactly what you want, that is just how it works, but sometimes the second option can be pretty damn good.

This is a lesson that Julia Smiley knows all too well, and is grateful to have known it.