‘It’s been quite a ride’: From Mead to the WNBA to coaching at Gonzaga, Stacy Clinesmith’s basketball journey culminates with induction into Hooptown Hall of Fame

Three months into the basketball offseason, Stacy Clinesmith is seemingly doing nothing but hoops.

An assistant coach for the Gonzaga women’s team, Clinesmith is preparing to host the biggest youth camp in program history.

Later this summer, she’ll spend a couple of weeks in Europe – on a GU basketball tour, of course – then prepare for her 10th season with the Zags.

In the meantime, she’s warming up for Hoopfest, where last year her team won the Women’s Elite Division.

Clinesmith also was a state champion at Mead High School and played in the WNBA. Small wonder then that on Wednesday she will be inducted into the Hooptown Hall of Fame.

Other members of the second class of honorees are Fred Crowell, who founded Northwest Basketball Camps; Shann Ferch, former college star and current author; Briann January, the Lewis and Clark High School star who enjoyed a long career in the WNBA and won a championship in 2012 with the Indiana Fever; and the Whitworth men’s team that reached the NAIA Division II national title game in 1996.

The ceremony will begin at 6 p.m. at the Hooptown USA Courts in Riverfront Park. Tickets are $15.

As much as any prominent player, Clinesmith is a product of Spokane’s love affair with basketball. It’s a kindness she’s repaid many times over – as a player, coach and mentor.

“I think that I’ve been very lucky to have great support from my parents, teammates and coaches,” Clinesmith said last week. “This award is literally for everyone.

“My parents have always been my biggest supporters,” Clinesmith said of Marvin and Nikki Clinesmith.

“No matter how good or bad we played, after every game they were the same,” said Clinesmith, whose parents and her sister Brenda attend Gonzaga home games.

Clinesmith got onto the court early, with Sunday clinics in the fourth grade and her first Hoopfest as an eighth-grader.

“I remember it so well, playing outside the Bon Marche,” she said. “What an incredible event for eighth-grade girls to play against each other, and I don’t think that was happening anyplace else.

“Spokane just loves its basketball.”

The city also loves a winner and got that from several area high schools. Mead rose to the top thanks to coach Jeanne Helfer, who won three state titles and had top-five finishes on five other occasions.

Clinesmith’s big moment came in 1996, when she led the Panthers to the state championship. A year later, she played Division I ball at UC Santa Barbara and eventually moved to the WNBA.

Clinesmith’s career came full circle in 2014, when Lisa Fortier was promoted to head coach at Gonzaga – a figurative loose ball that Clinesmith grabbed with both hands and returned home.

She’s been back for almost a decade, embracing every facet of the game.

This week, she’ll be back where it began.

“It’s been quite a ride,” Clinesmith said. “I’m 45 years old, but I think that the older you get, the smarter you get. I just have to use the screens better and get that first step.

“And the one thing that never leaves is your shot. I still have that.”