Spartan All-American Laura (Kueny) Smith is among the 2024 inductees of the Michigan State Athletics Hall of Fame.
Smith joins Jessica (Beech) Bograkos (softball), Anson Carter (ice hockey), Darqueze Dennard (football), Beth (Rohl) Saylors (women’s track & field) and Paul Terek (men’s track & field), along with the 1965-1966 football teams, who become the first teams inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Celebration will take place on Friday, Sept. 13. There will also be a special recognition of the 2024 MSU Athletics Hall of Fame Class during the Michigan State-Prairie View A&M football game at Spartan Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 14.
The MSU Athletics Hall of Fame, located in the Clara Bell Smith Student-Athlete Academic Center, opened on Oct. 1, 1999, and displays plaques of the 180 previous inductees. The charter class of 30 former Spartan student-athletes, coaches and administrators was inducted in 1992.
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When she was a sophomore on Michigan State’s women’s golf team, Laura (Kueny) Smith opened the 2007-08 season by winning the Mary Fossum Invitational.
As she walked off the 18th green at Forest Akers West Golf Course, head coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll hugged her and offered some prophetic encouragement.
“I remember when I won my first tournament, the Fossum, and Coach came up to me and said, ‘You’re going to be a Hall of Famer here.'” Smith recalled. “I was like, ‘Yeah, okay,’ I’m just a sophomore.’ But you spend four years at Michigan State, you walk through those hallways (in the Smith Center), you see those plaques for the Hall of Fame and all of those names, but you don’t think about that.
“Then you graduate, time goes by and you kind of forget about it. But to know that my name will be in that group, there’s no words to describe it. To play at the collegiate level, it’s just an honor itself. And to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, it’s just hard to put into words.”
Her coach was right about her pupil as Smith will become the seventh member of the women’s golf program to become a member of the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame, joining names like Mary Fossum, Joan Garety, Sue Ertl and Emily Bastel.
“That’s pretty good company,” said Smith, who has lived…
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