NEW ORLEANS – Kenzie Smith could hear her dad’s voice in her head.
 
When Kenzie was injured in Southern Miss’ National Invitational Volleyball Championship quarterfinal match at Western Carolina this past December, she immediately thought back to those times when she was playing youth basketball and her father, Michael, was teaching her to be tough.
 
“My dad’s motto is, if I am ever hurt or fall or do anything that doesn’t involve breaking my legs, then get up, I can walk,” Kenzie said. “I had a collision in our game at Western Carolina where I took a knee to my shoulder and it hurt really bad. I took a second and was like, ooh, I know my dad is yelling at me through the TV. He pushes me to be the best.”
 
Kenzie grew up in a highly competitive environment. Her father is a career collegiate football coach who currently serves as the wide receivers coach at South Alabama. Her sister, Kylie, played softball at Arkansas. Every member of her family plays or has played competitive sports at a high level.
 
“One time, playing basketball, Kenzie came down bad and smacked her head on the court,” Michael said. “I screamed ‘get up’ and she jumped up. I instilled in her not to lay down on the floor. People looked at me in the stands. I wanted her to be the toughest sucker on the court.”
 
Kenzie’s toughness has been a major asset to her Southern Miss team, which is coming off one of its most successful seasons in program history with 21 wins in 2022. Her coach, Jenny Hazelwood, respects Kenzie’s grit. She knew her star setter wouldn’t let shoulder pain get in the way of finishing a critical match.
 
“I knew it wouldn’t be an option for her to come out,” Hazelwood said. “Obviously, we put their safety first, so once our trainer assessed the situation and figured out it wasn’t something that could really hurt her long term if she kept playing, we knew. She didn’t practice until the next time we played and the team was worried about it. I told them ‘I know Kenzie and she’s going to play.’”
 
“I think that’s why a lot of coaches recruit coaches’ kids. With Kenzie, we always get her best. She doesn’t play perfect volleyball all the time. But whatever she has, we always get 100 percent.”
 
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Kenzie Smith grew up in Manhattan, Kan., where her parents first met. Michael was a two-time All-American wide receiver for the Wildcats. Her mother, Molly, came to Kansas State after playing basketball at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College. They first became acquainted after playing rec league basketball.
 
The couple had two daughters – Kylie was born in 1995 and Kenzie in 2000. Michael was an assistant football coach at his alma mater. It was a busy and competitive household for the young family.
 
“It was hectic,” Michael said. “To have my first two kids be girls and me being a football player, you always think you’re going to have someone just like you and playing the same sport you did. I got into the coaching thing and both girls just grew up around football. They played basketball, they played t-ball and they both were really good softball players.”
 
Kenzie embraced the environment in which she grew up. That experience taught her important lessons that have served her well to this day.
 
“I always had a role model whether it was my mom, my dad or my sister,” she said. “You need that type of figure in front of you. You realize what success looks like, what hard work looks like and what leadership looks like.”
 
In many ways, it was inevitable that Kenzie and Kylie would become collegiate athletes.
 
“They had an interest in it,” Michael said. “As young girls, they were always with me around the football complex. Molly was a tremendous athlete in her own right. They both have competed very, very hard. They’re very determined. They’re just tremendous athletes and tremendous young women.”
 
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Michael, a native of New Orleans, left Manhattan in 2005 for the first time since setting foot on campus as an undergraduate. He spent time as an assistant coach at Rice and Arizona before returning to Kansas State in 2009. Michael and Molly divorced. Kenzie and Kylie continued their standout careers as athletes in their hometown.
 
“Molly did an excellent, excellent job of bringing the girls up and getting them involved in sports,” Michael said. “I followed from afar. I give a lot of credit to Molly, giving her that support system and helping her evolve.”
 
Michael remarried to Karyn, who had been a high school swimmer and competed in the Junior Olympics. They have two children, Kason – who participates in junior high school football and track – and Kamryn – a youth soccer player for Mobile United.
 
While growing up in Manhattan provided a supportive and stable environment for Kenzie, at times she struggled to establish her own identity.
 
“My mom did a great job; me and my sister talk about it all of the time,” Kenzie said. “Our two younger siblings were the type of coach’s kids who lived in five different places. My sister and I stayed in Manhattan.”
 
But growing up in the shadows of Kansas State meant she was always going to be known as Michael Smith’s daughter. At Manhattan High School, she would always be Kylie Smith’s sister.
 
Kylie was an all-state softball player, helping her high school squad to three appearances in the Class 6A regional finals. That earned her a ticket to Arkansas, competing within the Southeastern Conference.
 
“I wouldn’t be in the position that I have been without all the work my mom and dad did and the names they made for themselves,” Kenzie said. “But I wanted to have the freedom to establish myself. It was an opportunity to rebuild and make a name for myself.”
 
Having an older sister to show her the ropes of life as a Division I college student-athlete, however, helped prepare Kenzie for her own experiences. Kylie’s husband, Kody Cook, is now the assistant wide receivers coach at the University of Tennessee.
 
“She was my guinea pig,” Kenzie said. “I literally couldn’t have asked for a better situation with my sister. I was down in Arkansas all the time. She taught me the ropes of handling a big college. My sister had to work her tail off when she went to Arkansas. She struggled with injuries and the biggest thing was her work-ethic. She’s a lawyer now. She amazes me. She has the best work-ethic I’ve ever seen. I took that from her and brought it to college with me. In high school, I was good, but I was not as serious as I should have been.”
 
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Kenzie’s initial plan was to go to NCAA Division II institution Newman University in Wichita, Kan., and play volleyball. But that all changed when there was an opportunity to play volleyball at Kansas State. Kenzie made the last-minute decision to stay home.
 
“Their setter had transferred to Nebraska, so I ended up going to Kansas State,” Kenzie said. “I just wanted to get on the court, so I switched positions my second year to DS. I really shouldn’t have switched.”
 
Smith redshirted her initial season in Manhattan and then appeared in only four sets as a defensive specialist her second year. That, combined with several other factors, led her to transfer to Southern Miss as a scholarship player.
 
“I wanted to be able to have my college paid for and not put stress on my parents or myself,” Kenzie said. “It was also my preference to play in college out of my hometown. Nothing against the program; I love K-State and the coaching staff. Southern Miss also had a sports management program.”
 
She played two seasons for former head coach Stephanie Radecki. In 2021, Kenzie became the squad’s starting setter and recording 1,046 assists, which led Conference USA that year. She became the first Southern Miss setter to eclipse the 1,000-assist mark since 2018.
 
On December 20, 2021, Southern Miss hired Hazelwood as the program’s head coach. Hazelwood, Mississippi State’s all-time career assists leader as the starting setter during her playing days, joined the Golden Eagles after successful head coaching stints at Mississippi State, Austin Peay, Centenary College and Mississippi College. Hazelwood was the founder of the Infinity Volleyball Academy in Flowood, Miss.
 
Hazelwood’s hire would change the trajectory of Kenzie’s career and Southern Miss’ success.
 
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It didn’t take Kenzie Smith long to realize things were different.
 
In a great way.
 
It was less about the Xs and Os and more about the culture that Hazelwood and her coaching staff instilled in the program and its student-athletes.
 
“The new coaches came in last spring and just changed the environment,” Kenzie said. “You can only do so much as players. You need a culture, you need a foundation, and that’s exactly what they brought. We have great players, great athletes, but if you don’t have a foundation and a system with volleyball, you’re not going to go far.”
 
Hazelwood also realized very quickly that she had an incredibly special player in Kenzie Smith.
 
“She is like having another coach on the court,” Hazelwood said. “She definitely just wants to do what’s best for the team. When you’ve got your setter out there putting every bit of effort into everything she needs to do, it doesn’t leave room for anybody else to slack off. She sets the standard.”
 
Hazelwood’s starting lineup is comprised of two of the most competitive players she says she has ever coached. With Smith and outside hitter Mia Wesley, there is a constant, never-ending intensity that permeates every part of the program.
 
“For me, it’s a coach’s dream,” Hazelwood said. “They understand each other on a different level. When you have two of your strongest players with that mentality, that sets a huge tone for the program. As coaches, we have to allow them to be themselves and be that competitor.
 
“There are days in practice where they kind of get at it if they’re on separate sides of the net,” Hazelwood said. “We talk to them about how we’re fine with that as long as it’s a respectful competitiveness. Putting them together is something that’s really fun. It’s been a real joy for me to have both of them playing together.”
 
The results paid off in Hazelwood’s first year. Southern Miss advanced to the semifinals of the National Invitational Volleyball Championship and Hazelwood became the winningest first-year head coach in program history.
 
Kenzie totaled 1,343 assists last season for an average of 10.57 assists per frame, ranking her third in the Sun Belt Conference. That’s no small feat in a year in which the two players ranking above her in the league statistics are the top-two players in career assists in league history.
 
A consistent theme with Kenzie Smith is that her impact extends far and wide beyond the volleyball court, something Hazelwood has seen first-hand. Kenzie has been a mentor to her daughter, Allie, who will begin her collegiate volleyball career this fall at the University of Southern California.
 
“It’s amazing to me how much she’s been a positive impact on my daughter even though she’s only known her for a year,” Hazelwood said. “Kenzie has been a role model to her, Kenzie supports her, and it’s a genuine support setter-to-setter thing. Just seeing that has been so cool. Kenzie doesn’t fully realize that she impacts so many people.”
 
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When taking a look at the Southern Miss athletics website, Kenzie Smith’s profile can be found in two places.
 
She is, of course, No. 4 on the program’s volleyball roster. She’s also on the department’s staff directory as a graduate assistant in athletics administration. Kenzie’s impact can be felt all throughout the athletics department.
 
“When I first got to Southern Miss, right before COVID hit, in January 2020, I was a member of SAAC,” Kenzie said. “The second year, I became SAAC President. The third year, I became a GA. That position wasn’t specifically made already. They didn’t have a GA for student-athlete development. Now, I focus solely on SAAC and student-athlete development.”
 
It's no surprise that when her playing days are over that Kenzie aspires to a career in sports.
 
“Sports are always going to be a thriving concept in our world,” she said, noting new ventures that now exist with Athletes Unlimited and the XFL. “There are so many new things coming out and also so many jobs out there. There are many different routes. I want to be around like-minded people.”
 
Kenzie’s head coach knows that whatever she decides to pursue will be a path filled with success.
 
“Anybody who knows her from the academic side or the athletic department or anywhere cannot help but just love Kenzie Smith,” Hazelwood said. “She is that genuine human being who is going to care about people, do the right thing and always give her best at everything. There is no doubt in my mind that when she graduates and goes into her profession, she is going to be incredibly successful. It’s who she is.”
 
As for Smith, she has cemented an important legacy at the University of Southern Mississippi.
 
“I hope people just take away my love for the game and my love for people,” Kenzie said. “I want people to notice me as a culture changer. That I came in and really helped Southern Miss volleyball become Southern Miss volleyball.”