Mike Divilbiss had never coached college basketball when he replied to an ad Bill Smithpeters posted in The Spokesman-Review in 1984.
The Eastern Washington women’s basketball coach called Divilbiss back nevertheless.
A role with the team that season didn’t materialize, but it worked out: Divilbiss met his future wife, moved forward on his own education, and then, the next fall, joined the EWU staff as a graduate assistant.
That launched a 40-year coaching career for Divilbiss, who pointed back to his two years at Eastern Washington with Smithpeters as “a true blessing.”
Smithpeters died on June 28. He was 94. A memorial service has not been announced.
“The human being Bill was far exceeds the coach that he was,” Divilbiss said by phone last week. “And he was a hell of a coach.”
Smithpeters coached at Eastern Washington from 1977 to 1994 and was inducted into the Eastern Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010. His teams finished with a record of 290-227 and won at least 20 games in six seasons.
His most accomplished season came in 1986-87, when the Eagles won the Mountain West Athletic Conference – a conference absorbed by the Big Sky Conference a year later – and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. It was the only time, too, until the Eagles reached it again in 2024.
Divilbiss was on the coaching staff in 1986–87 and appreciated the manner in which Smithpeters coached.
“He gave the kids a lot of freedom to play,” Divilbiss said. “He gave them a structure to play in and then let them play.”
Perhaps the two main lessons he learned as a coach, Divilbiss said he learned from Smithpeters.
“How to coach women and how to have God and faith be central to what you’re doing,” he said. “Those are the two most important.”
Soni Adams was an assistant coach with Smithpeters for seven years, including the two Divilbiss spent at Eastern. Adams was an All-America player at Utah and was inducted into the Utah Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023. She also was the head women’s basketball coach at BYU from 1994 to 1997 and still lives in Utah.
“His deep faith really guided his life and his coaching,” Adams said by phone last week. “He was a very honest and honorable man. He would never say anything that wasn’t true, which I loved. He would say to the kids, ‘I play favorites, and the favorites are the ones who do what I ask them to do, and my favorites are team players.’
“He worked really hard, and he had faith in the kids, and he tried to teach them principles of life along with basketball.”
Five players who Smithpeters coached were later inducted into the Eastern Athletics Hall of Fame , including Brenda Souther-Robinson, Maria Loos-Lefler, Lisa Comstock-Schultz, Fay Zwarych-Shaw and Cristy Cochran. The whole 1986-87 team was inducted in 2013.
Comstock-Schultz wasn’t on that team – she graduated two years before – but she holds EWU’s career record in assists (658) and ranks third in steals (212). As point guard, Schultz said Smithpeters gave her a lot of freedom as a player.
“He trusted that I could run the team so young, and he taught me how to scout and how to prepare,” she said. “He didn’t put you in a box. He just let you do what he knew you could do, and if you needed to be brought back a little bit he could say it in a way that was not going to kill your confidence.”
Schultz went on to coach at Lakeside High School, a tenure that included a string of nine consecutive district titles. She said her teams watched a lot of film, something she learned from Smithpeters and something that wasn’t done by many high school teams – to the extent she was doing it – in the early 1990s.
He was also well-respected by his players, she said, largely because of the consistent and honorable manner in which he carried himself.
“He was a terrific role model for many male coaches,” she said. “(He demonstrated) you can coach women and be successful, and you don’t have to be a domineering coach to get a player to perform at a high level.”
Smithpeters stands as the winningest coach in EWU women’s basketball history, 13 victories ahead of Wendy Schuller (277-322).
“He was just a tremendous human being and had a tremendous family, full of great human beings,” Divilbiss said. “He made an impact on so many lives, certainly mine. He changed mine. Changed mine completely.”
