Kathy Delaney-Smith played basketball at Bridgewater during the infancy of the women's basketball program from 1967-71. Kathy was also a member of the synchronized swimming squad for 4 years at Bridgewater. After her playing days she went on to a stellar career as a coach which began at Westwood high School where she compiled an incredible 204-31 record. At Westwood her teams went undefeated six consecutive regular seasons and won one Massachusetts state title.

In 1982 she became just the third head coach in Harvard women's basketball history and still serves in that role. The winningest head coach in Ivy League history, Kathy has guided her teams to well over 500 wins including eleven 20-win seasons, eleven Ivy titles, a .500 record or better in 26 of the last 27 campaigns, and eleven postseason appearances.

In the 1998 NCAA Tournament, Harvard became the first No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in the history of both the men's and women's tournaments by virtue of a 71-67 victory over Stanford.

Her coaching accolades include the Boston Herald-American Coach of the Year in 1978-79, and the Boston Globe Coach of the Year in 1979-80. The National High School Coaches Association selected her as Coach of the Year in 1981, and she was the first woman named to the Massachusetts Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1986. Kathy was also named to the New Agenda Northeast Hall of Fame in 1998.

Since her induction in 1999, Delaney-Smith won the prestigious Carol Eckman Award given by the WBCA in 2000. In 2003, Delaney-Smith was part of the inaugural class to be inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame.