Former UK assistant hoping to ‘impact in a different way,’ with new training venture
Amber Smith is back in Lexington, and she’s looking to develop the next wave of in-state prospects.
After seven years on the Kentucky women’s basketball staff and five years as the Wildcats’ point guard, Smith moved in a new direction before the 2023-24 season; she took her talents to Indiana, where she served as an assistant coach on Teri Moren’s staff and helped guide the Hoosiers to a 26-6 season and a trip to the NCAA Sweet 16.
Now, Smith is preparing for the next phase of her career — Transformative Skills Training, a business dedicated to basketball training, mentorship and development, and coach consulting.
“I’ve always enjoyed coaching, mainly the relationship piece of it,” Smith told the Herald-Leader. “Personal development and athletic development. But it’s always been a dream of mine to have my own training facility. I think because I enjoy that one-on-one, that development piece on and off the court, having my own facility and gym was always a dream of mine. ... I’ve decided to kind of get out of coaching and take my own path of starting my own business. And Lexington is like home, and so being back there with my family, that is what’s most important to me right now, and getting this business started.”
Originally from Winter Haven, Florida, Smith was promoted to assistant coach by former Kentucky head coach Matthew Mitchell following the 2017-18 season after two years as the Wildcats’ director of player development. Smith helped develop WNBA draft picks Evelyn Akhator (2017), Makayla Epps (2017) and Rhyne Howard (2022), and was on staff during Kentucky’s 2022 SEC Tournament championship run, its first since 1982.
Smith graduated from UK in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in integrated strategic communications, and made 109 starts in 123 career games from 2007-12; she averaged seven points and 3.4 assists per game during her career with the Wildcats, and earned her Master’s in sports management from Morehead State in 2020.
“When I came back to Kentucky, I was director of player development,” Smith said. “And, back then, you couldn’t get on the floor like you can now. And so in order for me to be able to stay on the court, I started training kids from, you know, third grade up to 12th grade. Feeling that passion in training probably when I came back to Kentucky in 2016. After that, it’s like, ‘big dream is I don’t think I want to coach forever,’ but do want to settle down in one place and have my own facility.”
After over a decade spent growing and learning at UK, Smith felt it was only right to plant further roots in Lexington.
“Lexington is a special place,” Smith said. “It’s the first place I came after I left Florida, my hometown. It kind of took me in, obviously, the people I was surrounded with, but just the community, the fans.”
Smith even made her way out for the Wildcats’ season opener last week against South Carolina Upstate, and was greeted and welcomed back warmly by Big Blue Nation.
“Seeing fans out and them still remembering me,” Smith said. “It just means a lot to me. It was a dream come true to come back and coach for Kentucky, so I think it just came full circle with those two things (playing and coaching), and I think this kind of completes that circle. With coming back and starting a family here, and also just trying to get some roots down outside of, you know, being Coach Amber for the women’s basketball team.”
Smith said she wants to step into “being a community leader,” and trying to help Kentucky’s youth and develop them. From middle school to high school, and high school to college, Smith hopes to build relationships with players aspiring to improve their skills and build upon their strengths — both on and off the court.
“At the end of the day, (training) is a male-dominated profession,” Smith said. “And so, I think, by my being prevalent in that way, I can show these young girls that ‘I’ve been where you want to be,’ and I just really want to help them develop and see that help Kentucky as a whole. ... Building the talent level and helping that grow, especially in the grassroots, with the AAU and the high school, it’s important for the state. And so to be able to give back to these young girls in Lexington, in Kentucky, that’s important to me. Because I want to see Kentucky do well for years and years after me, and to be able to try to have this type of impact in a different way.”
Smith — with several other Kentucky women’s basketball alumnae — will provide an opportunity to do just that on Nov. 17 with a free clinic for girls in grades 3-5 and grades 6-8. There will also be a recruiting information session for high schoolers. Smith’s former players and teammates, like Victoria Dunlap Connley, (2007-11), Samarie Walker (2010-14), Bria Goss (2011-15), Makayla Epps (2013-17), Blair Green (2018-23) and Emma King (2019-24), will be in attendance to help run the clinic, which Smith hopes to host annually around Thanksgiving.
“Positive role models that have done what these young girls want to do in the future,” Smith said. “We’ll be talking about the fundamentals of basketball with offensive and defensive speed and agility. … It’s a Thanksgiving hoops clinic, and so we’ll also be giving the young ladies journals. And we want to introduce, if they do not know about gratitude, the practice of gratitude.”
Transformative Skills Training, Smith said, is about an all-around approach to development. That mission is integral to every aspect of the business, whether through one-on-one training, clinics or otherwise.
“Trying to transform any student-athlete as a person first, and then as an athlete,” Smith said. “More of a holistic approach is what I want to take, and just see them as people first, and not just what they can do on the basketball court.”
Transformative Skills Training’s Thanksgiving All Girls’ Hoops Clinic will take place at 1 p.m. at the Lexington Ice Center.
