History has been made and we’re so here for it! The Boston Red Sox just hired Bianca Smith, the first black woman to coach in Pro Baseball. The 29-year-old will be a minor-league coach and will begin in February in Fort Myers, Florida, focusing on position players. Smith played softball at Dartmouth College. Her current position is as an assistant baseball coach and hitting coordinator at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI, where she will stay for a little less than two months until her role with the Red Sox kicks off. She was the director of baseball operations at Case Western Reserve University from the summer of 2013 through the spring of 2017, and she previously held a short stint as an assistant coach at the University of Dallas in 2018.

“The opportunity is amazing,” Smith said in an interview with MLB Network. “I’m still wrapping my head around it. I probably won’t really have it sink in until I’m actually there. I think it’s a great opportunity also to kind of inspire other women who are interested in this game.” Smith continued, “This is not really something I thought about when I was younger. I kind of fell into it being an athlete, so I’m excited to get that chance to show what I can do.” Watch her full comments ahead, where she discussed how she’s preparing for her new role. Congrats are definitely in order!

“As the hitting coordinator, I run all of our technology side for hitting at Carroll,” said Smith. “The number of different resources that the Red Sox have as far as tech goes, I’m really excited to get my hands on that and learning the different metrics and being able to dive deeper into what I currently have is pretty exciting.” Smith previously did internships in the baseball operations departments of the Texas Rangers and Cincinnati Reds. The Red Sox are expected to make Smith available in a Zoom call with the media later this week.