Jan Smith Billing, retiring North Bay League commissioner, leaves lasting legacy for high school sports

A few years ago, Jan Smith Billing was considering retiring from her post as commissioner of the North Bay League.

She had held the role since 2015 and had helped guide the most prominent high school sports league in Sonoma County through destructive wildfires, historic floods and a massive multi-league realignment. Nearing 70 and a breast cancer survivor, Smith Billing figured it was time to pass the reigns to the next generation.

But then, high school sports came to a screeching halt when COVID-19 struck, and Smith Billing realized it was no time to mentor a successor. She postponed her retirement and stayed on as NBL commissioner, leading the league through one final obstacle.

“It was hard. I won’t deny that and say it was easy — it was really hard,” Smith Billing said. “But I wanted to make it work for the kids and the ADs and the coaches, so I just tried to make it work and it did.”

Now two years later, high school sports are back to pre-pandemic levels and Smith Billing feels the league is in a good place for her to move on. After nearly five decades of service in education and youth sports, Smith Billing — who turns 71 in October — will be formally stepping down from her position at the end of the month, marking the end of an era for an education and youth sports legend in the North Bay.

Over her 48-year career, Smith Billing dedicated her life to kids. She served as a coach, math teacher, athletic director, administrator, assistant commissioner and on countless committees with the North Coast Section and the California Interscholastic Federation, the state’s governing body for high school sports.

It’s no stretch to say that the sports landscape in Sonoma County and the NCS would not be what it is today without her.

“I don’t think there’s another person who has matched what she’s accomplished and how respected she’s been during her tenure at the section and her tenure as an educator in the Redwood Empire area,” said former NCS Commissioner Gil Lemmon, who worked closely with Smith Billing over his 23-year stint at the section.

Sonoma County through and through

Born and raised in Santa Rosa, Smith Billing’s family roots in Sonoma County go back generations.

Her great-great-grandfather is memorialized at Doran Regional Park as being the first settler of the area and her grandfather and his brothers had the first fishing wharf in Bodega Bay. She grew up with three brothers and graduated from Santa Rosa High School in 1969, then spent a year at Santa Rosa Junior College before attending UC Davis, where she lettered in three sports (field hockey, basketball and softball) and studied math and physical education.

From an early age, she knew she wanted to be a teacher. When she was 10, her parents set up a makeshift classroom in their garage where she would teach kids from the neighborhood.

“It was always what I wanted to do,” she said. “It’s just my calling, I guess.”

After graduating, she returned to Sonoma County and started teaching math and coaching softball at Casa Grande in Petaluma in 1974. As a 22-year-old just a few years after the passage of Title IX, Smith Billing was at the forefront of getting organized girls sports up and running in Sonoma County.

She coached the Gauchos to great success over 14 years, winning nine Sonoma County League titles.

“Jan Smith Billing is the Pat Summitt of our county, essentially,” said Paul Cronin, the former Windsor and Cardinal Newman head football coach, referencing the legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach. Cronin was hired by Smith Billing at Piner when he first started coaching.

In 1980, she started serving as the co-commissioner of the Sonoma County League alongside Gene McKamey, and in 1986 became one of the first female athletic directors in the county to oversee both boys and girls sports for a high school.

Eventually, she started helping with the NCS and over the next several decades built a resume that’s still unmatched today. She served on the NCS finance committee, sports advisory committee, eligibility committee, executive committee and as the NCS president for several years, just to name a few.

“When I think about all the things she’s done, I don’t know if there’s anybody in our section ever that has been more involved in all those different levels during the history of the section, which is over 100 years,” Lemmon said.

In 1996, she left Casa Grande and became the assistant principal at Elsie Allen, where she saw the first graduating class walk. She then took the same role at Piner in 1997 and in 2002 became assistant principal at Montgomery, a position she held until she retired in 2012.ST POPULAR

Over her illustrious and lengthy career in education and athletics, Smith Billing was recognized by numerous organizations for her work. In 1993, she was named the NCS Athletic Director of the Year and was runner-up for the same award at the state level. In 2000, she won a Lifetime Service award from The Press Democrat, and in 2004 was recognized by the NCS with the Phil Hempler Award, the highest honor in the section. In 2008, was named the Co-Administrator of the Year by the Sonoma County Association of School Administrators.

“We are very, very lucky to have Jan Smith Billing as a person in our community and overseeing athletics and taking care of kiddos, and the way she took care of students,” said Santa Rosa City Schools Trustee Laurie Fong, who worked closely with Smith Billing at Montgomery.

Even after retiring from administrative work, Smith Billing stayed involved with youth sports and from 2012 to 2015 served as assistant commissioner of the NBL under the late Marie Sugiyama, who had held the position for 42 years. When Sugiyama retired in 2015, Smith Billing became commissioner and has served in that role ever since.

Athletic directors and administrators who worked with her described Smith Billing as “professional,” “honest,” “fair,” “knowledgeable,” “incredibly organized” and “hardworking.”

“She always said, ‘Well, you guys make all the decisions,’ but she really led us and kept us all together,” said Jerry Bonfigli, the former Cardinal Newman athletic director who now works at St. Vincent. “She always treated everybody the same and I think everybody who worked with her as an AD at that time, she just unified the whole bunch of us.

“We were very lucky to have her.”

A second life

In 2014, during her stint as co-commissioner of the NBL, Smith Billing was diagnosed with stage 2B breast cancer. She avoided chemo and had aggressive surgery and radiation to beat it into remission. In many ways, she said, having cancer changed her life for the better.

Her surgeon, Loie Sauer, advised some healthier lifestyle changes, which Smith Billing embraced wholeheartedly. She and her husband of 34 years, Don, are now avid cyclists and ride upward of 100 miles a week as members of the Santa Rosa Cycling Club. They’ve done rides all over the country — in Utah’s Bryce Canyon, the RAGBRAI event across the state of Iowa, and just a few weeks ago around the entire length of Lake Tahoe.

Thanks to Sauer, Smith Billing also picked up backpacking a few years ago and has completed the Camino De Santiago in Spain and has hiked in Desolation Wilderness and Yosemite’s High Country.

“Cancer led me to these people that do adventures all over the world,” she said. “Now I’m going to try to do those adventures all over the world.”

Smith Billing plunged herself into her new life, keeping in mind her family members who have passed away. Her father died of prostate cancer in 1999 and her three brothers all died earlier in life.

“That’s why I could throw myself into all these things,” she said. “For whatever reason, I got to survive and my brothers didn’t. So, cancer was not going to get me down. I’m a survivor and I’m going to do what I can, because they all fought so hard to live and they just couldn’t.”

Stepping away from work, Smith Billing plans on further pursuing her newfound hobbies.

On her to-do list is more traveling and cycling in Europe. But she also won’t stay too far removed from her old life. She said she’s going to stay involved with CIF and NCS committees and will continue volunteering around Sonoma County in her spare time. She’ll also still be a resource for the NBL’s new leadership.

Joe Ellwood, athletic director at Analy, and Dean Haskins, athletic director at Montgomery, will be sharing duties as league co-commissioners.

“I have total confidence in Dean and Joe,” said Smith Billing, “and I’m just especially happy it took two good men to replace me.”

You can reach Press Democrat Staff Writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or gus.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @JustGusPD.