Pam Smiley (StJohn), a former Denver Public Schools (DPS) and Thomas Jefferson (TJ) alumni, has retired after a long career in education and sports. With her mother working in the counseling office at TJ, Pam was always destined to be a DPS graduate.
Pam always knew from a young age that she was not interested in “traditional” gender roles. As a five-year-old attending Bradley Elementary School, she discovered her passion for sports through field day and was drawn to any sort of athletic race or competition. At this time, it was uncommon for girls to be interested in sports, but her fourth grade teacher, Ms. Peterson, made Pam feel like it was okay to be a female athlete.
She became a student at TJ in the fall of 1976. Girls' Basketball became a school-sanctioned sport during her first year at TJ. At this time, the only school-sanctioned sport available to female athletes was volleyball — this was a major breakthrough.
As a new team, the girls’ basketball games drew small crowds, while the boys’ games filled the stands. Pam quickly noticed the imbalance and proposed a simple yet powerful idea: stagger the girls’ and boys’ game schedules so fans could attend both.
“I was trying to get some equity for our own programs,” Pam said.
While many supported her ideas, not everyone welcomed the change. Pam remembers one moment vividly: the boys’ head coach stopped her in the hallway and questioned her, “Who do you think you are?”
Obviously stunned, she asked, “What are you talking about?”
“You have no business trying to have equal opportunities as the boys,” he said.
Calm and composed, Pam simply replied, “I’m sorry you feel that way,” and fled from the uncomfortable confrontation.
“This was the first time I realized that I had to advocate for myself and women in general,” Pam said.
Pam’s advocacy journey only started there. She joined the DPS Student Athletic Board, a council of students that advises and advocates for sports in their represented high schools, further supporting this goal. After graduating from TJ in 1979, she attended Colorado State University to pursue a career in education. She eventually started her professional career as an educator and a coach.
Pam began her first head coaching position at Overland High School, leading the Girls’ Basketball team. At the time, the girls were assigned to practice in the small gym while the boys practiced in the large one. Recognizing this inequity, Pam spoke up, advocating for the teams to rotate practice spaces to ensure fairness.
Her leadership and determination eventually led her to become a principal, a role she considers the pinnacle of her career. Surrounded by a strong, dedicated team, Pam encouraged a culture of collaboration and excellence that enabled both staff and students to achieve success.
Pam said that being able to compete in high school is when she realized her own strength, resilience and impact.
“It helped having those opportunities and strong adult role models who fostered that. I think TJ is where I got the bulk of my self-esteem. That’s where I started coming out and understanding my power as a human,” she said.
She also credits her experience teaching and coaching.
“You just evolve as a human, and those are the experiences that shape you. So, the impact that kids had on me, which was a lot, and trying my hardest to be an adult role model for kids,” she said.
What made Pam feel most powerful was her ability to create systems and structures that worked — ones that turned vision into action, empowered teachers and gave students the stability and encouragement they needed to believe in who they were and what they could become.
Pam’s story is powerful. While many shy away from it, she embraces it — not as a measure of control, but as the ability to bring people together and make things happen. She understands her own capabilities and knows that true power is never wielded alone — it’s shared and cultivated through collaboration. Pam knows what powerful looks like because she’s lived it, led it and inspired it in others.