Dick Fain returns for his 19th season calling Seattle Storm games. He’ll have more voices around him this season than ever before.
The Storm announced their 2026 broadcast team on Tuesday, with Alyssa Charlston-Smith joining as the primary analyst. A Sammamish native who played Division I basketball at Idaho and professionally in Luxembourg, Charlston-Smith has spent the past five years as an analyst and sideline reporter across the Pac-12 and Big Ten, called games at the University of Washington — including a memorable Joel McHale sideline interview — and currently anchors sports at FOX13 Seattle.
She replaces Elise Woodward, who is departing for a role with the expansion Portland Fire, and drew strong marks in our 2025 WNBA local broadcaster rankings. In addition to Fain, the only returning member of last year’s booth is sideline reporter Shantelle Chand, back for her second season. The Vancouver, BC native covers the Vancouver Whitecaps, the CFL, and the PWHL in addition to her Storm work.
For select games, the Storm are going to a four-person crew, with Layshia Clarendon and Crystal Langhorne contributing as analysts. Clarendon is a 12-year WNBA veteran and 2017 All-Star who served as a game and studio analyst for Pac-12 Networks from 2016-20 and is currently an analyst for ACC Network. Langhorne won two championships with the Storm, retired in 2021, and has been running Force4Change — the organization’s social justice platform — ever since. Last season, she did guest analyst work on Storm pregame shows through KOMO-TV, and the team is now formalizing that into a regular role.
On Sept. 17 — Believe in Women Night — Charlston-Smith will call play-by-play, Clarendon will analyze, and Langhorne will join as a guest analyst in what the Storm are billing as the first all-women broadcast in franchise history.
Dan Hughes, who coached the 2018 championship team, returns as an analyst contributor for a special game. Francis Williams, who has worked for the Trail Blazers, ESPN, NBA TV, and Fox Sports and coached at Garfield and Rainier Beach high schools in Seattle, is back for select home dates.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.