Tracy Smith (born February 14, 1966) is an American
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
coach and former player, who is the current head baseball coach of the
Michigan Wolverines
The Michigan Wolverines comprise 29 varsity sports teams at the University of Michigan. These teams compete in the NCAA's Division I and in the Big Ten Conference in all sports except women's water polo, which competes in the NCAA inter-divisio ...
. He played
college baseball
College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...
at
Miami (OH) from 1985 to 1988 for head coach Jon Pavlisko, before pursuing a professional career from 1988 to 1990. He then served as the head coach of the Miami RedHawks (1997–2005), the
Indiana Hoosiers
The Indiana Hoosiers are the intercollegiate sports teams and players of Indiana University Bloomington, named after the colloquial term for people from the state of Indiana. The Hoosiers participate in NCAA Division I, Division I of the Nationa ...
(2006–2014) and the
Arizona State Sun Devils
The Arizona State Sun Devils are the athletic teams that represent Arizona State University. ASU has nine men's and eleven women's varsity teams competing at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member o ...
(2015–2021).
Smith was the head coach of
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
from 2006 to 2014, during which time the Hoosiers appeared in three
NCAA Tournaments, advancing to the College World Series once.
As the head coach of
Miami (OH) from 1997–
2005
File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...
, Smith led the RedHawks to two NCAA Tournaments.
Playing career
Smith played for
South Newton High School
South Newton High School is a multi-community high school consisting of grades 9-12 located in rural Newton County, between the incorporated towns of Kentland, Brook, and Goodland, Indiana. The Elementary and Middle School facilities are locat ...
.
Smith then played four seasons (1985–1988) of college baseball at
Miami (OH). In the
1988 MLB Draft, he was selected in the 39th round by the
Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
. Smith played three seasons of
minor league baseball in the Cubs system, advancing to Class A-Advanced before retiring following the 1990 season.
Coaching career
Early career
Early in his career, Smith was a junior college head coach and Division I assistant. He spent two seasons (1991–1992) as the head coach of
Miami–Middletown. He then served as hitting instructor at Miami from 1993 to 1994, where he had earned a
master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. in 1992. He moved to Indiana following the 1994 season and served as pitching coach from 1995 to 1996.
Miami
For the 1997 season, Smith returned to Miami to be the Redhawks' head coach. He held the position from 1997 to 2005. During Smith's tenure, Miami appeared in nine
MAC Tournaments and two
NCAA Tournaments (
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
and
2005
File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...
).
In 2000, Miami went 1–2 as the #4 seed in the Tempe Regional, winning an elimination game against
Creighton. In 2005, they again went 1–2 as the #3 seed in the Austin Regional, defeating
Quinnipiac
Quinnipiac is the English name for the Eansketambawg (meaning "original people"; ''cf.'' Ojibwe: ''Anishinaabeg'' and Blackfoot: ''Niitsítapi''), a Quiripi-speaking Native American nation of the Algonquian family who inhabited the ''Wampano ...
, 35–8, in an elimination game. Miami's 35 runs set a then-NCAA record for runs in an NCAA tournament game.
Indiana
After making a second NCAA Tournament in 2005, Smith was hired to replace
Bob Morgan as head coach of Indiana.
In his third season (
2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
), Indiana made its first
Big Ten Tournament appearance since
2003
File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...
. In
2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
, Indiana won the
Big Ten Tournament and appeared in the
NCAA Louisville Regional, where it went 0–2.
2013 season
In
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...
, the Hoosiers won the Big Ten regular season and
tournament
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
# One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...
titles. For the first time, Indiana was selected to host an NCAA Regional.
It won the regional, then won the Tallahassee Super Regional to advance to the program's first
College World Series
The College World Series (CWS), officially the NCAA Men's College World Series (MCWS), is an annual baseball tournament held in June in Omaha, Nebraska. The MCWS is the culmination of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Divisi ...
. Smith was named the NCBWA National Coach of the Year.
Arizona State
On June 24, 2014, Smith was named head coach of
Arizona State
Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...
.
After leading the Sun Devils to a 201–155 mark over seven years, Smith was fired after the 2021 season and replaced by
Willie Bloomquist
Willie Paul Bloomquist (; born November 27, 1977) is an American baseball coach and former utility player, who is the current head baseball coach of the Arizona State Sun Devils. He played college baseball at Arizona State for coach Pat Murphy f ...
.
Michigan
On July 3, 2022, Smith was named head coach of
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
.
Head coaching record
Below is a table of Smith's yearly records as an NCAA head baseball coach.
See also
*
List of current NCAA Division I baseball coaches
The following is a list of current NCAA Division I baseball coaches. Currently, 297 programs compete at the Division I level in NCAA college baseball. Each program employs a head coach. The longest-tenured head coach is Tony Rossi, who has been ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Tracy
1966 births
Living people
Arizona State Sun Devils baseball coaches
Geneva Cubs players
Indiana Hoosiers baseball coaches
Miami RedHawks baseball coaches
Miami RedHawks baseball players
Michigan Wolverines baseball coaches
Peoria Chiefs players
Winston-Salem Spirits players