Cross country was more than a sport in which Martin Smith forged his Hall-of-Fame career: It can also describe his travels between coaching positions that spanned from coast to coast.
Smith’s destinations included some of the highest points one could imagine – national team titles at Virginia (women) and Wisconsin (men twice), plus stops at Oregon, Oklahoma and Iowa State that included multiple top-5 national finishes.
His trophy collection is impressive, including cross-country team titles in the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-10, and Big 12. Notably, his 12 men’s Big Ten crowns represent the most by any coach in the conference as of 2023. Under his guidance, athletes he mentored also secured individual cross-country titles in these four conferences. Combining both cross country and track & field, Smith’s athletes amassed more than 300 All-America honors.
Hailing from Alexandria, Virginia, Smith began his collegiate coaching career at the University of Virginia, where he assisted the Cavaliers to the first-ever women’s title awarded at the NCAA DI Cross Country Championships in 1981. The following year, as head coach, Smith led them to another resounding victory. Notably, Lesley Welch, one of the top runners, claimed the individual title by a significant 27-second margin.
Smith’s journey continued the next year when he succeeded Dan McClimon as Wisconsin’s men’s cross country coach after McClimon tragically passed away in a plane crash. Smith built upon the foundation that McClimon laid, leading the Badgers to 14 consecutive top-10 finishes at the NCAA DI Cross Country Championships – nine times reaching the top-5, topped by national titles in 1985 and 1988 (with Tim Hacker securing the individual title in 1985).
His next venture led him to Oregon in the summer of 1998, where he was hired to replace retiring men’s coach Bill Dellinger, who would be inducted into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame later that year. Smith guided the Ducks to four runner-up team Pac-10 finishes in men’s cross country as well as a team title in 1983 in men’s outdoor track & field. He became the school’s first Director of Track & Field and Cross Country in the summer after the retirement of women’s coach Tom Heinonen, another future Hall-of-Famer.
Smith moved to Oklahoma in 2005, where he served as Director of Track & Field and Cross Country for eight years. His stewardship brought the men’s track & field team to two Big 12 titles, while the Sooner men’s cross country team finished top-10 at the NCAA Championships in each of his final three seasons.
In 2013, Smith took over at Iowa State and immediately guided the Cyclone women’s cross country team to a Big 12 title – the first of six such crowns. National success followed, too, as Iowa State was runner-up at the NCAA DI Cross Country Championships the next year. His men’s teams won three Big 12 cross country titles and one in indoor track & field. In his final four years in Ames, Smith’s men’s cross country teams all finished top-10 nationally, including in 2019 when Edwin Kurgat won the national individual title.
Smith was twice named National Men’s Coach of the Year in cross country and earned eight Regional Coach of the Year honors between cross country and indoor track & field.