By Bryan Van Kley, W.I.N. Publisher

Prior to coach Brian Smith coming to the University of Missouri in 1998, the school had only one winning season in the previous 10 years. Nine hard, long years later, Smith and the Tigers walked off the NCAA championship platform with the third-place hardware, the first trophy won by a Missouri team in 42 years. For his role in the program’s amazing turnaround, Smith has been chosen as W.I.N. Magazine’s Dan Gable Coach of the Year.

There were several top candidates for this year’s award including Iowa State’s Cael Sanderson, Minnesota’s J Robinson and Northwestern’s Tim Cysewski.

Sanderson led a young Cyclone team with six freshmen in the line-up to a salty second-place finish at the Nationals. Most people outside of the ISU program did not think they would be that good that fast. The Cyclones won the Midlands, went undefeated in Big 12 dual meets, downing both Missouri and Oklahoma State, and won the Big 12 conference tournament. Sanderson certainly had an incredible rookie season as a coach, getting consistent effort out of the team all year long, including the unseasoned newcomers.

Robinson led the Gophers to their first national title since 2001. They finished the year 20-1, winning the National Duals and the Big 10 Conference. But despite winning the NCAA crown, Robinson’s high horse-powered Gophers had a disappointing national tournament finishing 30 points below their seeds.

Cysewski’s squad also finished the year strong. The Wildcats tied a school record with their fourth-place finish. They had four All-Americans and one national champ in Jake Herbert (184). But their 13-8 record in duals showed their youth in some weights.

The reason Smith was chosen over the rest was in recognition of how far he’s taken the program. After two losing seasons and an 11-11 effort in his first three tries at Missouri, Smith’s teams have gone 88-25 since then and have climbed the NCAA tournament ladder; finishing 17th, 16th, 13th, 11th, 15th and 3rd.

Iowa Public Television commentator and former Iowa State head coach Jim Gibbons said publicly mid-way through the season that if Missouri brought home a trophy at this year’s NCAA tournament, it would be one of the most significant coaching accomplishments in the last 50 years.

“In a year when there’s been several superlative coaching jobs, his achievement stands out for bringing Missouri from where they were not too long ago to walking away with a trophy,” said Gibbons, whose ISU team won the title in 1987. “You have to put a wide angle lens on this. It was unthinkable 20 years ago.”

Gable said Smith’s coaching accomplishments are even more significant since he didn’t have elite college credentials.

“From where he’s come to where he’s at now, he’s done a remarkable job. He didn’t have the name recognition that some people have which allow them to get to the top faster. Because of that, it’s even harder,” Gable said.

The humble Smith was very pleased when notified of the award.

“I’m honored. It’s obviously named after the greatest coach of all time,” Smith said. “It takes a lot of great people to get an award like this. It’s the culmination of a lot of work.”

He stressed there are many ingredients in place at Missouri now that have allowed the program to rise, including top-notch assistants like Bart Horton and Pat McNamara, a very supportive administration and a family (his wife Denise and three children) that supports him 100 percent.

“The administration has been great. When I got here, they were just talking about surviving. Now, all they’re saying is that we can win it all,” Smith said. The Tigers’ top two athletic administrators chartered a plane and flew to Detroit for the final two days of the NCAAs.

Smith has done what is necessary with the boosters, past alums, local community and the state to make sure everyone is behind the program. The Tigers drew nearly 3,000 fans on average per home meet this year, ranking them fifth in the country. Smith said he spoke at Rotary Club meetings in Columbia, when he first got to town, and maybe four people had even been to a meet. Now, half the room attends duals when he surveys the crowd to see what kind of progress the program is making.

This momentum stems from Smith’s passion for the sport and isn’t something that has just happened. He and his staff have been methodical over the last nine years about building up to this point. But to understand Smith’s workmanlike attitude that he puts into coaching, you have to know where he’s came from.

Getting a late start in wrestling as a kid, Smith’s family moved to Florida just before he started high school because doctors told their family the warmer climate may help the repeated bouts he was having with bronchitis and pneumonia. After high school, Smith wrestled for Michigan State and then returned to Florida after he graduated from college to follow in his father Brian’s footsteps as a coach.

Smith had two successful years at Western High School, placing second and fourth, before Jack Spates talked him into coming up to Cornell University in New York as a restricted-earnings assistant, making $12,000 annually.

“Everybody was telling me I was crazy,” Smith said, except for one person. “The last person I talked to was my Dad and he encouraged me to take the chance.”

After a year under Spates, Smith was named the head assistant when Rob Koll came to Cornell in 1993. He spent four years in that position before taking the head job at Syracuse University. Again, the doubters told him that decision could be the end of his coaching career as Syracuse was in a four-year “lame-duck” period of trying to raise enough funds to save the program.

Smith spent a year there before being hired at Missouri, which at the time was certainly not a top coaching job, despite being in the Big 12 Conference.

“People are afraid to take chances. You have to be ready to move. A lot of coaches think you have to wait for the best thing to happen. Missouri wasn’t a top job but I knew it had potential,” Smith said.

But Smith, who had applied for nine other head coaching positions, was up to the challenge despite a letter that was sent in during his first week saying that he should be fired. And, he found out later, there had been an option tabled among administrators that some athletic programs could be dropped.

Smith said their strategy from the beginning was to outwork the other teams, and to be better on the mat. Since they didn’t have the blue-chip talent of some of their Big 12 Conference counterparts, they needed to make up ground in other areas. Smith identified that as mat wrestling and pursuing pins.

“When I first got to Missouri, we didn’t have as much talent as the rest of the Big 12. So, we just really worked on top because most of the good kids (at other schools) are good on their feet.”

And that attitude and those bonus points ended up being the difference for Missouri this year. The Tigers racked up a whopping 22. 5 bonus points in Detroit. The points ended up making up for top-seeded Max Askren being eliminated on the first day. Smith pointed to his team’s ability to step up after that setback as a great example of what has allowed them to get into college’s elite circle.

A good example of that was at the National Duals finals against Minnesota. Nick Marable, a back-up freshman 157-pounder was inserted into the line-up at 165 pounds, while captains Matt Pell (165) and Ben Askren (174) both moved up a weight to give the team a better chance to win. It almost worked, but the Tigers weren’t able to get the bonus points they needed against the Gophers down the stretch.

Smith’s approach towards coaching is pretty simple. He loves what he’s doing and he believes in the underlying purpose of what a coach really does.

“I wake up every day and think, ‘I get to coach at the University of Missouri and coach kids who want to win a national title,’” Smith said. “Coaching is an every day thing, worrying about the kid and how they’re doing academically or personally. I just love to coach.”

When Smith looks back on the 2006-2007 season where his Tigers were ranked No. 1 for a stretch during the season but failed to win the conference title at home and finished third at the NCAAs, he said he’ll have no regrets.

“I’m proud of these kids because they gave everything they had. You have to keep moving forward. I don’t look back and see what could have been,” Smith said. “We fell short, but a lot of people didn’t think we could get to where we are at.”

It’s wrestling’s gain when a great coach like Smith is able to turn around a program like Missouri the right way. Smith’s Tigers proved continual hard work pays off. They also proved they’re likely to be a force in Division I wrestling for quite some time.

(Bryan Van Kley is the publisher of W.I.N. Magazine. He can be reached via e-mail at Bryan@WIN-magazine.com.)