SPORTS

Where are they now: Former Wachusett standout Michael Smith keeps Northern Arizona teams on course

Rich Garven
richard.garven@telegram.com
Former Wachusett Regional star Michael Smith encourages one of his Northern Arizona runners at an outdoor track meet. [Photo/Northern Arizona University]

When Michael Smith was home visiting his mom in Princeton in July, he headed over to nearby Mount Wachusett one day for a hike.

What figured to be a one-hour trek turned into a three-hour ordeal after the 1998 Wachusett Regional graduate got lost on trails he could have, figuratively speaking, traversed with a blindfold as a teenager.

“It was like, “OK, I’ve been gone for a bit,’ ” Smith, 39, humbly said last week via phone from Flagstaff, Arizona, where he works and resides. “I was so sure I remembered all the trails, so I can realize some years have gone by.”

Smith got lost that day, but he’s found his calling as one of the best distance running coaches in the country — first at Georgetown and now Northern Arizona University — since he left Central Mass. two decades ago in pursuit of an education and an occupation.

As a senior at Wachusett, Smith and the Mountaineers placed second at the Division 1 state cross-country championships. The four-time T&G all-star capped his high school career by finishing eighth in the 2 mile at the New Balance Nationals Outdoor.

He was inducted into the Wachusett Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016.

“I had a fantastic experience at Wachusett,” Smith said. “My high school coach, Brian Wallace, is still coaching there, and he’s been someone I have consulted with every step of the way during my time as an athlete and a coach.”

Smith went on to become an All-American in cross-country at Georgetown, from which he graduated with a degree in English in 2002. He stayed in Washington, taking a two-year break from running while teaching fifth grade at an inner-city school and earning a master’s in education from American University in 2006.

Then Smith up and moved to Flagstaff, a distance-running mecca located 7,000 feet above sea level in north-central Arizona to train for marathons and work at the Center for High Altitude Training and, later, the Run SMART Project.

“That’s kind of how I got my start in coaching,” said Smith, who qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials with a personal-best time of 2 hours, 19 minutes, 43 seconds, and then had all sorts of success nationally and internationally as a trail racer.

“What I was kind of feeling about teaching led me into coaching. I think the best coaches look at themselves as teachers, and I didn’t end up in a classroom, but in some ways, I ended up being a teacher.”

Smith took a big step down his career path when he was hired to coach at Georgetown in 2012. He spent four years at his alma mater, ultimately being promoted to director/head coach of the men’s and women’s cross-country and track & field programs.

During his time with the Hoyas, Smith worked with the likes of Emily Jones of the Bromfield School, John Murray of Shrewsbury High and Jonathan Green of St. John’s.

“It pained me to recruit a St. John’s kid, but we did it anyway,” Smith said with a laugh, a nod to the healthy and historic running rivalry between the Mountaineers and Pioneers.

Smith’s work on the East Coast didn’t go unnoticed some 2,200 miles away. Northern Arizona hired him in 2016 to direct its cross-country and track programs, leading him back to Flagstaff on the third leg of a coast-to-coast-to-coast journey.

The city has a strong distance-running tradition, and the same goes for the university. But Smith has elevated the Lumberjacks into some serious rare air.

Northern Arizona won the NCAA Division 1 men’s cross-country championship in each of Smith’s first three seasons and is currently ranked No. 1 in the country as it seeks to join Arkansas (1990-93) as the only schools to four-peat.

The women’s team is ranked 27th.

“So we’re at the top of what we’re doing, and it’s an awesome place to live and work,” Smith said. “Cross-country is given a lot of support here. We’re a high priority for our university and our athletic department. Yeah, it’s just a fantastic opportunity for me as a coach.”

No matter the division or sport, recruiting plays a significant role in the success of a collegiate program. Smith gets around as the 41 runners on his men’s and women’s rosters hail from 15 states along with Canada, Guatemala, New Zealand, and Somalia.

Wherever Smith goes in pursuit of fast, competitive and resilient runners, he reminds himself of his experiences at Wachusett as he extols the benefits of training in Flagstaff and attending Northern Arizona to recruits in their living rooms.

“I now realize how special my time at Wachusett was,” Smith said. “It’s kind of come full circle because we were blessed with such a passionate and knowledgeable coach and then a great tradition at our high school. So it really meant something to us to run for Wachusett.

“I can still tap into what it felt like to know that I was racing St. John’s at the districts the next weekend. I can still feel that, and I’m 39 years old. We were just really lucky doing what we were doing at Wachusett at the time.”

And the next time he’s hiking Mount Wachusett, you can be sure Smith will — just in case — bring along a trail map.

—Contact Rich Garven at rgarven@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @RichGarvenTG.