Martin Smith - Track and Field Coach - Iowa State University Athletics

Martin Smith

Title:
Director of Men's and Women's Track and Cross Country
Email:
smithm@iastate.edu
Phone:
4-7345

Martin Smith is starting his eighth year at Iowa State as Director of Men's and Women's Track and Field and Cross Country in the 2020-21 season, a tenure which has seen the Cyclones attain success across the calendar under his direction and supervision.

The Iowa State program has seen outstanding upward mobility under Smith’s guidance, which was rewarded in July 2019 with a contract extension through the 2024 season.

After many years of success in cross country, the Cyclone program finally made its big breakthrough on the track under Smith in 2020. In Ames at the 2020 Big 12 Indoor Championships, Smith guided the ISU men to the team title, Iowa State’s first track & field crown in the Big 12 Era. The Cyclones claimed five titles on the weekend, led by two-time Big 12 Indoor High Point Award Winner Edwin Kurgat, who claimed the 3K and 5K for a second-straight season.

The success of Kurgat has been the highlight of Smith’s Cyclone tenure. An eight-time All-American as a Cyclone, Kurgat became the third men’s runner in ISU history to become NCAA Cross Country Champion in 2019 while helping lead ISU to a fourth place team finish, their highest finish since winning in all in 1994. The ISU men also won a third-straight Big 12 Cross Country title, with Kurgat posting an undefeated season which included defending his Big 12 and NCAA Midwest Region titles. The Cyclones had seven men earn All-Big 12 honors at the conference championships, a first in ISU history and the third time in Big 12 history.

The 2018-19 school year was foreshadowing for that success. In cross country, the men’s and women’s teams swept to Big 12 and Midwest Region titles, with Kurgat and Cailie Logue claiming the individual crowns at both events. At the NCAA Championships, Kurgat raced his way to third place in the individual competition, while the Cyclone men finished seventh in the team competition for the second-straight season.

On the track, Iowa State’s men earned second place team finishes both indoors and outdoors, tying for its highest finish indoors in Big 12 history and its best finish outdoors in Big 12 history. On top of that, the Cyclones finished both meets with a co-recipient of the High Point Award. At the Indoor Championships, Kurgat got a share after his 3K/5K conference title sweep, while the Outdoor Championships saw David Too honored after he became just the second male in conference history to score in the 3,000m steeplechase, 5,000m and 10,000m at the same meet.

The men’s cross country program has been reinvented under Smith’s watch. To go with its three-straight Big 12 titles, the Iowa State men have been to the NCAA Championships four-straight seasons. The ISU women have won five of seven Big 12 and Midwest Region titles with Smith at the helm of the program, and have made the NCAA Championships six times..

Kurgat and Too have been among the many examples of transfers who have entered Iowa State and have seen instant success under Smith’s watch. Kurgat has claimed eight Big 12 titles and eight All-America honors in his time as a Cyclone. Other examples include Kevyn Hoyos (2016 All-Big 12 and All-Midwest Region cross country, and 2017 Big 12 Indoor bronze medalist at 3K and 5K) and Daniel Everett (2016 Indoor Second Team All-American at 5,000m and three-time Big 12 silver medalist).

The different paths Iowa State runners have come to their success under Smith’s watch has also been notable. Festus Lagat came to Iowa State after one year at junior college, and has become a three-time All-American, taking third in the 800m at the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championships and being the key to ISU’s winning of the Hy-Vee Cup at the Drake Relays. Roshon Roomes was a walk-on who was a member of the club track team at Iowa State before joining ISU. He has now been a six-time All-American, three-time Big 12 champ and an NCAA record holder, breaking the 600-yard run record at the 2019 Big 12 Indoor Championships.

Under Smith, Iowa State track and field has had 79 All-America honors in his first seven seasons at the helm. Iowa State has also seen 22 school records change hands under Smith, with 2020 seeing Kurgat take down his own school record indoors at 5,000 meters (13:24.04), taking down a 34-year old mark in the 3,000 (7:49.19) and going under four minutes to get the mile record (3:58.62). In addition, Kurgat anchored for ISU’s school record DMR team in 2020, being joined on the 9:28.22 squad by Lagat, Roomes and Cebastian Gentil.

Smith is a five-time national championship coach and previously served most recently as Head Coach for Track & Field / Cross Country at Oklahoma (2005-13), where he led the Sooners to 2007 Big 12 outdoor championship, their first in nearly 30 years.

Prior to that, he led or worked with track & field and cross country programs at Oregon (1998-05), Wisconsin (1983-98), Virginia (1980-83) and George Mason (1979-80). His coaching career started at Oakton (Va.) High School, where his team won a state title.

Smith’s expertise and greatest successes have come in the distance events and cross country and that will be the backbone of his Iowa State teams, too. Smith leads a Cyclone program poised to establish itself as a collegiate power for long-distance runners.

Smith’s teams won national championships in 1981 (Virginia women’s cross country and indoor track), 1982 (Virginia women’s cross country) and 1985 and 1988 (Wisconsin men’s cross country). In a 35-year collegiate career, Smith has coached over 300 All-Americans and his teams have won 26 conference championships.

Smith was two-time (1985 and 1988) NCAA Cross Country Coach-of-the-Year for the Badgers, and he has earned nine league Coach-of-the-Year honors in three different conferences. He was Big 12 Men’s Coach of the Year both outdoors (2007) and indoors (2010) at OU.

In six seasons with the Sooners, Oklahoma set all-time Big 12 best finishes in all six of the sports he supervised (women’s and men’s indoor and outdoor track & field and cross country). OU won the Big 12 Men’s Outdoor title in 2007 and added a Big 12 Men’s Indoor championship in 2010.

The Oklahoma women’s program had its best-ever finish at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championship (fourth) in 2011 and the men’s program was fifth nationally in the John McDonnell “Program-of-the-Year” standings (conducted by the USTFCCCA) that season.

Oregon recorded 15 Top-20 finishes at the NCAA Championships during his tenure there. He coached 65 All-Americans with the Ducks and directed both the men’s and women’s track & field and cross country programs beginning in 2003 after the retirement of Tom Heinonen.

Smith, a native of Alexandria, Va., earned his B.A. degree in history and political science from Bridgewater College (1974). The three-sport letterman for the Eagles was inducted into that institution’s athletics hall of fame in 2004.

He is married to the former Renee Schwister, who has one son (Ross).