Powell High School track and field coach Scott Smith is off to retirement after an illustrious career spanning 44 years — 34 years in Powell and 10 in Idaho and Montana — coaching 11 team state titles as well as more than 100 individual state champions, and capped off by an upcoming National Hall of Fame induction.

STARTING OUT, COACHING RELATIONSHIPS

Smith took over the head coaching position for the Panthers in the 1992-93 school year, after discussions among coaches led to issues on the track team.

“When I came on, one of the reasons I got hired was because coaches were very territorial, to the point of three hour meetings, arguing and fighting, and that was one of the first things I had to work on and change was that culture, and I think we effectively got it done pretty quickly,” Smith said.

Throughout his time, Smith said he has  learned how to allow his assistant coaches the freedom to do their jobs, allowing for him to focus on the other duties of being a head coach.

“One of the first things that I’ve changed the most is I’m better about letting assistant coaches do their job. When I was first here, I felt like I had to kind of watch everything, and then once I got that trust built up … I’ve been very fortunate that I haven’t had a lot of turnover in staff,” Smith said. 

A lot of that staff has been with Smith since the 1990s, with only small turnovers in recent years with coaches retiring or moving.

He said coaching staff has been important over the years, as some schools have smaller coaching staffs for programs that have twice as many athletes.

“I see coaches in Utah, they have like three assistants for 200 kids, I have no idea how they do it. Before I came here, I was in a small school, where one year I was effectively the only coach because the other coach had surgery. So he couldn’t be there,” Smith said. “We’ve had really good coaches that teach kids how to do things right and safely — we’ve seen a lot of great improvement … I’ve just been blessed to have great assistant coaches who knew what they were doing. They were willing to research what they’re doing too, always looking to make themselves better at what they do, so it’s been great.”

He said the relationship between the coaches is important in the decision of what events each kid will do, and that has played into the success of the team over the years.

“Now we have kids, you could put Paige [Sanders] in seven or eight events and she only gets to do four in a meet, so we just talk about it amongst each other, conversations are usually pretty short,” Smith said. “Everybody’s kind of on the same page, they’re not looking for what’s best for their event, they’re looking for what’s best for the kid and the team overall. They’ve done a really good job of working together. I am sure that will continue.”

STANDARDS AND PHILOSOPHY

“In some ways it hasn’t, but in a lot of ways it really has,” Smith said of changes in track over the decades.

He felt like there are different ways that track has improved such as the distance, jumping and throwing events, while the sprints have relatively remained the same since the early 90’s.

“What it takes to place at state now compared to what it took when I started, it’s a lot harder,” Smith said. 

He compared the long jump, where state was won with a leap of 16 feet, 3 inches, setting the school record at Powell High School.

“That doesn’t get you very far for the girls’ long jump,” Smith said. “That’s just one example.”

He said that overall involvement in the program has had its ebbs and flows, as the team typically had 90-100 kids while it dropped down to as few as 60 at times before building back up in recent years.

“When soccer came in, it took a lot of kids out, and now it’s building itself back up,” Smith said. “When we were almost at 600 kids, four or five years ago, we had more kids out this year than we had that year, not by many but just a couple.”

He said that throughout the state, he sees programs that have upwards of 200 kids in 4A such as Natrona County, stating that Wyoming has a strong amount of competitive kids despite its size.

“For a small state, I look at the quality of kids that come out of our state meet, there’s a lot of professional coaches in our sport,” Smith said.

While the amount or quality of kids continues to change in the sport over the years, Smith said his philosophy has remained the same: improvement.

“My major philosophy has never changed. We just try to get as many kids to do as well as they can, take them where they’re at, and move them up,” Smith said.

He said that philosophy includes teaching kids the mental aspect of the sport, teaching them to calm down and focus individually on that one race rather than the team race or bigger picture.

“One of the biggest things I learned a long time ago about track is, in football, you have to get kids pumped up. In track 90% of the time, what you have to do is get them to focus on what they need to do. When they’re getting ready to get in the starting blocks, they’re thinking ‘I’ve got to take third, I’ve got to beat this kid because our team is one point behind,’” Smith said. “That’s a distraction, it just doesn’t help them do what they need to do. That’s one of the reasons I try to focus on just doing what it takes for you to do your best, everything will work out otherwise.”

He said that while team titles are great, his favorite thing is seeing a lot of kids with medals and having a lot of individual success, as sometimes the team race is not indicative of the sport as a whole.

“Individual success, that’s probably more important, the team titles just kind of come,” Smith said. “We’ve tied for a state championship with 57 points one year, and our girls took second with 128 one year. That year of 128 was fantastic, 57 usually won’t even get you a trophy. Sometimes that stuff just doesn’t work out. It’s not like a team sport where it’s more predictable … Just throw it out there and see how it all falls.”

INDOOR PROGRAM

Powell is new to having an indoor track program, as before the last few years the Panthers competed under both Cody and Lovell at times.

“We did it a lot of different ways, and this is far and away the best,” Smith said. “It just works better to get more kids involved, which is really what our goal for all activities should be, is getting kids involved.”

He said the program has seen an explosion since it began officially at the school in 2023, but he believes kids should continue to do what they love even with the option being there.

“Kids that love basketball, should play basketball. Kids that love wrestling, should wrestle. Boys that love to swim, should swim,” Smith said. “But when there’s kids that are sitting around all winter long doing absolutely nothing, they need to be doing something, and that’s where I think indoor really fits … It isn’t just about building the outdoor track program, that’s part of it obviously, but again it’s just giving kids something to do to make themselves physically better.”

He said one of the biggest improvements for indoor track has been the shift to a 3A/4A class system. 

Powell competes against those 3A and 4A schools throughout the year indoors before just facing 3A at state, while they continue to grow against that higher level competition in both indoor and outdoor meets around the region.

“We also are pretty blessed, when you look at three schools that brought home state (outdoor) trophies, four actually, Lovell, Worland, Cody and us, we see them a lot. Burlington is one of the best 1A schools. Even though we’re not traveling far every meet, we have really good competition, and that really helps too.”

REFLECTING

Throughout his career Smith has had a number of standout athletes and accomplishments, including Jesseca Cross, who was an Olympic thrower; Justin Cross, an NCAA competitor at the University of Oregon; Kyle Sullivan, a Mountain West Conference Decathlon champion for the University of Wyoming; Garrett Lynch and Vince Lee, who were teammates and throwers who pushed each other and set the standard for the school shot put record.

While those athletes have impressed at a high level during and after PHS, a current athlete has caught his attention after her continued success and growth.

“Paige [Sanders], she’s still got another year. I looked at her and thought when she hit some of her big jumps when she was a sophomore, that was going to be her peak. Nope, watching her continue to improve like she has, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody get to a level that she’s got to, and then continue to improve past that without really plateauing or kind of going down. That’s probably one of the most impressive things about her.”

Smith added a National Coach of the Year honor in 2021, and will also be inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame at the end of this month.

“That’s not me, that’s the program. The only thing I did was stay for a long time,” Smith said. “The success of the program is what did that, and that’s all from the assistant coaches we’ve had … I don’t know of any coaches who’ve been as fortunate as I have, where at some point they didn’t have a coach where they had to work around them, or actually find a way to get rid of them. I’ve been pretty doggone blessed for that.”

FINISHING HIS CAREER

At the high school Smith was a science teacher, saying it was difficult to find a balance at times between teaching and coaching.

“I wish I could say I did a very good job of that. Sometimes something had to give,” Smith said. “It goes both ways. It is what it is. That’s why a lot of people aren’t as stupid as I am and go 44 years.”

He said that heading into retirement he is mostly looking forward to one thing: freedom.

“Do what I want, when I want, that kind of freedom. As a teacher, it’s like, OK, I’ll be able to go to the bathroom when the bell rings … I need to take some stuff to the bank, which might be on Thursday. Just that kind of freedom,” Smith said.

Finishing his career, Smith said there are so many people he could thank for the success of the program.

“Powell, it’s a great community. That’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to keep people here as long as we have,” Smith said. “I can’t thank those people enough, they made my job a lot easier because I knew they were doing their job … The coach before me, Jerry Lane, had been here since the 60s … I didn’t build this out of nothing. I just maintained it and the community has had great support for track.”