Newly minted Michigan baseball coach Tracy Smith met with media members in a roundtable setting on Tuesday afternoon. Multiple stories are coming to Maize & Blue Review from the hour-long meeting throughout the week.
Nobody will sit in front of a dozen media members and admit to taking a job out of desperation while the school's administration watches the meeting.
Still, Tracy Smith understood the relevance of being a long-time head coach who was out for a year after failing at a national power and why desperation might be associated with his motive to accept the Michigan job.
He made it clear that he was at peace over the last year, learning to live again without the one thing he'd been doing for three decades: coaching baseball.
"I'll say it, my last few years at Arizona State were interesting to me. I'll just leave ti at that. It was good for me to take a year and take a deep breath because I felt like I got away from the core of who I was, because of the circumstances there, which is enjoying relationships with kids and the on-field, the everyday. I was so focused on other things so it was good for me to get away," he said. "I don't want to be misinterpreted, but I was good doing that (not coaching). It was going to take a special situation and opportunity for me to get back into it because I know now everything that goes what makes it successful if you put your heart and soul into it."
Smith didn't experience the success he envisioned at Arizona State, losing both regional appearances in 2015 and 2016, followed by the first consecutive losing seasons (23-32 both years) in program history.
His best team, which included Tigers' prospect Spencer Torkelson, didn't have a chance to make the College World Series that ASU hired Smith to achieve. The season ended early due to COVID. The Sun Devils had a 13-4 record and were a consensus top-10 team.
In 2021, Smith's team went 33-22 and lost in a regional for the fourth time in seven seasons. ASU went to four regionals during his tenure, losing in all, and missed the postseason twice.
Following the 2021 season, Smith and ASU had a "mutual parting of ways," and the 30-year coach went on his year-long sabbatical.
Having found himself lost in a situation in Tempe where he and the administration had far more disagreements than agreements over his seven years there, bringing Smith back into the game wasn't going to be as simple as an offer. He needed a place he trusted, from the administration to the event staff.
"I'm not different from anybody else, but for me personally, it was if I were going to do this again, and I talked to Rob about this in the interview process, we're going to have to align at a lot of different levels because I wanted to make sure I was getting into it for the right reasons. This game is supposed to be fun, so if I'm not having fun coaching every day and our kids aren't having fun and winning is fun, then why would I want to do that? I'd rather be watching Breaking Bad and holding my grandson."
Lucky for Smith, Michigan, a program coming off a conference championship three years removed from a national finalist run, trusts him enough to hire and enable his ideas.
Searching for cohesive synergy, Smith is adamant that Michigan is the place he found it.
"This is a different beast. A national brand, a realistic ability to play for a national championship, and everyone talks about winning a national championship. But I think you have a realistic chance of doing that here through the support that's given to the program ... it checked all of the boxes."
This piece isn't the only content from the meeting. Read yesterday's in-depth look at how Smith plans to recruit in-state.
READ: Smith plans to 'build a wall' around in-state recruiting
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