DAVE SMITH JUST completed his 20th season as men’s cross country coach at Oklahoma State but the 56-year-old mentor admits he’s still learning.
And he told his team at the start of this season that he took the blame for its 8th-place performance at Verona in ’24 after a 49-point run to its fourth NCAA title the previous year. (OSU got its first win in long ago: 1954.)
Keeping this year’s team on an even keel with expectations in line with reality clearly paid off in Columbia, Smith explains. “Well, we came off 2023 and scored 49 points with 4 or 5 in the top 15. I think our fifth guy was 50th. Everybody had the best race of their lives on that day. I think what immediately set in was a big celebration, euphoria, everybody was excited.”
Smith says they forgot how hard it was to do what they did in ’23. “Instead of saying, as we went into the next year, ‘Hey, don’t get fooled into thinking last year was easy. It wasn’t. It was really, really hard.’ So that was the first thing. But more importantly, I think as we got into the year, we had all these guys that now thought their standard was, ‘We’re all gonna be in the top 15. We’re putting 7 guys in the top 15,’ which is ridiculous.
“We didn’t need 5 in the top 15, but I didn’t correct that kind of thinking. There are the thoughts and expectations. The other thing that happens is that when people have breakthroughs, they see themselves differently and think that training needs to change instead of saying, ‘Hey, last year we got 5 in the top 15 and we weren’t trying to have 5 in the top 15, we were trying to beat NAU, and we train in a certain way based on what we’ve done in the past.’
“One thing I know, from coaching for a long time, is that any time an athlete has some big breakthrough or some performance that they’re really excited about or happy with, the first thing they say when they come off the track is, ‘That was easy.’ And you always remind them that it wasn’t easy if you want to run faster.”
Smith says he should have told his guys that if they just replicated what they did in ’23 with no increase in volume or pace or intensity, and with another year of experience, they probably would be better.
“But I did not keep the guardrails up and when workouts started, week by week started creeping forward, faster, longer, more high intensity, we just got on a roll where we showed up at the Big 12 Championships and we were cooked,” he says. “I think we were already tired.” And it showed at the ’24 harrier nationals, with a dismal 8th-place finish and dashed dreams for the defending champs.
Maybe a little because of that experience, Smith doesn’t take the championships for granted, whether his first one or his sixth. Cross country is tough, and highly competitive nearly every year since the first one in ’38. Only three teams — Arkansas with 11, Michigan State with 8, UTEP with 7 — have more and now OSU has moved into rare air indeed and is tied with Northern Arizona and Oregon at 6 titles.
As he runs up toward John McDonnell territory with the legendary coach’s 11 XC crowns at Arkansas, Smith says that has always been his dream.
“When I came here [as an assistant in 2002], I had this dream that I wanted Oklahoma State to have more cross country championships than anybody else,” he says. “We had one at that point, back in 1954 [under long-time coach Ralph Higgins]. And so, I just thought, ‘Wouldn’t that be cool?’ But it was kind of, you know, like I would say as a kid, ‘I wanna make the Olympic team,’ right?
“It was just kind of this fantasy dream I had. Then, four or five years later we get a title, and then another, and they started coming. And I made some comment to a local press person, and I said, ‘The most any program in the country has is a lot, but I’d love to get Oklahoma State into that neighborhood.’”
Turns out, Smith says, laughing at the recollection, that he was in Fayetteville some weeks later and was talking with McDonnell.
“We always had some great conversations,” Smith recalled, “[but] as I sort of stood there at the track he wasn’t being as friendly as he usually was and was just staring out at the track. After a while of me just kinda standing there chatting with him a little bit, he kind of looked down at me and said, ‘11’s a pretty big number, you know.’”
What does the future look like in Smith’s mind for collegiate cross country?
“When I think about our sport in the realm of all college sports, I’m pretty optimistic, because it’s a fairly inexpensive sport and it’s easy to conduct our sport, and there’s a lot of universities into it,” he says. “But when I think of the future of college athletics in general, I’m very pessimistic. Because just the amount of money being thrown around right now between coaching contracts and coaching buyouts and NIL money for athletes, it’s not an unlimited source of revenue.”
“At some point, very soon, there’s going to be big time universities that are going to have to say, ‘We’re gonna have to bow out.’ Or, we have to cut and cut and cut and cut until there’s nothing left to cut and we still can’t keep up.”
“College athletics changed my life,” he says. “I wish every college student could experience some level of college athletics or being on a team or working toward a common goal in a way that matters to those around you, the way we do in athletics. I think it’s life-changing.
“I think you learn more about yourself and dealing with the ups and downs of life and difficult situations and successful situations. But if you look at it now, how it’s become a business model and a money-making vehicle, well, there’s not much point to most of what we do.”
