Smith homes to turn around Hound program

PORTALES — Some coaches have that special ability to turn around any and every program that they get their hands on. New Eastern New Mexico women’s soccer coach Joshua Smith is no stranger to that concept.

Smith was named the sixth Greyhounds women’s soccer coach back on June 21. The New Jersey-native has already turned around three programs thus far, and hopes that ENMU is no exception.

Smith, who previously spent the past two years as the coach of the University of the Southwest’s women’s program, had plenty of good reasons to come to ENMU. First off, he and his wife liked the region, and secondly, he has already established recruiting ties within the area. But, there’s even more.

“There’s strong leadership and administration in place here. I talked to the former coach (Ryan Spence) and he had a lot of good things to say about Eastern,” Smith explained. “Talking to the girls, they really want to win.

“Eastern is also a school that kids want to go to around the state. They want to be here. We’re in a rebuilding process and we have to replace a couple players, but we have a strong core in place already. When you have a good core, it speeds up the process.”

The spot became available when Spence decided to take over at fellow Lone Star Conference School Midwestern State, his alma mater.

Smith started out as the head coach at Crandall High School in Texas, where his team improved from 11-10-2 in Year 1, to 17-5-2 in Year 2. That year, his team finished third in its 3A district. Most notably, he increased the participation in the girls soccer program from 15 girls to 52 in just two years, opening the door for a junior varsity program.

He then became the coach at Northern Oklahoma College-Tonkawa. He went 36-5-2- in two seasons, and won a pair of Region 2 Tournament titles. Just a year before his arrival, the NJCAA Division II program had won all of eight games.

Three of his players were named All-Americans, while NOC-Tonkawa also got a big bost from him in the classroom. The team’s GPA was 2.50 when he arrived, and by the time he left, it rocketed to 3.35.

His most recent stop at the University of the Southwest also lasted for two years. Smith went 16-15-2 in that time frame, including 13-4 last season. That mark was the second-best record in school history, as the Mustangs narrowly missed out on a conference title. The team GPA also rose to 3.21, as well.

So, what is the secret to Smith’s success? “I think some of it has just been getting into the right situations at the right times. I think some of it is having structure and having high expectations for the girls,” Smith said.

“A lot of it is building good relationships with the players. There’s a sense of trust, but at the same time, there’s a sense of accountability — where they want to perform at a high level. From there, it’s just really holding the standard, and then it comes down to recruiting.”

To Smith’s last point, he says he wants to recruit the right kid, not necessarily the best kid. He wants players who check all of the boxes that he looks for, both academically and athletically. Ultimately, he wants competitive players, as well.

Following a 5-9-6 mark a season ago, Smith says that Spence has built a great foundation to the program, and now it’s his job to take that to the next level. This year’s squad will be pretty young, however, as the Hounds feature one senior and a pair of grad students.

Nonetheless, Smith feels pretty good about his squad, and expects plenty of growth in 2018. “We made it a couple of rounds into the conference tournament last year, and we want to continue that this year,” Smith explained.

“The expectations are high. It’d be naive to say we’ll win the league — we’re an underdog. Everybody’s gonna count us out, but these girls want to be respected within the conference. They want to go out and prove themselves.”