In
eighteen seasons under coach Steve Smith < sdsmith@hope.edu >, Hope
College men's soccer has become a highly regarded program among NCAA
Division
III teams.
Averaging 13 victories
a season, coach Smith ranked 18th nationally among all active NCAA
Division III coaches by winning percentage entering the 2007 season.
He also ranked in the top twenty among
the winningest all-time Division III coaches by percentage (19th).
The 2007 Flying Dutchmen finished second in the Michigan
Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA).
Coach Smith's record through the 2007 season is 251-84-24, .758.
His mark against MIAA opponents is 169-46-14.
Coach Smith has taken his teams on international trips three times,
most recently in 2005.
He has guided the Flying Dutchmen to eight
MIAA championships (1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2005
and 2006) and appeared in the NCAA tournament
eight times (1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006).
In 1996 Hope became the first MIAA team to win three consecutive
outright
conference championships. The 2005 team won
a school-record 13 games against league opponents. In 1994 Smith
was voted the Mideast Region Division III Coach of the Year.
A professor of kinesiology at Hope, Smith
received his doctorate degree in motor development from Michigan
State University.
While growing up in Lansing, Mich., he played soccer
at Capital City Christian High School. He played soccer four years
at Grand Rapids Baptist College (1978-81) where he received his bachelor's
degree.
He coached soccer at Lansing Christian High School
while working toward his masters degree at MSU. He also did a soccer
internship with Michigan State University coach Joe Baum. He was assistant
soccer coach at Manchester College in Indiana in 1988 and 1989.
Smith taught undergraduate
classes in growth and motor development, measurement and evaluation,
and elementary physical education
methodology at Michigan State and Manchester. He has a strong background
in adapted physical education including the teaching of physically
and mentally retarded children. He instituted the "I CAN" program
for a school district which previously had no physical education
for the
handicapped.
Smith and his wife, Nancy, have two sons, Trevor and
McCall, and a daughter, Shanley.
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