By Craig Morgan, thesundevils.com Writer
TEMPE, Ariz. -- If you want to know what makes ASU baseball coach Tracy Smith tick, former Sun Devil Ryan Burr believes social media is a good starting point.
"Read his Twitter account," said Burr, a 2015 Diamondbacks fifth-round draft pick who will play with Kane County of the Midwest League. "That's the epitome of him. He's a witty guy, he's a smart guy and he's a communicator."
Highlighted by his weekly video segments entitled Skip's Scoop, Smith's Twitter account, @ASUSkip, is a combination of his humor, his values and his insights into the program. It might seem odd to some when a 50-year-old coach tweets photos of a gorilla or Al Pacino, but to Smith it’s a key piece in his overall blueprint for building a successful and sustainable program.
Andrew was himself again after he had his Snicker's Bar... pic.twitter.com/VdaslQ3PDh
— Tracy Smith (@ASUSkip) April 18, 2016
Can you pick out the guy who hit a go ahead HR in the 14th after pitching 2 scoreless? Hint: He has chest hair. pic.twitter.com/G0JTxskIoq
— Tracy Smith (@ASUSkip) March 11, 2016
"I do it because it's fun, but also because that's the way these kids communicate," Smith said. "I have a lot of colleagues who say, 'aw, I'm not going to do that.' Well, then you're missing a major piece of communication with today's youth. Why you wouldn't do that is beyond me."
At the core of Smith's philosophy is the belief that a successful program can only be forged when that program becomes a family. Communication, collaboration, trust and commitment are the key building blocks in that relationship.
"It's a daily thing," Smith said during an interview on April 18. "It’s going down and walking through the locker room to be with the guys. It's what I was doing 20 minutes ago when I was playing my music and cutting it up with the guys.
"They get to see more than a baseball coach. They get to see a human, a husband, a father -- all of the parts that make up a man -- so when you go through some of those tough times that you inevitably go through, or you have to get on their case, hopefully it takes some of the sting out and they understand that we're in this together and our best interests are their best interests.
"The days of just telling guys what to do are over. You can't just say 'jump.' Today's guys want to know why. You can either understand that and embrace that and work with that or you can resist it and if you do you won't be in the game very long."
Smith admits that his coaching philosophy wasn't as clearly formed 20 years ago when he took the head coaching job at Miami of Ohio, but the foundation for that philosophy was laid much earlier by his parents in tiny Kentland, Indiana (population 1,748), and then honed when he got his first coaching gig as an assistant basketball coach at Miami University's branch campus in Middletown, Ohio under head coach Jim Sliger.
"He had a background in the sport because he had played and he was very close to the young age of the players and when we talked for the first time, I was impressed," said Sliger, who played basketball for Smith's father-in-law, Lynn Darbyshire. "He was a strong competitor, but he was also a good communicator which is essential.
"There's an old saying that players don't care what you know until they know that you care and it was easy to see with Tracy early that he cared. He had a relationship with those kids and he always found something to talk about in a fun way."
Smith understood that the process of building a program and establishing a new culture would take time when he took the ASU job on June 24, 2014. He led the Sun Devils to 35 wins, a third-place finish in the Pac-12 and an NCAA Regional in his first season, but the Devils lost 11 players off last season's team (nine went pro, two departed), and then suffered key injuries to the pitching staff so Smith admits he expected this season to be "interesting."
"It's no secret we're in a bit of a transition but I hear some of the negativity from outside; it gets back to you," Smith said. "People want everything now but we have stayed steadfast in what we're doing and we're not going to let that affect our approach.
"It's harder to do in today's climate but I go back to the belief that if you’re confident and you have a plan, you execute the plan. You're going to have variables that affect that plan -- injuries, losing kids to the Draft -- but as long as you have a belief and conviction in that plan and maybe some proven success, you stick with it."
The fruits of that conviction may already be paying off for Smith. The Devils have the No. 3 ranked recruiting class in the nation for 2016, according to PerfectGame.com, and after a rough start in Pac-12 play that had the Devils languishing in 11th place, ASU has climbed to fifth by winning five of its last six conference games, including a sweep at Stanford last weekend that was the program's first road sweep of the Cardinal since 1997.
"I'm proud of how the guys have come together in spite of all the hurdles and the outside distractions," Smith said. "When we were struggling we said we could quit, shut it down and have a miserable season or keep fighting and see what happens. We have chosen the latter. If our minds are right and our hearts are right and our spirits are right we can still have a pretty good year here and be a good representative of what we're trying to do here."