Eddie Smith is happy to be back in his home state.
The new Washington Husky baseball coach, who was formally introduced by UW athletic director Pat Chun on Tuesday afternoon, has had quite a journey since helping North Thurston of Lacey to the Class 3A state baseball title in 2002, then starring for two seasons at Centralia College.
"I think that the chance to be the coach at the University of Washington — the flagship university in my own state — is more than I ever could have imagined," said Smith, whose parents took him to UW athletics as a youngster. "That said, you don't get to choose where you coach in college athletics. You go where the job is and the fact that it lined up here is truly special."
Chun, who introduced Smith to a packed room of supporters, said he was looking for a coach "with a foundation here in the Pacific Northwest."
"I had the benefit of working in this state for the last few years and you don't have to work long in this state to have Eddie Smith's name come up with anything related to college baseball. ... This is a place that he knows very well. But he's also fits Washington."
After two years as an infielder at Centralia College, Smith finished his playing career at Notre Dame, earning a spot on the team as a walk-on, then got right into coaching.
He worked as an assistant coach for a decade at Virginia, Santa Clara and Notre Dame before landing his first head coaching gig, taking over at Lower Columbia College in Longview in 2014.
In four seasons there, Smith led the team to a 144-69 record and two Northwest Athletic Conference titles, and he said he learned a lot.
"I think more than anything I realized how important it is to have those relationships with the players," Smith said. "Make sure that the players are always first. Then everything you're doing is to get the right players on the bus and then challenge those players, and push those players. But also make sure that they know deep down at their core that you are really caring about them and their development."
Smith returned to Division I in 2018, serving as an assistant at Tulane and LSU for two years each before becoming the head coach at Utah Valley.
Smith took over a team that went 10-47 in 2021 and went 19-37 in his first season. The Wolverines took a huge step forward in 2023, going 34-24 and making it to the championship game of the Western Athletic Conference tournament.
Utah Valley was 29-29 in 2024.
Smith is taking over a Washington team that went 19-31-1 last season for Jason Kelly, who left after two seasons to become the pitching coach at Texas A&M.
He said the program will focus on in-state players and fill out the roster via the transfer portal and out-of-state high school players.
"I am very familiar with the high-school landscape here — I could tell most high schools what their nickname is and who their rivals are — and we certainly want to put a fence up around the state," he said. "That's a really important thing here as we go forward, that as we build this that we get the best Washington high school players to wear the purple and gold."
The Huskies have made it to the NCAA tournament just four times in the past 20 seasons, including in 2018 under Lindsay Meggs when it made the program's only appearance in the College World Series.
Washington might find playing in the Big Ten easier than it was in Pac-12 without having to play teams such as Oregon State and Arizona.
Smith said UW has everything it needs to be successful, and said it is a dream to one day coach in the NCAA tournament "and then go win some games."
"There's absolutely nothing that this place can't offer if you're looking for a place to go excel," he said. "This place has it all — player development, elite education and a world class city."
Note
The Huskies had one player taken in the MLB draft, as shortstop Cam Clayton, the Pac-12 defensive player of the year, was taken in the 14th round by the Miami Marlins.
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