Eddie Smith was named the Utah Valley University head baseball coach for the 2022 season and has made an immediate impact on the program. The program exploded from a 10-47 season in 2021 to a 34-24 finish in 2023 which was the best turnaround in all of Division 1 Baseball in that span.
In the 2023 season, the second season under Smith, Utah Valley reached the WAC Championship game as the 3-seed ending the season just one win short of the NCAA Tournament. A year later Utah Valley finished tied for 2nd in the WAC regular season which was the best finish in program history. The 2024 team also matched a program record with 18 wins in the WAC. Since 2023 Utah Valley has won more WAC baseball games than every team in the conference except Grand Canyon.
Working as the hitting coach in addition to being the head coach, the offense has set school records in home runs, stolen bases, walks, and hit by pitches. The 2024 team set the all-time record for times hit by pitch in WAC history and became the first team in conference history to hit 100 home runs (106 total) with a BBCOR bat.
Player development has been seen in the last three seasons at Utah Valley as seven players have signed professionally. In 2023, Casey Anderson became the highest draft pick in program history when he was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Daniel Dickinson has burst on to the scene making national headlines in his first two seasons garnering All America honors in both 2023 and 2024. Dickinson was also named a member of the 2024 US Collegiate National Team.
Smith arrived at Utah Valley after serving as the hitting coach at LSU. In Baton Rouge, Smith helped guide the Tigers offense to BBCOR era program records in home runs and slugging percentage in 2021 on a team that reached the Super Regional round of the NCAA Tournament. The team finished the season ranked seventh in the country in home runs and freshman phenom Dylan Crews was named the National Freshman of the Year by Perfect Game. Before 2021 there was not an LSU hitter to finish the season with an OPS over 1.000 since 2013 but in 2021 both Crews and Gavin Dugas reached the 1.000 OPS milestone for the season.
Prior to his time at LSU, Smith was the recruiting coordinator and hitting coach at Tulane University. In 2019, the Tulane offense set nearly every all-time conference record in the American Athletic Conference, including scoring, OPS, home runs, slugging, batting average, and walks per game. The team finished the regular season second in the country in home runs and third baseman Kody Hoese was named the Conference Player of the Year before becoming the First Round Pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Smith’s recruiting prowess was shown at Tulane when Perfect Game ranked the 2019 high school class the No. 1 class in the American.
Smith arrived at Tulane after four seasons as the head coach at Lower Columbia College in Longview, Washington. While the head coach at Lower Columbia the program won two NWAC Championships, highlighted by the 2015 team that finished the season ranked No. 10 in the country by Perfect Game. That season Smith was named the level’s National Coach of the Year by the ABCA.
Before Lower Columbia, Smith spent time as an assistant coach at Notre Dame, Santa Clara, and Virginia. In five years at Virginia, he got to experience the rise of one of the finest programs in the country as he made trips to Omaha in 2009 and 2011 with the Cavaliers. These were the first two College World Series trips in program history for the program that later went on to play for two National Championships and won the 2015 National Title.
In all, Smith has coached 16 players who have gone on to play in the Major Leagues. Multiple former players have become World Series Champions and MLB All-Star Game participants. Smith has coached five players who have been First Round Picks, 41 players taken in the top 10 Rounds, and 78 total players who have been selected in the Major League Draft.
In 2006, the Olympia, Washington native graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a 3.8 college GPA and a degree in Spanish. In two years as an infielder at Notre Dame, the Irish went to the NCAA Tournament and won the BIG EAST Championship both seasons. Prior to attending Notre Dame, he was an All-Region infielder at Centralia Community College in Washington where he was named to the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012.
Smith is married to the former Jennifer Cromwell. A graduate of the University of Virginia, she was a three-time All-American and helped the Cavaliers win the National Championship her senior year in rowing.
Coaching Career
Virginia (asst. coach) - 2007-11
Santa Clara (asst. coach) - 2012
Notre Dame (asst. coach) - 2013
Lower Columbia College (head coach) - 2014-17
Tulane (hitting coach/recruiting coordinator) - 2018-19
LSU (hitting coach) - 2020-21
Utah Valley (head coach) - 2022-present
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT SMITH
"Working with Coach Smith my freshman year in college was a great opportunity that I had, and it is something that I will remember for the rest of my career. The energy and attitude that he brought every single day to the field molded our team into one of the best physically and mentally prepared teams in the country. I think the best thing that I got out of my freshman year when working with coach was how to ‘flip the switch’ when arriving to the baseball field. Coach Smith put hours of effort into preparation for us players to have the best opportunity to win every game against our opponents.”
-Dylan Crews
No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft
LSU Baseball
2021 National Freshman of the Year
