Wolverine TV: New Michigan baseball coach Tracy Smith talks vision for program, recruiting, more
New Michigan Wolverines baseball coach Tracy Smith was hired July 3 and met with the media for the first time nearly a month later, in a roundtable setting with reporters Tuesday afternoon. Smith discussed many topics, including his vision for the program, his recruiting philosophy and much more.
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Watch the Michigan coach’s session with the media below.
Highlights from Tracy Smith press conference
The new Michigan coach was perfectly content with being a grandfather and avid Netflix watcher during his time off after being let go by ASU last June. While he wanted to get back into coaching, it had to be the right place. So there he sat in a circle with media members Tuesday afternoon inside a classroom at Ray Fisher Stadium, discussing his new gig.
“We never really wanted to say it when I was at my other school in Hoosier land, but this is a different beast,” Smith said of Michigan. “The national brand, the ability to realistically play for a national championship was very important to me, because if I was going to get out of the grandfather thing, it was going to have to fit on a lot of levels. Everybody talks about winning a national championship, but
I think you have a realistic chance to do that here, by the support that’s given to the program. I think recent history speaks to that.
“On a personal level, just being familiar, no stranger to the midwest, that’s been the fun part to me, is getting back here and that activation of the network and all of the old friends that I had not really kept in contact with over the last eight years from just being in a different spot geographically.”
He went on to describe the Michigan job as “special.”
Smith was announced July 3, which is tough timing considering the transfer portal deadline had passed and some of his roster and recruiting class already departed the program. While he called those things “challenges,” he said he won’t make excuses because of geography, facilities or the like, while acknowledging there are differences between coaching in the North and the South.
Bakich had the Michigan program rolling, but Smith and his staff bring in a new perspective, which could be beneficial.
“It’s a fresh start for everybody, and I’m all about opportunity,” the Michigan coach explained. “To me, the only thing Michigan should and will promise is an opportunity to compete and get better every day. We’ll do our best to develop and everything, but it’s on them.”
