Michael Smith said Siloam Springs High School's baseball program is getting a clean slate to work with.
Smith, an assistant with the program the last three seasons, was named head baseball coach on Tuesday, June 13, at a school board meeting and is the third head coach in the last three years.
J Keith resigned in May after one year at the helm of the program after a young Panthers team went 3-20-1 overall and 1-13 in the 5A-West Conference.
But there is lots of reason for optimism around the program. The Panthers return a strong nucleus of players and on Thursday, the district held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new baseball-softball-tennis complex that will be at Siloam Springs High School and feature aritificial turf playing surfaces. The team has been playing at the city-owned James Butts Baseball Complex. The new complex is scheduled to be ready for the 2024 spring season.
"It's a great opportunity," Smith said. "Not only do I get to come in and be the head coach, but we're literally getting a fresh start. ... Like I told (the players), we are getting handed a book with a bunch of blank pages and we get to write our story."
Smith was originally hired in the summer of 2019 as an assistant football coach and track assistant. He joined the baseball program in the spring of 2021 under Alan Hardcastle and also helped the softball program. The last two seasons he's been a baseball assistant. He will remain on the varsity football staff as wide receivers coach.
"We talked to a lot of people informally and talked to Michael," said Siloam Springs athletics director Jeff Williams after the groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday. "He came to me once Coach Keith resigned and showed his interest in the job. The more we got into it, the more we researched, there was no doubt he was the right fit for the job. We need somebody that understood our situation. We have a big day here today. We're going into a new complex. ... He was overwhelmingly the top choice."
Williams said Smith will hit the ground running with the program.
"I got to watch him coach being an assistant in baseball for the last two years, also in football," Williams said. "He's done an amazing job. He's a kid magnet, lot of energy. He's passionate about Siloam Springs. This is where he wants to be, and the big thing is building relationships nowadays are bigger than ever to be successful as coaches. He has those relationships with our players. I think he's going to be able to take it to the next level."
The Panthers also hired Hayden Sutton as assistant baseball coach and will have one more to hire before the summer is out, Williams said.
Sutton is a Farmington graduate and served as a student assistant at the University of Arkansas under coach Dave Van Horn. He served at UA-Rich Mountain and West Fork before coaching last season at Arkansas State-Mountain Home.
Smith stressed that he wants the baseball program to be known as the community's baseball program.
"I want every one to understand that although we are the Siloam Springs High School Panthers, we are going to establish a program that the community has a vested interest in," he said. "We are going to help be in the community more and work with the younger kids. With the new fields and the new complex, we want individuals who move or potentially move into Siloam to know that we have a baseball program that's committed to not only our baseball team and to represent our school the right way, but we want the community to be involved."
Smith said he already has gotten involved at the youth level.
"One of the most appealing and attractive things I had for it was having kids in the community, getting to play little league ball," he said. "I've made a really good relationship with a lot of the families that are in our community. Then of course I've had a really good relationship with our players. This group of guys who are seniors, I've known since they were in seventh grade in middle school. Getting to know those guys and building that relationship with them, seeing what they've been through with coaching changes the last two years, not having a consistent coach and being encouraged by them, I wanted to provide some leadership they can trust that's going to going to be here for a while. Someone that's bought into Siloam already, not moving in trying to change the culture but wants to re-establish and build a culture that we deserve."
Smith said the Panthers have a talented group that will compete hard and benefit from playing as freshmen and sophomores this past spring.
"What I'm excited about is we had freshman that had never played 5A baseball," he said. "They played little league and a little bit of travel. To step up and play your bigger teams, Greenwood, Greenbrier, Mountain Home's got some good dudes. To get that experience is no different than football, start a bunch of sophomores on a Friday night game. To get that kind of exposure and experience is really going to be beneficial for the next year or two."
Graham Thomas/Herald-Leader Siloam Springs High School hired Michael Smith as head baseball coach at a school board meeting on June 13.