For 32 years, John Smith has been the face of Sacramento State’s baseball program. The program is losing its face May 23.

Smith, 63, is retiring from coaching following the last game of the 2010 season.

He has a school-record 877 wins and has a chance to add to the total in the last three weeks of the season.

As his final game approaches, Smith said his time at Sac State has made him the person he is.

“It’s been my life and my family’s life for 40 years,” Smith said “Everything happens for a reason. It means everything to me. I’ve given it my life. It’s been good to me and I have no regrets whatsoever of being a Hornet for 40-something years.”

Smith’s final home series is May 14-16 against the University of Nevada.

“There’s a movement to go contact a lot of former alumni over the 32 years,” Smith said. “But to my understanding, there is going to be a lot of guys here on May 16, which is the last home game I’ll ever coach at Sac State.”

Something that shaped Smith’s coaching style was his playing career at Sac State; he was an infielder for the Hornets in 1971 and 1972.

Although he had an admittedly pedestrian career, he said it helped him in the long run.

“My experiences as a player have enabled me to develop a philosophy that I’ve tried to be consistent with. I was a red ass when I was younger,” Smith said. “But I learned to deal with it and control it in different directions to motivate and for them to get the most out of themselves.”

Smith has coached hundreds of players since his 1979 coaching debut at Sac State, some of whom have ended up in the minor and major leagues. Despite the success of some, Smith did not think he was having a great impact on his players early on in his coaching career.

“For the first five or six years, guys would come in and play and then I wouldn’t see them,” Smith said. “After about five years I would go, “Man, what’s the deal? Am I that big of a jerk that they’re not coming back to see where they played and they forgot their roots?’ The only time I was ever hearing from guys was when they needed a letter of recommendation or need some favor. They weren’t just dropping by to say, “Hey coach, how’s life and how are things going?’ And I took that very personal for the first five, six, seven years.”

Smith said he will miss the relationships he established through the game of baseball and in his coaching career.

“It took awhile for those early-year guys to get out, get settled and get going and then find the time to come back and show their appreciation for their time they spent at Sac State,” Smith said. “After about seven, eight years, the kids kept rolling in.”

One particular relationship Smith built through baseball was with Ritch Price, University of Kansas baseball’s head coach.

Smith and Price consider themselves to be each other’s best friends.

“Well, he’s basically my older brother,” Price said. “I was the oldest kid in my family when John and I became friends about 25 years ago. When we’d go to the same recruiting sites, you’ll see us side by side the whole time.”

Price said Smith’s endeavors at Sac State are monumental and impressive. He said Smith has had an incredible career.

“To leave Sacramento State after 32 years, to have played there, to be an assistant coach, to be a head coach, to be the winningest head coach of any sport in history of that school is a great, great accomplishment,” Price said.

While there are many things about coaching Smith will miss, there are a few things he is happy to say goodbye to at the end of this season.

“I won’t miss the long road trips to Louisiana Tech,” Smith said. “In the early days, we took vans. In the early, early days we went in five cars. We would have to go downtown to get the cars, come back here, load the players up, go to the game, come back, drop the players off and take the cars back downtown. Then finally, about 10-12 years ago, we started getting to the point where we could afford buses through the fundraising efforts and the administration giving us more money to support the program.”

To stay in one place for 32 years is difficult for anyone, let alone an NCAA baseball coach.

Over the course of Smith’s career, his coaching abilities caught the attention of other universities. Smith said he had three firm offers from other schools in the past to leave Sac State. However, he declined all three because he said it was not what he wanted.

“In my loyalties to Sac State, I always went out,” Smith said. “I could’ve went to Troy State, I could’ve went to Northridge and I could’ve went to Cal Poly. But it wouldn’t have been the same. I wouldn’t have had those loyalties in those schools and I didn’t want to be one of those guys who was just chasing all over the country to climb the ladder. I was happy here. Why go some place else?”

The athletic department is replace Smith with associate head coach Reggie Christiansen, who was the head coach at South Dakota State University prior to coming to Sac State in 2008 as the team’s hitting coach.

Athletic Director Terry Wanless said the department was looking for someone who had been a head coach and someone who was familiar with the team and program.

“We were looking for someone who had head coaching experience (and) that could come in with Coach Smith and learn the lay of the land,” Wanless said. “He has a great knowledge about the game of baseball and a great communicator with the student-athletes. He really fits what really think our next head coach should be about.”

Sac State President Alexander Gonzalez said Smith’s contributions to university have been invaluable.

“For more than three decades, Coach Smith has mentored Sacramento State student-athletes and helped them reach their full potential,” Gonzalez said. “I deeply appreciate his contributions to Hornet Athletics, and I thank him for his years of dedicated service to our students.”

Smith coached Sac State to two NCAA Division II College World Series finals appearances &- 1986 and 1988, when the Hornets finished in second and third place, respectively.

Smith helped get the baseball program where it is today. He was involved in the program’s jump from Division II to Division I, something he does not second-guess.

“It’s been a tougher deal since we’ve gone to Division I, but I don’t regret it for a second,” Smith said. “It’s been great. It’s been challenging. It’s been great times. What I have done for 32 years, there’s nothing I would trade it for. I don’t care what the money would pay.”

As the culmination of Smith’s 32-year career draws near, he is thankful for the chance Sac State provided him.

“I can never thank this university enough for what they’ve done for me,” he said. “They’ve given me an opportunity of a lifetime. I’ve tried to make the most of it, the best I can and I feel good about it. I don’t have any regrets.”

Dustin Nosler can be reached at [email protected] Hampson can be reached at [email protected]