June 11, 2001

Go to the Chat

WACO, Texas - On Wednesday, June 13, Baylor head baseball coach Steve Smith will make a special visit to chat with the fans about the 2001 season.

Smith recently concluded his seventh season as head coach at Baylor with a 262-153-1 career record. He led the Bears to a Big 12 regular season championship in 2000 and their first-ever 50-win season in 1999. In 2001, he captained the Bears to a fourth-straight NCAA appearance.

The 2000 Big 12 Coach of the Year, Smith came to Baylor from Mississippi State, where he was an assistant under Ron Polk for five seasons. Prior to that, he served as a graduate assistant at Texas A&M.

A former standout pitcher at Baylor from 1982-83, Smith led the Southwest Conference with a 1.72 ERA in 1982, bettering league foes and future major league pitchers Norm Charlton, Roger Clemens, Doug Drabek and Calvin Schiraldi.

Almost two decades later, Smith is passing his pitching knowledge on to his players. In the past nine years, he has tutored six pitchers who were selected in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft, including Jason Jennings, the 1999 consensus national player of the year and the 16th pick by the Colorado Rockies in 1999.

In Smith's seven years as Baylor's head coach, he has produced six All-Americans, five GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-Americans and one GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year. Baylor has also had 21 first-team all-Big 12 performers, including the Big 12 Player of the Year in 1998, 1999 and 2001.

Smith won't hit the chat room until Wednesday, June 13 at 3 p.m. CT. Feel free to drop him some questions here and we'll save them for his arrival.