A league of his own

After 20 years, Montana's winningest softball coach leads Lady Pirates with quiet dignity

By Zach Urness

Leader Staff

On a scorching summer day in late June, Larry Smith stands at his perch behind third base, watching his ASA softball team take on the Montana Ice. He is wearing wire-rim sunglasses and his purple baseball hat is pulled down over tufts of silver hair. His tanned arms are folded casually across his chest and there is a quiet, confident smile spread across his thin face.

As third basemen Sarah Newton steps to the plate, he claps his hands and makes a swinging motion into the air. Suddenly-WHAM-Newton blasts a home run over the center field fence. She smiles brightly at Smith as she jogs around third base and slaps his hand before continuing home. The crowd cheers, but their enthusiasm is tempered in a way that suggests they've seen this before and they expect to see it again.

Smith is at the center of the Polson softball dynasty, and at times he can seem nearly invisible. In an age of hypercompetitive coaches he is decidedly out of place, never yelling at his players or throwing temper tantrums because a call didn't go his way. In fact, he is so humble that it becomes easy — even in a softball-crazy town like Polson — to overlook the 20-year head coach.

But that would be just plain stupid. Because Larry Smith is Polson softball. He is the architect of a high school dynasty that has produced four state championships in the last seven years (second most in Montana state history) and has been nominated for national coach of the year twice (2003 and 2006).

According to the Montana High School Association, Smith holds the record for the most softball wins in state history, and it's not even close, as his 389-165 lifetime record put him more then 172 wins ahead of Billings Senior's Kirk Thomas.

Smith and the Lady Pirates have been so dominant since 2000, that along with four state titles, they feature a 173-45 overall record, which makes for a .793 winning percentage.

That's almost unfair.

But Smith's most impressive accomplishment can't be found in the raw statistics. To realize how ubiquitous the culture of winning he has created really is, you have to attend an event like Polson's annual SPLASH softball tournament.

There you will find a large chunk of Polson's girls, all sporting purple and gold for an ASA team, all learning the fundamentals of the game, and all with the same dream: To one day play for the Lady Pirates.

"By the time they get to high school you can see it in their eyes and in their voices that they expect to be a state champion," said Smith. "Teaching them how to play at a young age is such a huge part of our success."

But the most interesting thing about Smith is that he just isn't what you expect in a coach who has created such a prodigious empire.

"You never had a bad feeling when you were playing for him," said Brittany Jones, a member of the 2007 championship team. "He was so easy to talk to, and even when you messed up he had a smile on his face."

Smith also emphasized good sportsmanship to his players.

"He always used to tell us 'champions don't talk, they perform,'" said former player Lindsay Rafter, another member of the 2007 team. "He wanted us to stay humble and work hard to earn our success. But he was such a good coach and so respectful of all the players that we wanted to work hard for him. We wanted to win for him."

To understand the origin of Smith's laid-back philosophy, it helps to look at where he came from.

"I was very fortunate to play Little League and Babe Ruth baseball for a very gentle person named Arnold Dupuis," recalled Smith. "I was a shy kid, but he brought out the best in me, he taught me to love sports. When things get tough, I've often thought back to the way he would have handled a situation. He has probably influenced the way I coach more than anyone else."

After playing baseball for a brief stint at Montana State University-Northern, Smith got his first taste of fast-pitch softball playing for one of Havre's fast pitch softball leagues in the late 1960's.

Like many parents, Smith got into coaching through his children, specifically his daughter. After assisting with Polson's fledgling softball team for two years, he took over as head coach in 1987.

Montana softball, of course, was much different then. The majority of teams with softball programs were the larger schools and Polson took a beating at the hands of AA schools for a few years.

"We were a terrible team when I started," recalled Smith. "It was frustrating in those early years because it's hard to teach kids to win when they're getting beaten so badly."

Smith slowly but surely began to move Polson toward respectability, finishing the 1987 season with a .500 record and eventually attracting better athletes to the softball program.

"One of the first signs we were improving came with Jami Richards in '92," recalled Smith. "She was the first pitcher we had who could really throw the ball with authority."

Things continued to build upon themselves during the 90's until 1997, when Polson took second place at the state tournament. Since that time, the Lady Pirates have been in the mix for a state title every year.

Things really started to blossom in 2001 and 2002, when Polson won back-to-back state titles. Both titles were won after the Lady Pirates had lost early in the tournament and had to fight back through the losers' bracket, a testament to Smith's ability to keep his teams focused during tough situations.

In 2004 the Lady Pirates won their third title in four years, this time coming in as an underdog and reeling off four straight wins.

The 2007 season was one of the most satisfying for Smith, not only because the team won the title in such dramatic fashion — in the final at-bat after being down by two — but because it was a group he coached since the 10u program. They also won Polson's first ASA state title and National title.

But there is a dark side that comes with such profound winning.

"There is a lot of pressure on us to win every year," said Smith. "I accept that, and I enjoy that kind of pressure because I know what it's like to be on the bottom."

Smith also has to juggle something just as difficult — parent expectations. While many young girls growing up in Polson dream of playing for PHS, their parents after have just as high hopes.

"I've definitely had some problems with parents," said Smith, who didn't comment on specific incidents. "It's concerning to me when people become so emotional and loud about the way our team works. They need to realize that the sport isn't about them, it's about the players."

"I believe that the most important thing is for the kids to have fun and I've had success with that idea," he continued. "Once players stop having fun or being comfortable the stress and tension take over."

As Smith enters his 21st year at Polson he is no longer a young man, and that has led many people to question how many years he can continue as head coach.

"I've always said that as long as I am having fun and enjoy doing it then I'll continue to coach," he says. "The passion is still there."

And so Larry Smith will continue standing at his perch behind third base, smiling and cheering for the players who come in and out of his life and looking out upon the program he built from its foundations that continues to flourish.

"It's not the awards or the state championships that keep me going," he says. "It's all the relationships I've built over the years; the cards I get from former players telling me what an impact I had one their lives. That's the reward I care the most deeply about."