Tennis head coach Steve Smith retiring at end of season

Long-time women’s head tennis coach and math professor, Coach Steven “Steve” Smith, is retiring at the end of the 2026 spring season. Smith has been coaching the tennis team for a total of 21 years. Smith started as a volunteer coach for 14 years, serving seven years as an assistant coach and the last seven years as the head coach. 

Smith said his time as a coach was spent making his athletes not only good tennis players, but good people. Junior tennis player Alayna Dostal shared that Smith advocated for playing for the team as a whole.

“He always said ‘Play for each other,’ so I think when you’re playing tennis, looking beyond yourself and being like, ‘I’m playing for more than myself, I am part of a team,’ and thinking that way,” Dostal said. “Not being so self-absorbed and worrying about yourself all the time, but remembering that you have a team to back you up and playing for them too.”

Players lead with this mindset as Smith said he has an expectation that his players conduct themselves well “on the court and off the court.” 

At the annual Dogspy’s award night April 21, the tennis team won the 2025 GLVC James R. Spalding Sportsmanship Team award, which is awarded to teams that “exemplify and demonstrate fairness, graciousness, and respect toward teammates, opposing teams, coaches, and officials before, during, and after competition.” 

Part of Smith’s leadership includes respecting athletes’ time off the court. Smith said he spent a lot of his time at the University tailoring the yearly match schedule to optimize class time. As a professor, Smith said he understands that ultimately, these student-athletes are at school to learn above all else.

“One of the things that I’m proud of is that I developed a schedule that allowed players to miss as little class as possible,” Smith said. “They have a lot of physical energy that they get to expend, and it helps them academically in school. So I would say that I’ve really enjoyed helping develop people go on to what they’re gonna do next. Whether that’s a job or med school–whatever the next stage in their life is.”

Smith’s time with the Bulldogs has been focused on the athletes he coaches. Smith said he enjoyed his experience as a tennis player at North Dakota State University, which is what inspired him to coach at Truman State University. Smith said he wanted to provide a positive experience for his players “because I had one myself.”

The tennis head coach position will be vacant at the end of the year, and associate athletic director Geoff Bruder said filling that role with someone who will embrace the student-athlete community is a top priority for the athletics department. 

Bruder offered a statement on how the transition to a new coach will go.

“The student-athlete experience is what drives how we operate on a daily basis, and this will be no different when we try to identify who the new leader of this program will be,” Bruder said. “We want all of our student-athletes to reflect on their career here and say that they had the best student-athlete experience possible while participating in their sport. The new coach for this role will be one that embraces that exact thought.”