The retirement of John Smith from the position of head wrestling coach at Oklahoma State University made plenty of news last month and inspired much reflection within the wrestling community. 

Not only a legend on the mat -- having won two NCAA titles, four World gold medals, and two Olympic gold medals -- Coach Smith was also one of the greatest collegiate wrestling coaches of all time.

Just the sixth coach in the storied history of Oklahoma State wrestling (or seventh, counting A.M. Colville's tenure of precisely one dual meet in 1915), John Smith tops the chart for dual meet wins at the helm of the Cowboys. Smith's 490 dual victories are also good for third all-time in NCAA D1 history, just three shy of Iowa State's Harold Nichols and a bit more behind Dale Thomas of Oregon State's 616. 

John Smith also coached more All-Americans than anyone in OSU history, though Ed Gallagher (who you may remember from historic Gallagher-Iba Arena, the Cowboys' home arena for wrestling and basketball), has the edge on total. NCAA champions coached (37 to 33). 

All of this was accomplished in 33 years as the head coach in Stillwater. 

Career Highlights

21 Conference team championships

Five NCAA Championships (1994, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006)

33 NCAA individual champs from 19 different wrestlers

153 NCAA All-Americans honors

490 Dual Meet Victories

Two-time NWCA National Coach of the Year (1994, 2003)

Coaching Tree    

One of the most impressive legacies John Smith will bequeath to the wrestling community is a surfeit of current D1 coaches that can be included in his coaching tree. 

While there are more expansive definitions for being part of a coaching tree, for this exercise we're sticking to current D1 head coaches who either wrestled on OSU teams while John was coaching or who were assistant coaches at OSU while John was the head coach (or both!). Let us know if we missed anyone!

• Pat Popolizio, NC State
• JohnMark Bentley, App State
• Mark Branch, Wyoming
• Chris Pendleton, Oregon State
• Kevin Ward, Army
• Neil Erisman, Little Rock
• Glen Lanham, Duke
• Mark Cody, Presbyterian
• Obe Blanc, North Dakota State
• Kenny Monday, Morgan State

Get an inside look at the Oklahoma State program under John Smith in the 2014 FloWrestling original film, The Program: Oklahoma State.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Career Dual Meet Record

Career Big 8/12 & NCAA Records