Coach Smith began playing water polo at 11 years old in Long Beach, CA, where he was coached by and played alongside several legends of the sport. He was part of Junior Olympic Championship teams at 12u, 14u, and again at 18u, where he was named tournament MVP. Coach Smith attended Servite High School, where he played for Jim Sprague, one of the most
successful coaches in the history of high school water polo. Under Sprague, Coach Smith was three-time all-league, two-time league MVP, three-time All-County, three-time all-CIF, and three-time All-American. Smith finished his high school career with 411 goals and became Servite’sall-time leading scorer, including a school record 13 goals against perennial powerhouse
Harvard Westlake. Coach Smith was a top recruit coming out of high school and was later inducted into Servite’s Hall of Fame. At UC Berkeley, Coach Smith was a four-year varsity starter, a three-time NCAA Division I All-American, two-time team MVP, two-time team captain, and runner-up NCAA Division I Player of the Year. Smith’s eight-goal performance against
Pepperdine in 2000 is tied for the most goals in a single game in the 50+ year history of Cal’s historic program. Coach Smith played at all levels of the national team system (now ODP), including a brief stint on the Senior Men’s National Team. Coach Smith stopped playing on his own accord in 2001 to pursue a career that has now spanned 25 years in commercial real estate. After some time away from the sport, Coach Smith returned to the pool deck as an assistant coach at Piedmont High School from 2015-2019, where he helped build a winning program, charting a path to the school’s first league championship in 2022 and later their first Northern California Section Championship in the school’s history in 2023. Coach Smith became Head Coach of the Boys’ Water Polo Program at Carmel High School in March of 2024, leading the Padres to their first Pacific Coast Athletic League Championship in a decade.

 

Coach Smith’s style of play is characterized by high pressing, possession-based water polo, and fluid positional play. His approach to individual player development is centered around coaching the whole player, including their technical development, physical conditioning, tactical understanding of the game, as well as developing their mental and emotional strength and resilience.